THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of Julius Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918. 259 C35e Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/evidencesofchrisOOchal SELECT WORKS OP THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. LL.D. EDITED BY HIS 80S-IN-LA 'V, THE REV. WILLIAM HANNA, LL.D. VOL. VI. EDINBURGH : EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., LONDON. 1863 . EVIDENCES OF TI1K CHRISTIAN REVELATION LECTURES ON PALEY’S EVIDENCES. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. LL.D. EDINBUKGH : EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS, f HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., LONDON. 1863 . # BJ) IN BURGH : \ T. CONSTABLE, PRINTER TO HER .MAJESTY. CONTENTS >s. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. PAGB Preface, .......... 1 BOOK I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. Chap. I. On the Cognizance which the Understanding takes of its own Processes, 5 II. On Man’s instinctive Belief in the Constancy of Nature, . . .26 III. On the Sufficiency of Human Testimony for the Proof of Miracles. — Mr. Hume’s Objection to the Truth of Miracles, . . . .40 Sect. I. On the Origin of our Belief in Testimony, . . .40 II. On the Power of the Evidence of Testimony, . . .54 III. On the Power even of a single Testimony to accredit improbable or singular Events. ...... 63 IY. On the Power which lies in the Concurrence of distinct Testi- monies, ........ 77 BOOK II. ON THE MIRACULOUS EVIDENCE FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. Chap. I. On the Principles of Historical Evidence, and their Application to the Question of the Truth of Christianity, ..... 88 II. On the Genuineness of the different Books of the New Testament, . 103 III. On the Internal Marks of Truth and Honesty to be found in the New Tes- tament, . . . . . . . .116 IV. On the Testimony of the Original Witnesses to the Truth of the Gospel Narrative, . . . . . . . . .128 V. On the Testimony of Subsequent Witnesses, . . . .140 VI. On the secure and impregnable Character of the Historical Argument for the Truth of Christianity, . . . . . . .180 VII. Remarks on the Argument from Prophecy, .... 210 VIII. On the Connexion between the Truth of a Miracle, and the Truth of the Doctrine in support of which it is performed, .... 229 VI CONTENTS. BOOK III. ON THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. Chap. I. On the Consistency of Scripture with itself and with Contemporary Au thorship, ........ II. On the Moral Evidence for the Truth of the New Testament, III. On the Experimental Evidence for the Truth of Christianity, IV. On the Portable Character of the Evidence for the Truth of Christianity PAGE 243 268 295 344 BOOK IV. ON THE BOOKS OF THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION, AND THE DEGREE OF AUTHORITY WHICH BELONGS TO THEM. Chap. I. On the Canon of Scripture ; and more especially of the Old Testament, 371 II. On the Inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, . . 451 III. On the Internal Evidence as a Criterion for the Canon and Inspiration of Scripture, ........ 484 TV. On the Supreme Authority of Revelation, .... 506 LECTURES ON PALEY’S EVIDENCES. Part I. — Prop. I. — Chap. IX. — Sect. V. — The Scriptures were publicly Read and Expounded in the Religious Assemblies of the Early Christians, . . 523 Part I. — Prop. I. — Chap. IX. — Sect. VII. — Our Scriptures were received by An- cient Christians of different Sects and Persuasions ; by many Heretics as well as Catholics ; and were usually appealed to by both sides in the Con- troversies which arose in those days, ...... 528 Part I. — Prop. II. — Chap. I. — There is not Satisfactory Evidence that Persons pretending to be Original Witnesses of any other Miracles similar to those by which Christianity is supported, have acted in the same manner as the Witnesses to the Christian Miracles, in Attestation of the Accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their Belief in the Truth of those Accounts, ..... . . 530 Part II. — Chap. I. — On Prophecy, ....... 538 Part II. — Chap. II. — Morality of the Gospel, ..... 542 Part II. — Chap. III. — The Candour of the Writers of the New Testament. . 546 Part II. — Chap. IX —The Propagation of Christianity, . . . . . 549 Part III. — Chap. VI. — Want of Universality in the Knowledge of Christianity, and of Clearness in its Evidence, . . . . . .552 Part III. — Chap. VII. — The Supposed Effects of Christianity, . . 554 Part III — Chap. VIII.— Conclusion, ...... 556 THE CHRISTIAN'S DEFENCE AGAINST INFIDELITY, . . . 559 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. PREFACE. It was after some hesitation, that we resolved to place onr argument with Hume at the outset of the following work, rather than at the end of it. Men can both understand and be rightly impressed by the objects of belief, long before the meta- physics of belief are either understood or attended to ; and it might therefore have seemed better to enter immediately on the evidence from human testimony for the miracles of the gospel, previous to our entertainment of the question whether it was competent for such testimony to establish the truth of a miracle. But we decided for the .arrangement as it now stands, on the consideration that this alleged insusceptibility of a proof is, everywhere throughout the celebrated essay of Mr. Hume, re- garded and reasoned upon as if it were a bar in the way of all further or detailed examination of it — just as the preliminary objection to a witness upon a trial, if not previously judged of and pronounced upon, is held fatal to the reception of his evi- dence. We have therefore introduced our discussion of this con- troversy into the first Book — though in violation of what in some respects we deem to be the natural order ; and subjecting our readers to the disadvantage of a more obscure and difficult passage at the commencement, than they will meet with any- where else along the course of the volume. We hope that the reader will, even in this preliminary argu- ment, find the observation to be verified which is so often realized in other departments of the evidence of Christianity. It has frequently happened, in the course of the deistical contro- vol. vi. A 11 PREFACE. versy, that the enemies of the gospel have, in the first instance, by the peculiar character of their objections, • challenged its friends to a walk of investigation which had not been previously entered on — in the prosecution of which walk they achieved a great deal more than simply neutralize the objection which first provoked them to the conflict ; but, as if by its overthrow they had opened a new mine of evidence, have raised a positive and additional proof for the truth of Christianity. This we expect to show, particularly in our third Book, on the internal evidences of Christianity. The alleged inconsistencies of the New Testa- ment with itself have not only been cleared up by the lucubra- tions of critics and defenders ; but a constantly increasing number of recondite harmonies has been discovered, which, in the masterly hands of Dr. Paley, has been converted into an irresistible argument on the side of the faith. The same has been the result of the contradictions that were affirmed by our adversaries, to obtain between the informations of the New Testament and of profane or Jewish authors — the objection not only put to flight, but transmuted into a strong affirmative argument ; and now left in full possession of the field through the labours of Lardner and Blunt and others, who have pointed out a number of minute and marvellous coincidences between the narratives of our sacred writers and those of contemporary authors. The same is the result, we are persuaded, of the objec- tion made by adversaries, on the ground of the discrepancies that are said to obtain between the gospel and human nature — whereas, in the felt adaptations of the one to the other, there is a vast amount, as we shall endeavour to make manifest in the latter part of the volume, of most effective evidence in favour of the Christian religion. We are not without hope that the intelligent reader will be able to reap the same fruit from the sceptical reasonings of Mr. Hume. If the argumentation which we have employed against him be at all valid, the just conclusion is not merely that there is an evidence on the side of Christianity, as much superior to the greater improbability of its extraordinary facts, as the best PREFACE. Ill evidence which has descended to us from ancient times is supe- rior to the small improbability of the facts in ordinary history — but that, in truth, after full deduction has been made for the incredibility of miracles, there remains an overpassing superi- ority of evidence in their favour above all that can possibly be claimed for the best attested histories which have been trans- mitted to the present day, in any other records of past ages. Christianity on this ground too, as on many others, has, we think, not only won for herself the safety of a defence ; but has been enriched by the spoils of a victory. If in the first Book of this work, we have chiefly to do with the miraculous argument in the abstract ; we pass in the second to that argument in the concrete, or consider the actual evidence for the miracles of the gospel. Even in this department it will be found to be more a work of principles than of details ; and there are few of its lessons which we should, in opposition to a prevalent bias, so like adequately to impress on the understand- ing of the reader — as the inherently greater strength of evidence given by the scriptural than by the ex-scriptural, or by the origi- nal than the subsequent witnesses for the truth of the evangeli- cal history ; and also the far superior value of the Christian to the heathen testimonies. Although we have assigned to the third Book, our considera- tions and views on the internal evidence of Christianity — we are abundantly sensible of the difficulty which there is, in tracing the precise line of demarcation between this and the external evidence. If the one consist in those marks of credibility whicli we observe when looking to the witnesses of the message, the other may be regarded as consisting in those marks of credibi- lity which we observe when looking to its contents or its subject matter. It is with this last that the third Book is chiefly con- versant, with the self-evidencing power of the Bible — the chief ingredient of which, as being far the most effectual in the work of Christianization or conversion, has been denominated the manifestation of the truth unto the conscience, or otherwise, the experimental evidence for the truth of Christianity. We shall IV PREFACE. endeavour to make palpable the distinction between this most solid of all the evidences, and a certain other internal evidence which we have long regarded as of a spurious or at least a very questionable character. The fourth and last Book is taken up, in great part at least, with what may be termed the bibliography of Scripture — the evidence on which its various pieces have been admitted into the canon , so as to form constituent parts of our present Bible ; and the security we have for the general correctness of the present readings in the received original Scriptures, as well as of the renderings in the various popular versions of Christendom ; or, in other words, our security both for the state of the text and for the truth of its generally received interpretations. This argument has given rise to distinct chapters on the respective functions of Scripture Criticism and Systematic Theology. But, over and above, we have thought it right to discuss both the evidence and the degree of that inspiration , by which we hold the Sacred Volume to be distinguished from all other writings — a topic of incalculable importance, and which prepares the way for our concluding chapter on the supreme authority of revela- tion. It will be perceived, in this department of the work, how closely the two questions — of the canon of Scripture, and its in- spiration, are related to each other. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I— PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. CHAPTER I. ON THE COGNIZANCE WHICH THE UNDERSTANDING TAKES OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 1. It has often been said of man that he is the greatest of all mysteries to himself. What hath led to this saying is his pro- found ignorance of that which is so immediately about him as his own sentient and moral and intellectual economy. It is strange that to him the most deep and difficult secrets are those which lie nearest to him. Yet so it is — and however inscrutable he may find nature to be. in all her departments, yet never does he find her more so than among the recesses of his own internal system, and amid the hidden workings of his own nature. 2. But it is of the utmost practical importance to remark that though man knows not the processes of that complex economy by which it is that he moves and feels and thinks, it is not necessary that he should, in order either to move aright, or to feel aright, or even to think aright. In as far as the merely animal constitution is concerned, this is quite palpable. That the processes of this constitution should go rightly forward it is not necessary that he should understand them. He does not need to study anatomy that he might find his way to the appropriate muscles by which to move and turn himself. It is not by any in- telligent guidance of his that the processes of digestion and secre- tion and circulation are regulated. The creature may be upheld in living play and in the healthful enjoyment of life, although he 6 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING should never have taken lessons on physiology, or speculated till he had lost his way among the arcana of vitality and the vital principle. That the machinery of his own internal system may be kept prosperously agoing, it is no more required that he should look inwardly, than that he should look outwardly or upwardly to the heavens lest the mechanism of the planetary system should go into unhingement. The systems both of astronomy and anatomy are .independent of him — and though both lay hid in unrevealed mystery for ages, yet did the one proceed as invari- ably and the other almost so, as now that they have been some- what opened to the gaze of his curiosity. A thing may operate rightly though he knows nothing of the modus operandi. To have the full use of his animal system he is nearly as independent of the science of it as any inferior creature who is incapable of science — and who nevertheless in the freshness and buoyancy of its own spontaneous powers can expatiate at large in the element that is suited to it ; and either revel in fields of air, or sport itself in the waters of the sea, or luxuriate on the pastures of earth — and all by the adaptations of a self-mechanism, of the workings of which, nay even of the existence of which, it is wholly uncon- scious. 3. All this is abundantly obvious — but it has not been suffi- ciently attended to, that the remark is nearly as applicable to man’s moral as to his animal constitution. That this constitu- tion be in a wholesome state, or that its various faculties and functions should be in right adjustment, it is not necessary for man the owner of this constitution to take a reflex view of it, or become theoretically acquainted with the nature and the workings of this inner mechanism. What has been said of .physical may be as emphatically said of moral and spiritual health. The vigorous clown may have all the use or enjoyment of it— while all the science of it belongs to the sickly valetudinarian. And in like manner the first may never have heard of a moral sense, and yet both promptly discern and powerfully feel the obliga- tions of morality — while the second can subtly analyze that con- science, whose authority he bids away from him. The truth is, that often when man is most alive to the sense of what is duteous and incumbent, it is not to himself that he looks — but to a fel- low-man, whether an applicant for justice or charity, who at the time is present to his sight, or to God the sovereign claimant of piety and of all righteousness, who at the time is present to hjs thoughts. So that all the while he may have been looking out- OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. wardly to an object, and never once have cast an introverted view upon himself the subject. He may have been looking ob- jectively or forth of himself, and never subjectively or towards himself. He may have taken in a right sensibility from the ob- ject that is without him, and have been practically urged there- by in a right direction. There has been a real inward process in consequence — but the process has only been described or undergone ; it has not been attended to. The organ whether of feeling or of perception may be justly impressed with the object that is addressed to it, while the man is wholly taken up with the object ; and meanwhile all consciousness of the organ is sus- pended. It is precisely like the man who can see rightly that which is before him, although he should never think of the eye's retina, nor be aware of its existence. Notwithstanding his well- conditioned moral state he may be as ignorant of the moral, as many a peasant in a well-conditioned physical state is ignorant of the physical anatomy. In the construction of our ethical sys- tems, this distinction has not been enough adverted to — between a knowledge of the objects of the science, and a knowledge of the faculty by which these objects are perceived or judged of. Certain it is, that without the latter knowledge there may, prac- tically, be a most correct intelligence and feeling in regard to the question of right and wrong — nay, the principles of this ques- tion may be philosophically arranged, and a complete moral phi- losophy be framed without that peculiar analysis which is resorted to by those who blend the moral with the mental philosophy. 4. But the same is also true of our intellectual constitution. It may be in a sound state and may operate soundly, though we should never have bestowed one thought upon it. That the un- derstanding may proceed aright on the many thousand objects of human thought, it is not necessary that it should take any cog- nizance of its own processes. We admit that the procedure of the human understanding forms one, and that too a most inter- esting topic of inquiry. But it is not necessary to have mastered this topic, ere we are qualified to enter on other topics of in- quiry. The truth is, that a man may have put forth his under- standing with wisdom and with a warrantable confidence on every other department of human knowledge — and yet be a stranger to that one department, the knowledge of his own in- tellectual processes. In a word, the understanding may under- stand everything but itself — we mean everything that is within the circle of our mental acquisitions. We may work well with 8 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING an instrument, though we do not attend to the workings of the instrument. We do not first look to the instrument of thought, and then to the objects of thought — or first to ,that w T hich understands, and then to that which is to he understood. We investigate without one thought of the investigating mind — just as to ascertain the visible properties of that which is before it, the eye, instead of looking to itself, looks openly and directly forth of itself, and on the outer field of contemplation. 5. There are many who exercise their intellectual powers vigorously and soundly, without ever once casting an introverted eye on their mode of operation — who, in contact only with the objects of reasoning, never once bestow a formal or express thought on the act of reasoning, yet reason conclusively and well — who, busied with nothing else, for example, but lines and angles and surfaces, can prosecute a most logical and unexcep- tionable train of argumentation, yet have never made of logic a science or a study — who can travel the whole round of our exist- ing mathematics, without one thought of that mind which per- forms every footstep, or the working of that machinery within to which they are indebted for every inch of their progress. It is all the while with something apart from the understanding that the thinking principle is engaged, and not with the under- standing itself ; and while there are many who, to magnify their own office, will tell of the science of mind that it is the parent of all other sciences, and which therefore occupy a place that is posterior and subordinate, we feel it to be certain that Newton might have done all that he has achieved in geometry, that he might have made the same skilful application of it to the physics and philosophy of the material universe, that he might have un- ravelled the mazy heavens, and moved with gigantic footstep from one wondrous discovery to another, without one reflex thought on the operations of that faculty within his breast, which yet was the instrument of all his triumphs. He did not first medicate his understanding by the prescriptions of logic, and then go forth with it on the theatre of its exercise. But he went forth with it in all the vigour of its immediate and original health, and fastened it at once on the objects of physical investi- gation. Even the three Laws of Nature, by which he introduces the Principia to his reader, he gathered, not from the field of his internal, but from that of his external contemplations. They are not laws of mind, but laws which have their jurisdiction in surrounding space ; and it is by looking intelligently there, and OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 9 not by looking to itself, that the mind is enabled to recognise them. 6. On this subject we hold Dr. Brown to have overrated the importance of the mental philosophy — both when he says that a right view of the science of mind is essential to every other science, and when he says, that “ to the philosophy of mind every speculation in every science may be said to have relation as a common centre.” A certain given effect may be found to depend on a particular thing, and yet may not at all depend on our knowledge of the thing. He seems to have confounded these two, and to have ascribed that to our knowledge of a thing which was only due to the thing itself. It is true, that the actual results in every science depend not merely on the nature of the objects investigated, but on the nature of the investigat- ing mind — and that with minds differently constituted, or hav- ing other powers and perceptions than those which do in fact belong to us, all our sciences would be affected with a corre- sponding difference. A differently-constituted mental system in our species, would have made all our sciences different from those which make up our existing philosophy ; but that is not to say, that we must first study the actual construction of our minds ere we can enter on the study of the actual sciences. Science, as it is, may be regarded as the compound effect of two ingredients — of mind as it is, and of that which the mind in- vestigates, even the subject-matter of the science. Change one of these ingredients, even the mind, and this will give rise to the new compound of a science different and differently modified. But it does not follow, that because all science thus depends on the nature of that ingredient, it therefore depends on our know- ledge of that ingredient. It is most true that as the mind is, so effectively the science is. But we bring about the effect simply by using the mind, although we should not have studied it. The philosopher goes forth upon nature with such a mind as he finds himself to have, and the result is a science in the state we now actually behold it. Had he found himself with a dif- ferent mind, he would still have gone forth upon nature ; and the result would have been a science different from the present one. ~ But in neither case does he look reflexly upon the mind, nor is it necessary that he should. It is no doubt the instru- ment of all his discoveries ; but mental though it be, it is no more essential to his sound and effective working of it that he should become acquainted with the laws of mind, than it is 10 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING essential for an artisan, in order that he might work his instru- ment rightly, to become acquainted with the laws of matter. Had our minds been constituted otherwise than they are, we should have had a different mental physiology — and correspond- ing to this, a different set of the sciences. The working of our mental’ physiology is indispensable to our acquisition of all the sciences ; but the knowledge of our mental physiology is not in- dispensable to the acquisition of any of the sciences, save of the science of mind alone. 7. The mind, in the work of investigating any object beside itself, employs the laws of thought — just as the mechanic in working with his tools employs the laws of matter. But it is not necessary in either case that the laws, whether of matter or of mind, should have been previously investigated by the opera- tor himself. The resulting view or the resulting feeling of the mind’s attention to any object, apart from itself, is the composed effect of what the mind is and of what the object is — so that if the constitution of the mind were altered, the view or the feel- ing would also be altered. What the mind is, is therefore in- dispensable to the result, but not our knowledge of what the mind is ; and therefore though in direct contradiction to Dr. Brown we hold u that every branch of the physics of mere matter could be cultivated to its highest degree of accuracy and perfection, without our ever having reflected on the nature of that intellectual medium through which alone the phenomena of matter become visible to us.” * * The following extracts from Brown’s second lecture contain the most of what we hold to be exceptionable in his views upon this subject : — “ It was to show what is of much more importance, — how essential a right view of the science of mind is to every other science, even to those sciences which superficial thinkers might conceive to have no connexion with it ; and how vain it would be to expect that any branch of the physics of mere matter could be cultivated to its highest degree of accuracy and perfection, without a due acquaintance with the nature of that intellectual medium through which alone the phenomena of matter become visible to us, and of those intellectual instruments by which the objects of every science, and of every science alike, are measured, and divided, and arranged. We might almost as well expect to form an accurate judgment, as to the figure, and distance, and colour of an object, at which we look through an optical glass, without paying any regard to the colour and refracting power of the lens itself. The distinction of the sciences and arts, in the sense in which these words are commonly un- derstood, is as just as it is familiar; but it may be truly said, that, in relation to our power of discovery, science is itself an art, or the result of an art. Whether, in this most beauti- ful of processes, we regard the mind as the instrument or the artist, it is equally that by which all the wonders of speculative or practical knowledge are evolved. It is an agent operating in the production of new results, and employing for this purpose the known laws OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 11 8. The analogy which he institutes between the mind and a telescope, viewed as instruments of observation, will not make good his argument. He tells us that to expect an acquaintance with external things without acquaintance with the natural medium of the intellect — were as vain as to expect that we should form an accurate judgment as to the figure and distance and colour of an object at which we look through the artificial medium of an optical glass, without paying any regard to the colour and refractory power of the medium itself — and that, “ to the astronomer, the faculty by which he calculates the disturbing forces that operate on a satellite of Jupiter, in its revolutions round the primary planet, is as much an instrument of his art as the telescope by which he distinguishes that almost invisible orb ; and it is as important and surely as interesting to know the real power of the intellectual instrument which he uses, not for calculations of this kind only, but for all the speculative and moral purposes of life, as it can be to know the exact power of that subordinate instrument which he uses only for his occa- sional survey of the heavens.” Now our design in the examina- tion of an optical glass previous to the use of it, is to compare its intimations with those of the eye, that we might reduce both to the same standard. But a like scientific examination of the eye is not at all called for — we having already arrived at the confident use of it by the education of the senses, or that busy interchange and comparison of notices between the sight and the touch, during which, from early infancy, the mind has all of thought, in the same manner as, on other occasions, it employs the known laws of matter. The objects to which it may apply itself, are indeed various, and, as such, give to the sciences their different names. But, though the objects vary, the observer and the instru- ment are continually the same. The limits of the powers of this mental instrument, are npt the limits of its powers alone ; they are also the only real limits within which every science is comprehended. To the extent which it allows, all those sciences, physical or mathematical, and all the arts which depend on them, may be improved ; but beyond this point, it would be vain to expect them to pass ; or rather, to speak more accurately, the very supposition of any progress beyond this point would imply the grossest absurdity ; since human science can be nothing more than the result of the direction of human faculties to particular objects. To the astronomer, the faculty by which he calculates the disturbing forces that operate on a satellite of Jupiter, in its revolution round the primary planet, is as much an instrument of his art, as the telescope by which he distinguishes that almost invisible orb; and it is as important, and surely as interesting, to know the real power of the intellectual instrument which he uses, not for calculations of this kind only, but for all the speculative and moral purposes of life, as it can be to know the exact power of that subordinate instrument which he uses only for his occasional survey of the heavens. “To the philosophy of mind, then, every speculation in every science may be said to have relation as to a common centre." 12 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING along felt that it was holding converse not with itself but with the external world. The confidence wherewith we use the natural instruments, whether of the eye or of the mind, is the fruit of a gross and general experience ; and no reflex or intro- verted view which the mind can now take of its own operations will add to that confidence. And after that, either by our own science or the report of scientific men, we have obtained con- fidence in the use of an optical glass, we look no longer to it — but through it, and to the object, on which object it is that our attention terminates and rests. And after that by the tuition of nature, under which the homeliest peasant has risen to as great a proficiency as ourselves, we have acquired the confident use of our senses, we look neither to them nor to the mind, but from the mind and on the object of contemplation. 9. Although to the physiology of the mind belong all those powers and processes, by which it is that it acquires the know- ledge of things which are separate from itself, and therefore the working of this physiology is anterior to the acquirement of all knowledge — yet the knowledge of this physiology is not so anterior. The physiology may be at work, soundly and suc- cessfully at work, without being at all understood or even adverted to — just as a man may operate rightly and fulfil the whole practical object of some piece of machinery that has been put into his hands, although he understands not the construction of it. The mental physiology in regard to its being must have the historical precedency over all science — but the science of this physiology has no such historical precedency over all other science. Suppose that, instead of access by consciousness to the mechanism of my own intellect, I had access by some new channel of observation to the mechanism of the intellect of an- other man, and that I saw him busily and prosperously engaged in the study or contemplation of some one department of external nature — it is by looking to him certainly, that I should extend my knowledge of the world of spirit — but it would be by look- ing to the very same place on which his regards are fastened, that I should extend my knowledge of the world of sense. For this latter purpose, I would just as little look towards him, as he is doing himself, at the moment when his attention is intently fastened on some outer field of contemplation. To obtain the * accurate perception of a tree, I should not look to the faint and perhaps muddy reflection of it, from the waters of that lake on whose margin it is standing — and neither should I look to the OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 13 mind of another, nor yet to my own mind, that from the mental reflection which is exhibited there, I might learn pf that mate- rial world which stands in its own direct revelation before me. 10. It has been affirmed in plea for the priority of the study of mind over all other studies, that it is only by means of just conceptions in regard to the powers and the province of the human intellect, that certain illusions have been dissipated which were not merely unphilosophical irr themselves, but which, so long as they lasted and had currency in the world, did effectu- ally baffle the progress of all philosophy. But we, I contend, who now are in a state of freedom from these illusions, have no call upon us for attending to the process by which they were destroyed. The ingenious sophistries of Hume led to the con- clusion that the material world had no existence but in our own shadowy imaginations. But is that a reason why, ere I enter on the natural philosophy by which the laws of matter are in- vestigated, I w 7 ho have no doubt upon the subject, must first be satisfied of the superior force of that reasoning by which the sophistries of Hume have been overthrown ? I am not at all troubled with those sensible species which schoolmen chose to interpose between the human mind and those external realities by which it is encompassed — and am I therefore to be troubled ere I can clear my way to an immediate converse with these reali- ties, with those masterly demonstrations of a sounder and better intellectual philosophy, by which all the species and spectres of the Middle Ages have at length been put to flight ? Because there are men in all ages, who have wandered from the direct path of simplicity and common sense in pursuit of some labori- ous follies of their own, can I who do not share in these follies only find access to that path across the still more laborious phi- losophy which has now extinguished them for ever ? The elabo- rate perversities of the human mind may require the elaboration equally severe of some great master-spirit to overturn them. But now that these perversities have gone into oblivion, and the tem- porary purpose of their utter destruction has been accomplished — is it for us to leave the obvious and rectilineal path which nature has marked out, in pursuit of every wild deviation, or even of the retracing path by which the wanderers have been called back again. We utterly refuse the right of human folly in past generations to lay such a tax upon posterity — and though aware that a whole millennium of thickest intellectual darkness passed over the world, and that it was only dispersed by the phi- 14 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING losophy of Bacon — yet now that he has set us on the right path of investigation, in that path we may go, alike unconscious of those false lights by which our ancestors were bewildered, or of that greater light which put out them all. The confidence of nature was disturbed by the reveries of the schoolmen. But now that these reveries are dissipated, the confidence is restored. And without once having looked on the Novum Organum of Bacon, there is not a human creature in the maturity of his ordi- nary understanding, who does not know his great and simple lesson, and only great because of the monstrous absurdities by which for ages it was wholly overborne — even that to ascertain the visible qualities of an object we must look, or its sonorous qualities we must listen, or its tangible qualities we must handle, or its dimensions we must measure.* 11. There is no doubt that the view which we are led to take on every one subject of human knowledge is dependent on the physiology of the mind. But that is not to say that we must therefore become first acquainted with this physiology, ere we set ourselves to the acquirement of all other knowledge. There can be no doubt that because such is the constitution of the mind, such therefore are its modes of reasoning and of judging on all the objects of possible contemplation. But it does not on that account follow, that we must first study this constitution ere we proceed to the study of anything else. The powers of the mind are antecedent to the acquirements of the mind. But the knowledge of those powers by which the acquirements are gotten is not antecedent to that knowledge in which the acquirements consist. The mind is the instrument of all its own acquisitions — but the instrument has been long tried and used, and has also accomplished a great deal of work, before its properties have be- come the objects of our separate investigation. It is true, that without a retina and without a picture of that which is external being spread out there, there could have been no science of op- tics. But it is just as true that it would have been as clear and demonstrative a science as it is at this moment, though anato- mists had never found their way to this phenomenon, and the * Dugald Stewart says, in vol. ii. pp. 36, 37 of his “ Philosophy of the Moral and Intel- lectual Powers” — “ The science of abstruse learning, I consider in the same light with the ingenious writer who compares it to Achilles’ spear that healed the wounds that it made before. It serves to repair the damage itself had occasioned, and this perhaps is all it is good for. It casts no additional light upon the paths of life ; but disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them before. It advances not the traveller one step on his journey; but conducts him back again to the spot from which he wandered.” OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 15 very first touch of their dissecting instrument had so injured the whole of the visual apparatus as to have made the exhibition impossible. And in like manner, there is a certainty and an evidence in many of the sciences that is altogether unaffected either by the success or the failure of our speculations on the mental physiology. When I look to the lines and the angles of geometry, it is not to the diagram upon my retina, but to the diagram upon the paper or upon the board — and in like manner when I prosecute the train of its clear and resistless argumenta- tions, I look only to the evidence that beams upon me from the subject itself, and not to the mind which has been so constructed as to be the recipient of that evidence. It is thus that physical science may, up to its proudest altitudes, have become the mental acquirement of him who has never once cast a regard on the mental physiology — and we should be doing what is preposterous, we should be inverting the experimental order of things, did we insist that the scholar should have a clear insight into the ma- chinery of his intellectual powers, ere we asked him to set that machinery agoing, or by a busy forthputting of these powers to attain a clear insight upon the other departments of human contemplation. 1 12. Men judged well and reasoned well on a thousand objects of contemplation, long before the mental acts of judging and reasoning became the objects of contemplation themselves. When these in their turn became the distinct objects of thought, they underwent the same treatment as all the other objects of thought do when treated philosophically — that is, they were grouped and classified according to their resemblances into the various modes of ratiocination. Still the soundness of all the different reason- ings was felt, long before that logic* had pronounced upon it. It was not logic that first authorized the reasonings — but logic went forth, as it were, on the previous confident reasonings of men, just as the philosophic inquirer goes forth among those phenomena which constitute the materials of a science, and groups or arranges them according to their common observed * But we must here warn the reader against the error of confounding, in whole or in part, the sciences either of logic or of ethics with the science of the mental physiology. It is true, that one might reason well on any specific object of thought, anterior to the study of logic. But it is as true, that one might study and acquire logic, anterior to and apart from his study of the mental physiology. The acts of reasoning and judging, viewed as mental acts or phenomena, are objects of the latter science ; but these form the objects of an in quiry altogether different from the question that respects the goodness of the rea-onings or of the judgments — a question which it is the office of logic to decide. 16 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING qualities. We dispute not the use of logic — for the study of it implies, first, attention to the actual specimens or examples of valid argumentation — and then, a recognition by the mind of what that is which constitutes its validity — and we cannot well be so engaged without becoming more expert both in the prac- tice of reasoning and in the detection of any flaw or infirmity in the process. All we affirm is, that good and bad reasoning were felt to be such, before that any reflex cognizance was taken of them. It is not by an antecedent prescription of logic that men defer to the authority of proofs — but it is out of antece- dently felt and recognised proofs that the prescriptions of logic are framed. It was not necessary first to devise a right system of logic, that from it men might learn to reason conclusively and well — but this system is constructed upon an after survey of those good and conclusive reasonings, which, anterior to its guidance, had come forth on the field of human observation. The completion of a right system of logic is therefore not indispen- sable to the practice of sound reasoning, either in the business of life or in the sciences — neither does it follow that an errone- ous system would materially hinder the work of prosperous in- vestigation, in any quarter to which the intellect of man might betake itself. The class of the logicians might differ amoi\g themselves ; or collectively they might fail in adjusting and building up a sound theory out of those existing materials, which, in the shape of sound judgments and sound reasonings, have been produced or are being produced every day by every other class of inquirers. So that apart from logic, and even in the midst of confusion and contrariety amongst the masters in the science, the general mind of society might be proceeding rightly onward, and multiplying the known truths of all the other sciences ; and that whether they are truths which lie at a great depth and are fetched upward as it were by an act of shrewd intuition, or lie at a great distance and are reached forward by a consecutive train of argument. Each process may be most correctly done by the immediate agent, whether or not it be correctly described by the logician who is looking over him. 13. It should be remarked however that even in the study of universal Logic, the mind is not at all times studying itself. It is not necessarily looking inwards, when attending either to the modes or to the principles of reasoning. It, for example, lays confident hold on the truth of the axiom that every event must have a cause ; or, proceeding on the constancy of nature, that a OF ITS OW.N PROCESSES. 17 like result is always to be anticipated in like circumstances — and in so doing it may be looking objectively and not subjec- tively. We are not to confound the act of the mind in judging with the thing that the mind judges of. It is a mistake that the science of mental physiology envelopes, as it were, the sciences of Logic and Ethics. The science of the mental physiology takes cognizance of the various states of the mind as phenomena, and groups them into laws or classes according to their ob- served resemblances. But this is a different employment from that of estimating either what is sound in morals or sound in reasoning. The question, what are the states of emotion or the intellectual states whereof the mind is susceptible, is another question altogether from what that is which constitutes the right and wrong in character, or what that is which constitutes the right and wmong in argument. Mental physiology has been too much blended with the sciences of Ethics and Logic, so as to be regarded in some degree as identical studies. They are not so. It is only when the first principles whether of Logic or of Ethics are controverted, that we are thrown back as it were on our own minds, to take a view there, of what the laws are, whether of human feeling or of human thought. When there is a denial of first principles, this is the only way left to us, of meeting either the moral or the intellectual scepticism. We have no other resource than simply to state the mind’s original and in- stinctive and withal resistless tendencies, whether in matters of belief or in matters of sentiment. It is at this part only of a logical or ethical discussion, that the constitution of the mind comes into notice as a direct object of contemplation. There is a certain obstinate scepticism which cannot be reasoned against, and which can be contravened in no other way, than by an affirmation of the mind’s instinctive confidence in those principles which constitute both the basis and the cement of all reasoning. 14. It is of importance to remark how confidently, and withal how correctly these- first principles of belief were proceeded on, ere they were adverted to as parts of the mind’s constitution. The phenomena of belief are antecedent to any notice or know- ledge on our part of the law’s or the principles of belief. Men achieved the intellectual process legitimately, ere the legitimacy of the process was traced or recognised. From the beginning of the world man’s faith in the constancy of nature was as vigor- ously in operation as now — and, for many ages before that it was announced as one of the instincts of the human understand- VOL. VI. B 18 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING ing, did it serve for man's practical guidance both in the business of life, and in the prosecution of all the sciences. And what is true of the infancy of the species is also true of the infancy of each individual. It is with his rational as with his animal economy. Each goeth on prosperously and well, without any reflex view of the operations of either. It would appear that from the very outset of the education of the senses, there are certain original principles of belief which are in most efficient play ; and the practical result of it is the infant's sound educa- tion. The following are the admirable observations of Dr. Thomas Brown on the habitudes and powers of the little rea- soner — and we bring them forward that we may discriminate more clearly between a mental process as done by one indivi- dual, and the same process as described by another individual who is looking over him. After having analyzed the process of an infant's mind, he says, u I am aware that the application to an infant, of a process of reasoning expressed in terms of such grave and formal philosophic nomenclature, has some chance of appearing ridiculous. But the reasoning itself is very different from the terms employed to express it, and is truly as simple and natural as the terms, which our language obliges us to employ in expressing it, are abstract and artificial. The infant, how- ever, in his feeling of the similarity of antecedents and conse- quents, and of the necessity therefore of a new antecedent where the consequent is different, has the reasoning but not the terms. He does not form the proposition as universal and applicable to cases that have not yet existed ; but he feels it in every parti- cular case as it occurs. That he does truly reason- with at least as much subtlety as is involved in the process now supposed, cannot be doubted by those who attend to the manifest results of his little inductions, in those acquisitions of knowledge which show themselves in the actions, and I may say almost in the very looks of the little reasoner — at a period long before that to which his own remembrance is afterwards to extend, when, in the maturer progress of his intellectual powers, the darkness of eternity will meet his eye alike, whether he attempts to gaze on the past or on the future ; and the wish to know the events with which he is afterwards to be occupied and interested, will not be more unavailing than the wish to retrace events that were the occupation and interest of the most important years of his exist- ence Even then many a process of ratiocination is going on, which might have served as an example of strict logic to Aris- OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 19 totle himself ; and which affords results far more valuable to the individual reasoner, than all the contents of all the folios of the crowd of that great logician’s scholastic commentators.” 15. Whatever then may be involved in the formation of a right system of logic — whether the logician for this purpose should have to classify the processes of reasoning, or to be studi- ously observant of the mental phenomena, that is to say, whether he should have to look objectively or subjectively, it is conceivable of his peculiar work that it may be done either well or ill, and the work of all other inquirers in all the other departments of human thought may go on vigorously and prosperously, notwith- standing. One man may work a machine well, though another should altogether fail in the description of it — and this just holds as true of a reasoning piece of mechanism as of any other. The phenomena of belief, and of sound belief, as existing in the mind of one man, may have been incorrectly surveyed and stated by another acting in the capacity of his inspector — but that does not hinder, either the belief from being legitimate in itself, or from its having been arrived at legitimately. We should not insist at such length on a matter that seems so very obvious, did we not foresee the importance of a certain application to topics of Christian evidence that we shall have occasion to make of it. The direct work of the understanding both in Christianity and in the other branches of human investigation may be going on rightly, while that work may be very far from being either dis- cerned rightly or described rightly. The understanding may understand other things, and yet not understand itself. Its business may be well done, yet ill described. And while whole- some processes of inference, leading to wholesome and most valuable conclusions, are actually going on in every other de- partment ; it is conceivable that the logician, baffled in the work of his department, may have found it impracticable to make a thorough exposition of them. 16. And there are many respects, in which a direct process of the understanding admits not of being closely or completely followed up by any reflex cognizance that might afterwards be taken of it. We know, for example, that there are degrees of evidence, and degrees of weaker or stronger belief corresponding thereunto. There is a sort of general proportion between the evidence for a thing and the impression of its credibility. Yet who can take account of these impressions ? Who can take an accurate measure of their intensity ? Who can construct a rela- 20 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING tive scale, by which the degrees of proof and the degrees of con- viction shall be placed in right correspondence together — and then tell in every instance, whether the inquirer’s confidence is in just proportion to the evidence that has been presented to him ? Yet practically and really the confidence will grow with the evidence, and may be in right proportion thereunto, though any statement of the degree or the proportion be utterly impos- sible. A man of rightly constituted understanding may judge rightly in every instance ; while, in no one instance, might any man, though endowed with the most subtle or powerful under- standing upon earth, be able to assign numerically how strong the judgment ought to be, in the given proofs or likelihoods of that particular question which the mind may happen to enter- tain. A peasant, for example, of sound intellect, may give to a certain story the very degree of credit which rightfully belongs to it. The appearances of its truth, the seeming honesty of the witness, the whole turn and style of his relation, the internal and circumstantial evidence which it possesses — all these may have made their impression, and their just impression upon him. Other witnesses may be conceived to superadd their testimony — and the conviction may be strengthened, and strengthened in the fair and right proportion too, with every accession to the evidence. He, sitting in the direct capacity of a judge in the narrative, may be rightly impressed with all that is brought into the field of his notice — and in the rate of his conviction, he may be keeping an equal pace with the evidence as it grows and multiplies around him. But another acting in the capacity of an inspector over him, whether as a logician or a mental physio- logist, may be utterly unable to estimate what the intensity of his belief his, or whether it accurately corresponds to the degree of probability that lies in the existing evidence. In other words, the direct process may be going on rightly, while a full reflex cognizance thereof may be utterly impossible. It goes on rightly with the child at the outset of his natural education — although it be impossible to trace it metaphysically. It goes on rightly with the unlettered workman — and the results of it are neither less true and important in themselves, nor less valuable to him ; although in this case both a metaphysical description of the process, and a logical estimate of the proof had been alike im- possible. 17. Were these principles rightly appreciated, it would serve to qualify, and, we indeed think, to do away the contempt which OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 21 is often felt and expressed for the popular understanding.* When it is said of the common people that they are not logicians; this may be true, if it be meant that they seldom take a reflex view of the processes of intellect, and are strangers to the terms of that nomenclature by which these processes are described. But that is not to hinder their going most correctly and intelligently through the processes themselves. Though incapable of the re- flex, they may be abundantly capable of the direct process — and on a thousand subjects calling forth the exercise of mind, but which are apart from the subject of mind itself, they do evince a shrewdness and penetration for which too little credit is given to them. Generally speaking, an unlettered workman knows nothing of the philosophy of testimony — yet without this know- ledge he may be accurately impressed by the importance of any actual or specific testimony which is brought within his reach. On the strength of those instinctive principles of belief wfliich are in busy operation within him, though he himself hath never taken account of them ; and on the strength of his general and accumulated experience — he may have a very correct sense of * It has been frequently remarked, that the justest and most efficient understandings are often possessed by men who are incapable of stating to others, or even to themselves, the grounds on which they proceed in forming their decisions. In some instances I have been disposed to ascribe this to the faults of early education ; but, in other cases, I am per- suaded, that it was the effect of active and imperious habits in quickening the evanescent processes of thought, so as to render them untraceable by the memory ; and to give the ap- pearance of intuition to what was in fact the result of a train of reasoning so rapid as to escape notice. This I conceive to be the true theory of what is generally called common sense, in opposition to book-learning ; and it serves to account for the use which has been made of this phrase by various writers, as synonymous with intuition. “These seemingly instantaneous judgments have always appeared to me as entitled to a greater share of our confidence than many of our more deliberate conclusions ; inasmuch as they have been forced as it wjere on the mind by the lessons of long experience ; and are as little liable to be biassed by temper or passion, as the estimates we form of the distances of visible objects. They constitute, indeed, to those who are habitually engaged in the busy scenes of life a sort of peculiar faculty, analogous, both in its origin and in its use, to the coup d'ceil of the military engineer, or to the quick and sure tact of the medical practitioner, in marking the diagnostics of disease.” An anecdote which I heard, many years ago, of a late very eminent Judge (Lord Mans- field), has often recurred to my memory, while reflecting on these apparent inconsistencies of intellectual character. A friend of his, who possessed excellent natural talents, but who had been prevented, by his professional duties as a naval officer, from bestowing on them all the cultivation of which they were susceptible, having been recently appointed to the govern- ment of Jamaica, happened to express some doubts of his competency to preside in the Court of Chancery. Lord Mansfield assured him, that he would find the difficulty not so great as he apprehended. ‘ Trust,’ he said, ‘ to your own good sense in forming your opinions ; but beware of attempting to state the grounds of your judgments. The judgment will probably be right — the argument will infallibly be wrong.’” — Stewart’s “Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind,” vol. ii. p. 103, &c., second edition. 22 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING the verisimilitudes that belong to many a question. The whole of the judging process may have been accurately gone through by him, though the metaphysique of the process should be wholly inaccessible to himself, or even though it should be equally inaccessible to the most subtle and philosophical of dis- cerners. This does not hinder the process from going on rightly. The mechanism of the inner man works, though he never looks at the working of it. The judgment, which is part of that mechanism, may do its part and do it soundly and well — so as that evidence shall have its just impression upon him, though the philosophy of that evidence was never once the subject of any reflex investigation. 18. The testimony of the early Christians to the miracles of the evangelical record, has from time to time been addressed to the public by a series of writers who have very ably urged and ex- pounded it. And in many thousands of instances it has had its proper effect on those who attended to it. The consistency and sincerity by which the whole narrative is so obviously pervaded — the number and opportunities of the original witnesses, and the manner in which their testimony has been sustained by the close and continuous succession of others who came after them — the rapid propagation of Christianity in the face of opposition, each of its friends having, in the very fact of his conversion, left his own distinct confirmation behind him, and each of its enemies having done the same thing in the fact of his silence — these topics have undergone repeated elucidation in the hands of the defenders of Christianity, and the felt force of them on the minds of the readers was not countervailed by anything like another force felt to be equal or superior, in the merely miraculous character of the events which' were related. It had doubtless been all along the feeling that a miracle required a greater weight and amount of testimony to make it credible than an ordinary event. But it never, we believe, was imagined till about the middle of the last century, that such in the very nature of a miracle was its unconquerable resistance to proof, as to place it beyond the reach and possibility of being established by any testimony, whatever may be its character and whatever its abundance. This dis- covery was not made in the act of attending to the specific miracles of the New Testament, or of weighing the specific testimonies by which they are supported. It is a discovery grounded on the considerations of a general logic which takes cognizance either of the principles of reasoning or of the pro- OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 23 perties of the reasoning mind. It never, we believe, was sug- gested to any mind, when immediately engaged in the direct process of viewing or of estimating the actual evidence for the miracles of the gospel. It is altogether the fruit of a reflex process, which, terminate as it might, leaves the direct process to go on very much as before. We believe it of any candid and intelligent man that, after the study of Mr. Hume’s Essay on Miracles, he, on betaking himself again to the study of the evangelical narratives and of all its vouchers, cannot help being impressed just as he wont to be. The speculation may stagger him ; and he labour and be at a loss when trying to adjust the metaphysics of the general question. But in reading Paley or Littleton or Butler, he does not feel that countervailing force in the mere idea of a miracle which the Scottish metaphysician has ascribed to it. It is on the general question only that he is bewildered — for when engaged with the particular question of the Christian miracles — when in contrast with the ipsa corpora of this latter question, his old convictions return to him. In the act of reasoning on the immediate subject- rhatter of the New Testament history, his invincible tendency is to think and feel as before. It is when he reasons upon the reasoning that he gets involved again in helpless obscurity. This new principle of human belief he may find it exceedingly difficult satisfactorily to dispose of ; but from what himself feels he may gather the strong and general apprehension, that with the phenomena of human belief it is not certainly in accordance. 19. The treatment which Mr. Hume’s argument has met with in the two countries of England and Scotland is strikingly in unison with the genius of the respective people. The savans of our nation have certainly a greater taste and inclination for the reflex process, while it is more the property of our southern neighbours to enter vigorously and immediately, and with all that instinctive confidence wherewith nature has endowed us, on the business of the direct one. Our general tendency is to date our argument from a higher point than the English do — to reason, for example, about reasoning, before we proceed to reason about the matter on hand. Nay, we are apt to be so far misled, as to think that we should thoroughly comprehend the nature and properties of the instrument of ratiocination before we pro- ceed to the use of it. We must do this, it is thought, else we do not begin at the beginning — though, in fact, this were just such a beginning as that of the labourer, who should imagine 24 COGNIZANCE BY THE UNDERSTANDING that ere he enters with the spade in his hand on the work of digging, he must first have computed the powers of its wedge, or ascertained the specific weight and cohesion of its materials. There is, upon an infinity of subjects, much intellectual labour that may be most prosperously gone through without any ante- rior examination on our part of the intellectual faculty. Our disposition in many a question is to move a previous question, which must be first settled ere we hold ourselves in a condition for starting fair with the one immediately before us. The English, again, to borrow another phrase from their own parlia- mentary language, are for proceeding to the order of the day. And they are not deceived in the result, just because nature has not deceived them, nor has she given original principles to her children for the purpose of leading them astray. They are like men set forth on the survey of a landscape, and who proceed immediately to the business of seeing — whereas the others, ere they shall have any dealing with the objects of vision, must have settled their account with the instrument of vision ; so that, while the former are looking broadly and confidently outwards on the scene of observation, the latter are speculating on the organ and its retina, or have their thoughts intently fastened on that point whence the optic nerve issues from its primitive ob- scurity among the convolutions of the brain. Now, this is what our friends in the south seem to have no patience for. Their cha- racteristic is not subtlety of discrimination on the powers and prin- ciples of the mind, but often admirable soundness and sagacity in the direct application of their powers to the practical object of coming to a right judgment on all important questions. Dr. Paley stands forth in full dimensions as an exemplar of this class. Strong and healthful in his faculties, he turns them to the immediate business before him, without one reflex look at the faculties themselves. He bestows on the argument of Hume a few touches of his sagacity, but soon flings it as if in distaste or intolerance away from him. We hold this to have been the general reception of it in our sister kingdom; and while taken up in grave and philosophic style by Campbell, and Brown, and Murray, and Cook, and Somerville, and the Edinburgh Reviewers, it seems to have made comparatively little impression on the best authors of England — on Penrose, for example, who bestows on it but slight and cursory notice, and Le Bas,* who almost * The valuable contributions which Penrose and Le Bas have made to the argument from miracles, will be noticed afterwards. OF ITS OWN PROCESSES. 25 thinks it enough to have barely characterized it as a wretched fallacy. 20. Paley concludes his preparatory considerations to his book on the Evidences with the following short practical answer to Hume’s essay : — u But the short consideration which, inde- pendently of every other, convinces me that there is no solid foundation in Mr. Hume’s conclusion, is the following : When a theorem is proposed to a mathematician, the first thing he does with it is to try it upon a simple case ; and if it produce a false result, he is sure that there must be some mistake in the demon- stration. Now, to proceed in this way with what may be called Mr. Hume’s theorem : If twelve men, wdiose probity and good sense I had long known, should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible that they should be deceived ; if the governor of the country, hearing a rumour of this account, should call these men into his presence, and offer them a short proposal, either to confess the imposture or submit to be tied up to a gibbet ; if they should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case ; if this threat were communicated to them separately, yet with no different effect ; if it was at last executed ; if I myself saw them, one after another, consenting to be racked, burnt, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account ; still, if Mr. Hume’s rule be my guide, I am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say, that there is not a sceptic in the world who would not believe them, or who would defend such incredulity.” There is something nationally characteristic in their respective treatments of the same subject by the Scottish Plume and the English Paley. It exhibits a contest between sound sense and subtle metaphysics. Paley is quite right in his concluding de- liverance. The falsehood of the twelve men, in the circumstan- ces and with the characteristics which he ascribes to them, would be more improbable than all the miracles put together of the New Testament. It is a correct judgment that he gives, but he declines to state the principles of the judgment. Nor is it necessary in ten thousand instances that a man should be able to assign the principles of his judgment, in order to make that judgment a sound and unexceptionable one. There is many a right intellectual process undergone by those who never once reflect upon the process nor attempt the description of it. The direct process is one thing, the reflex view of it is another. ON man's instinctive belief 26 Paley sees most instantly and vividly the falsehood of Hume’s theorem in a particular case, and this satisfies him of a mistake in the demonstration. But this is a different thing from under- taking to show the fallacy of the demonstration on its own general principles — as different as were the refutation of a ma- thematical proposition by the measurement of a figure constructed in the terms of that proposition, from the general and logical refutation of it grounded on the import of the terms themselves. This is certainly a desirable thing to be done ; and all we have to say at present is, that this is what Paley has failed to accom- plish. CHAPTER II. ON man’s instinctive belief in the constancy of nature. 1. When a child strikes a table for the first time with a spoon, its delight in the consequent noise is not more obvious than the confidence wherewith it anticipates a repetition of the noise on a repetition of the stroke. That the same antecedent should be followed by the same consequent does not appear to be the lesson of a protracted experience. The anticipation of a similar result from a similar conjunction of circumstances appears to be as strong in infancy as in manhood. We hold it to be not an acquired but an original faith, because we perceive it in full op- eration as far back as we can observe in the history of a human creature. We are not sensible of a period in the history of our own mind when this lesson had yet to be learned — neither can we perceive any indication in the youngest children, that they are destitute of this faith, or that they have yet subsequently to acquire it. Therefore we call it an instinctive faith — not the fruit of observation or experience, however much these may afterwards confirm it ; so as to verify the glorious conclusion of an unfailing harmony between the actual truth of things, and the implanted tendencies of that intellect which the Creator hath given us. 2. It is a frequent and perhaps a natural impression that faith in the constancy of nature is not an instinct antecedent to ex- perience, but the fruit of that experience, produced by it at first, and strengthened by every new or repeated experience of the constancy of nature afterwards. But it has been well remarked IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 27 by Dr. Brown, that no repetition, however frequent of the same sequence can account for our anticipation of its recurrence, with- out such an original principle of belief as we are now contending for. We admit that there is no logical connexion between the proposition that a certain event has happened once in given cir- cumstances, and the proposition that the same event will happen always in the same circumstances. But neither is there any logical connexion between the proposition that the event has happened a thousand times in certain circumstances, and the proposition that in the same circumstances it will always so happen. The conversion of the past into the future, is made, not in virtue of a logical inference, but in virtue of an instinc- tive expectation, and this at whatever stage the conversion may have been made. It is as confidently made at the dawn as at the maturity of the understanding — and after one observation of a sequence, as after twenty or any number of observations how- ever great. We have not been schooled by experience into our belief of nature's constancy. Experience can only inform us of the past. It tells what has been — but we need another inform- ant beside memory to assure us of what is to be. Experience tells us of the past constancy of nature — but experience alone or memory alone can give no intimation of its future constancy. This irresistible persuasion comes to us from another quarter. It forms a distinct principle in the frame or workmanship of our intellectual system. It is a befitting theme of gratitude and wonder that this instinctive faith from within should be re- sponded to by the unexqepted fulfilment of Nature's actual and abiding constancy from without. But the one is not a deriva- tive from the other. The two are in harmony — but it is a con- tingent harmony. 3. The use of experience is not to strengthen our faith in the constancy of nature's sequences, but to inform us what the se- quences actually are. We do not need to be made surer than we are already that the progressions of nature are invariable, but we need to learn the steps of each progression. As far as we can discover of the human mind, it counts — and has at all times, from its earliest capacities of thought, counted — on the same antecedents being followed up by the same consequents. It is not the office of experience to lesson us into this confidence. But experience is indispensable to teach us, which be the causal antecedents and which be the consequents related to them by the tie of invariableness, in those successions that are taking place 28 ON man's instinctive belief around us. Our object in the repetition of an experiment is not to be made sure that what nature has done once in certain cir- cumstances, she will in the same circumstances do again. But it is to ascertain what the circumstances really be which are essential to the result in question. The truth is, that in that assemblage of circumstances which precedes some certain event, there may only be one, or so many of them, that have causal in- fluence upon the result, and the rest may be mere accompani- ments, whose presence is not necessary to the production of it. It is to distinguish the causal antecedents from the merely casual ones that an experiment has often to be varied, or done over again. It is not that we ever have the least suspicion of Nature as if she fluctuated in her processes. But it is to disentangle these processes from that crowd of accessaries, wherewith they are at times beset or encompassed, that we have so repeatedly to question her. For this purpose we withdraw certain ingre- dients from the assemblage. We supply certain others. We mix them up in various proportions — and all this not to strengthen our belief in the regularity of nature, but to discover what the trains or successions are according to which this regularity pro- ceeds. We are not sure that the instinct by which we are led to anticipate the same result in the same circumstances is stronger in manhood than in infancy. But in manhood we know the result, and we know the circumstances. This seems the whole fruit of experience. It teaches, not the strength or invariable- ness of the connexion that runs through all nature, but it teaches the terms of that connexion. 4. And it is instructive to observe the real process of an in- fant’s mind, during that education by which it. becomes ac- quainted with surrounding nature. When it strikes the wooden table with a spoon, it needs not repeat the stroke for the purpose of obtaining a surer or firmer expectation of the consequent noise. That expectation is probably as confident at the first as after- ward ; and it is of importance to remark, that at the outset of its experience it is quite general and indiscriminate. For instance, it would anticipate the same noise by striking the spoon against any surface whatever, as when placed on a carpet, or on the level of a smooth sandy beach. Originally, it would expect the same noise by striking on a soft yielding substance that it did by striking on the hard table ; and the office of experience is not to strengthen its hope of a similar result from a similar act, but in truth to correct the exuberance of that hope. It is to IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 29 feach it discrimination, and how, in the midst of a general re- semblance, to mark those minuter differences which in fact pre- sent it with antecedents that are really different, and which should lead it to expect results that are different also. It is thus that the primary undirected and diffused expectation of meeting again with what it met once, in the act of striking with a spoon on a wooden surface, comes afterwards to be modified. It learns — not that there is a surer tie between the terms of nature’s sequences than it imagined at the first, but it learns how to distinguish between the terms which are really different, though before it had vaguely confounded them. And so it is taught with each distinct antecedent to look for a distinct conse- quent — instead of expecting the same noise by the infliction of a stroke upon all surfaces, to expect no noise at all by a stroke upon the sand, and different sorts of noises by a stroke on dif- ferent surfaces, whether wood, or metal, or stone, or liquid.* 5. Now, this may explain how it is that our faith in the con- stancy of nature appears to grow with experience — and that, notwithstanding the obvious strength of this principle in very early childhood. After an infant has once struck the table with a spoon, and elicited the noise which it likes, it proceeds with all confidence to repeat the stroke — not on the table only, but on other substances, in expectation of a similar noise to that which had pleased and gratified it before. But it is speedily checked in this expectation. It learns, that w 7 ith every difference in the antecedent circumstances there may be a difference in the * This phenomenon of the infant mind -will be found not only to throw light on the origin and progress of our belief in testimony, but to accord with the surmises both of Dugald Stewart and Turgot, when they approximate to what we have long regarded as the true ac- count or philosophy of the process described by the human mind in the formation of abstract and general ideas. The truth is, that our disposition to generalize by noticing the points of resemblance between different objects, often takes the precedency of our disposi- tion to specialize by noticing their points of distinction or dissimilarity — and so, at the com- mencement of our mental history, we ar^liable to confound when we ought to discriminate. This observation, rightly applied, will be found to correct both the philosophy of Dr. Camp- bell and the scepticism of Hume on the subject of human testimony. The following sentences from Dugald Stewart, and from Condorcet’s Life of Turgot, will evince the existence of this thought in embryo, or as an undeveloped germ in the minds of both these philosophers. “This remark becomes, in my opinion, much more luminous and important, by being combined with another very original one, which is ascribed to Turgot by Condorcet, and which I do not recollect to have seen taken notice of by any later writer on the human mind. According to the common doctrine of logicians, we are led to suppose that our knowledge begins in an accurate and minute acquaintance with the characteristical proper- ties of individual objects; and that it is only by the slow exercise of comparison and abstrac- tion, that we attain to the notion of classes or genera. In opposition to this idea, it was a 30 ON man's instinctive belief result ; and it further learns that there may often be real differ- ences which escape its observation. Now, the longer it has been accustomed to witness the same phenomenon in the same ostensible circumstances, it becomes the more confident that these are the only essential circumstances to the result, or at least that the ostensible circumstances always involve the essential or the real ones. Should it awake in the morning, and per- ceive the nurse or mother by its side and smiling over it, then, were there but a moment of prior consciousness, and the recol- lection of what had happened yesterday, it might on the next morning open its eyes with the expectation of being again re- galed by the same spectacle. We are not sure but that the con- fidence of this expectation would be as strong, if not stronger, at the first than ever afterwards. Every disappointment, in fact, would weaken it ; for the infant would thus learn, that the presence of the causal antecedent, which gave rise to the pheno- menon, was not always involved in the circumstance of its emerging from the darkness of sleep to the visible objects of day. Still it holds true, that the fewer the disappointments were to which it was exposed, the original confidence would be less weakened. The recurrence of the same thing for the days of a week would diminish its apprehension of a disappointment or failure, and still more for the days of a month or the days of a year. Yet we are not sure if any experience, however length- ened, would ever beget a stronger confidence than that original maxim of Turgot’s, that some of our most abstract and general notions are among the ear- liest we form. What meaning he annexed to this maxim, we are not informed ; but if he understood it in the same sense in which I am disposed to interpret it, he appears to me entitled to the credit of a very valuable suggestion with respect to the natural progress of human knowledge. The truth is, that our first perceptions lead us invariably to confound together things which have very little in common; and that the specifical differences of individuals do not begin to be marked with precision tiil the powers of observation and rea- soning have attained to a certain degree of maturity. To a similar indistinctness of percep- tion are to be ascribed the mistakes, about the most familiar appearances, which we daily see committed by those domesticated animals with whose instincts and habits we have an opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted. As an instance of this, it is sufficient to mention the terror which a horse sometimes discovers in passing on the road a large stone, or the waterfall of a mill." — Stewart’s Philosophy of the Huryan Mind, vol. ii. pp. 242-44. “ M. Turgot croyait qu’on s'etait trompe en imaginant, qu’en general l’esprit n’acquiert des idees generates ou abstraites que par la comparaison d idoes plus particulidres. Au contraire, nos premidres iddes sont trds-gendrales, puisque ne voyant d’abord qu’un petit nombre de qualitds, notre idee renferme tous les dtres auxquels ces qualitds sont communes. En nous dclairant, en examinant davantage, nos iddes deviennent plus particulidres sans jarnais atteindrele dernier terme; et ce qui a pu tromper les metaphysiciens, c’est qu’alor? precisdment nous apprenons que ces idees sont plus gdnerales que nous ne l’avions d’abord supposd.” — Pie de Turgot, p. 159. Berne, 1787. IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 31 and unshaken confidence that is felt prior to all experience. It seems the primary faith of every mind, that there shall be a constant recurrence of the same effect in the same circumstances. It is a subsequent lesson to this, that the circumstances are liable to unexpected variation ; and so, a protracted experience may be requisite to ascertain when they are more and when they are less liable, or whether they have sustained variation at all. Still, even in cases where the last conclusion has been come at, and with the advantage of a long experience in its favour, the resulting anticipation may not be of greater strength than was that original anticipation wherewith the infant looked for a re- petition of the sound from its first repetition of a stroke. This long experience does not act as a confirmer to strengthen the first anticipation. It only acts as a restorative against the weak- ening effect of a subsequent experience, and by which it may, as if by the removal of a disturbing force, bring the confidence, not beyond, but bring it up to the strength which it originally had. 6. It will thus be seen what the precise object is, of repetition in experiments. It is not to strengthen our faith in the uni- formity of nature. It is not to assure ourselves any more than we are already that the same antecedents will always be followed up by the same consequents. It is to ascertain what the pre- cise causal antecedents actually are. For this purpose we intro- duce variations into the circumstances of the experiment. We supply new conditions. We abstract old ones. We make changes both on the presence and the proportion of certain in- gredients — and thus learn to distinguish what is merely acces- sary from what is efficient in the process. We come to fix on the real and proper antecedents at last — and when in an experi - mentum crucis , these are admitted and no other, w*e decide finally that they and they alone are essential to the result in question. 7. Experience does not add to the confidence wherewith we look for the same result in the same circumstances. It may rather be said to correct or to modify that confidence. It teaches us how liable we are to be deceived by semblances ; and that often there is an apparent similarity wdiere there is no real one. In this case, when counting on a recurrence of the same, the presumption is thwarted by the occurrence of a different event. Instead of confidence, we, in certain views, learn caution and distrust at the school of experience — not that we ever question the invariableness wdierewith the same antecedents are always related to the same consequents — but that we have learned how 32 ON man's instinctive belief under tbe guise of similarity there may not be sameness ; and that in virtue of some unseen difference in the circumstances, an unexpected difference in the result may arise from it. 8. But it is well for our future argument to distinguish what the confidence is which is lessened from what the confidence is which remains unshaken. The child’s general confidence in the production of a noise by the stroke of its spoon on any surface has been thwarted and put an end to — but its special confidence in the production of a noise by the stroke of the spoon on its own wooden table continues as strong as at the first. There is no mistake in that original and instinctive faith of nature, by which we are led to expect that the same antecedents will be followed in invariable succession by the same consequents — and it is not this which is corrected by experience. But we are liable to a perpetual mistake, in confounding together as the same those antecedents which are really different — and it is the office of ex- perience to correct this mistake, by teaching us so to discriminate as to distinguish between the things which are really different. There is a beautiful accordance between our primary instincts of belief, and the lessons of our ultimate experience. We set out strong in the presumption of nature’s uniformity ; and in this we are disappointed at the first — only because we mistake na- ture, and confound when we ought to discriminate. In propor- tion as we learn to discriminate, the confidence is restored — and we find it was no mistake that nature proceeded by trains of invariable phenomena, and that the only fallacy lay in our mis- taking and misreading the phenomena themselves. It is thus that in the further progress of experience the temporary cloud is dissi- • pated ; and it at once appears that every process is steadfast, and that every instinct is sure — that nature puts no deceitful expecta- tion, and whispers no false promises into the hearts of her children. 9. Let us now reassemble the different leading phenomena of man’s belief in the constancy of nature. He in the first in- stance is furnished with this belief and feels it strongly, ante- cedently to experience. In the second instance, the experience does not add any further assurance to this primary and instinc- tive faith. It rather seems to check its anticipations,' insomuch that distrust rather than confidence in the results of experience seems to be the growth of our advancing observation. But this proceeds not from Nature being untrue to her promise, which in the shape of an original instinct she makes to all men, of always following up the same antecedents by the same consequents. It IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 85 proceeds from our imperfect observation, whether of the ante- cedents or consequents, by which we imagine them to be the same when they are really different. In proportion as this imperfect observation is rectified, the steadfastness of Nature becomes more manifest. The promise which she made to us at the outset is more and more vindicated — and we at length are fully reassured of an unexcepted harmony between the instincts of our internal constitution and the external truth of things. 10. We may thus perceive the consistency between two pro- positions which appear to be at variance. The first is that ex- perience gives no addition of strength to our primary faith in the constancy of nature. The second is that the oftener we witness the same result in the same apparent circumstances, the more confidently do we look for that result in these circum- stances in all time coming. It is not that we ever doubt the constancy of nature. The doubt is, whether the same causal antecedents which give rise to the result be always involved in the same apparent circumstances. Should the same individual regularly pass my window every day at the same hour for a month together, I by the end of that time should have acquired a pretty strong persuasion that at the wonted hour he would again make his appearance. It is obvious that this persuasion would become stronger with every new repetition of the pheno- menon, till at length I might come to regularly count upon it with a very high feeling of probability upon its side. And yet in this instance, I may not at all know the causal antecedents of the appearances in question. There might be nothing at least in the ostensible antecedents to indicate the causal or real ones — nothing in the mere occurrence of the hour which can explain to me, why it is that this one person so regularly pre- sents himself. It is enough, however, to find that so it is — and the longer or the oftener that so it is, the firmer will be my ex- pectation of its recurrence. The expectation will, according to the various instances, attain to various degrees of strength — and in some will reach indefinitely near to moral certainty. 11. The same thing will happen, if in throwing a couple of dice, for a number of times there shall be the regular presenta- tion of the same faces in both of them. The expectation of the phenemenon will gain in strength just with the continuance of it, and that anterior to our knowledge of its cause. Even pre- vious to this knowledge it might approach to moral certainty, merely by the length and constancy of the repetition. Yet no VOL. vi. c 34 ON man's instinctive belief experience, however prolonged, will give a stronger assurance than we might have had at once by observing that the dice was loaded, and thus obtaining knowledge of the real antecedent. 12. There are cases when without the knowledge of, or at least without any reflection on the cause, this constancy of a recur- rence will lead us to look for it with all the confidence of moral certainty. The return of the morning’s light, and the recurrence of about two tides every day, are the examples of this which first occur to us. The causal antecedent of the former phenomenon may not be reflected on, and of the latter may not be known. Yet this does not affect the confidence wherewith we look for- ward to the repetition of them. It is a confidence which evi- dently grows with the number of repetitions, provided that these have occurred with undeviating constancy. Yet we are not sure if the unvarying experience of a whole lifetime will give a stronger assurance, than that wherewith a child expects the re- currence of a noise by striking its spoon upon the table after having heard it but once, or even by striking it upon any other surface before that experience had taught it to distinguish be- tween that which is sonorous and that which is not so. The strength then of the primary confidence on the part of the child, and that of the acquired confidence on the part of the man, will be found to have originated in distinct causes. The former is anterior to experience, and an instinct of the understanding, by which, from the earliest dawn of thought, we feel assured that the same antecedents will always be followed up by the same consequents. The latter again is the fruit or the lesson of ex- perience ; and the effect, it should be remarked, is not to build up a confidence that is already perfect. That the same ante- cedents will be followed by the same consequents is a truth whereof we have the axiomatic certainty from the beginning of life to the close of it. But we often mistake the antecedents, thinking them to be the same when they are really different — and it is the office of experience to rectify this mistake. We may even never come to know the efficient antecedents at all, as in the case of the unlearned who are conversant with phenomena but have not so much as a thought about the causes of them, save that, in the circumstances by which these phenomena are wont to be preceded, their causes must be present or be some- how involved in them. The darkness of night is not the cause of the light of day — but they have learned by frequent observa- tion, that, at the expiry of a certain period of darkness, the IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 35 cause of this light comes into operation. Experience does not tell that the same cause always produces the same effect. This we had been told previously. But experience tells what the circumstances are in which the same cause is to be met with — and the oftener we so meet with it, the greater is our confidence that in the same circumstances we shall meet with it and with its invariable consequent again. These two tellings are wholly distinct from each other. By the first we are assured of the in- variable operation of causes. By the second we learn in what assemblage of circumstances the same causes are seldomer or oftener or always to be found. In regard to the first, there is the utmost strength of anticipation from the outset of our mental history. In regard to the second, there is a growing strength of anticipation which approaches indefinitely towards a full assur- ance. 13. That is well nigh to a full assurance wherewith we anti- cipate a high-water about every twelve hours. We can conceive this assurance to be disappointed. It is an imaginable case that there might have been the intermission of one tide — giving rise to an interval of somewhat more than twenty-four hours between two high-waters. Let us suppose the sea at its lowest ebb, at the very time when, according to the rate and regularity of all past experience, there should have been an intermediate high-water. The question is, On what evidence ought this to be believed ? — or what force and character of proof can prevail over that con- fident expectation, which, on the strength of an observed con- stancy during all the years of our recollection, we had been led to form ? 14. We shall not at present oppose to the strength of this ex- pectation either the evidence of sense or the evidence of testi- mony. But there is a certain device of illustration which we shall employ, as being the most effectual preparative that we can think of for the evolving of our main argument. 45. Instead, then, of having the evidence of sense for this anomalous low- water — we can imagine the observer placed at a distance from the sea — and furnished with his information of every rise and fall in its level by means of a tide-index. The reality or the possibility of such an instrument is not essential to the validity of our argument. A hypothetical reasoning may not be the less sound, because of its imaginary data — and, if we can demonstrate a perfect analogy between these data and others which are real, between the arbitrary conditions which we 36 ON man's instinctive belief find it convenient in the first instance to assume and the actual conditions of the question that waits to be resolved, then, by a substitution of the one for the other, we may arrive at the solu- tion that is wanted. 16. We may conceive, then, that on the day of the anomalous low-water, the tide-index also remained low. To set aside all but my own personal experience in the matter, there might have been a thousand instances of observed regularity on my part, in regard to the occurrence of high-water — in which case the proba- bility against the occurrence of an anomalous low-water would be as a thousand to one. It may further be conceived, that though on all the other thousand occasions, I observed a perfect harmony between the phenomena of high and low water and the indications of the instrument — yet that on one occasion the in- strument deceived me — it having anomalously stood at low-water though there was high-water on the sea as usual. In this case my expectation of a high-water grounded on past experience will prevail over my faith in the information of the tide-index. The truth is, that against the actual occurrence of the anomal- ous low- water, the probability is as a thousand to one — whereas against a wrong deposition on the part of the instrument the probability is only as a thousand to two. There is a double chance for an irregularity on the part of the instrument, rather than an irregularity on the part of the ocean — and I am there- fore not yet dislodged from my belief that though the instrument did attest a low-water, the high-water took place as usual. 17. One can imagine a still greater degree of irregularity on the part of the tide-index. The number of failures (including the case in question), may have been five or ten or twenty or fifty — in which case the chances of error in the information given would just be represented by these respective numbers — and I would persist in my conviction of there having been a high-water with a strength equal in the first case to that of two to one, in the second of five to one, in the third of ten to one, in the fourth of twenty to one, and in the fifth with a strength equal to that of fifty to one. 18. But we can imagine an instrument that never misgave or made a false indication in the whole course of our experience. We may have observed the stated recurrence of a high-water at the usual interval a thousand times, and as many times we may have without fail observed the rise in the tide-index which cor- responds thereunto. That a low-water should occur instead of IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 37 the next expected high-water is a thing improbable in the ratio of a thousand to one. That the high-water should occur, and yet the index point to a low-water is also a thing improbable, and in the same ratio of a thousand to one. The one improba- bility exactly balances or neutralizes the other. The mind is left in a midway state or in a state of pure scepticism on the question — and it remains to be seen whether it is possible, by means of any accession to the testimony of these tide-indices, to arrive at a legitimate belief in the occurrence of an anomalous low-water ; or, to express it otherwise, belief in the violation of a wonted order to which we never had witnessed a single excep- tion in the whole of our past experience. 19. It may be conceived in this way. The same instrument which, set in a particular way, so relates it to the water of the sea as to indicate the variations of its level, may be so set as to relate it similarly to other water of variable level, as to that of a pond or a well or a vessel, the liquid in all which was subject to alternate elevations and depressions. We have already made the supposition of having observed the unfailing punctuality of its informations in regard to the tides — so as to establish the pro- bability of a thousand to one in favour of that information being true. But should it inform us of a low-water at the time when, on the strength of a thousand past instances, we were left to ex- pect a high-water, the probability for the truth of this informa- tion is exactly countervailed by an equal probability opposed to it. By applying the same instrument, however, to the measure- ment of other fluctuations in the level of water beside those of the sea, the samples of its correct indication may be multiplied indefinitely — and instead of a thousand observed instances in which it spoke the truth, we may, in virtue of this larger appli- cation, be able to allege twenty thousand. After this it remains no longer a contest of equal experiences, but of unequal — and the difference is all. in favour of the witnessing instrument. If it depone to a matter against which, apart from its own informa- tion, there is the probability of a thousand to one, it should now be recollected that in the verity of this information there is a probability of twenty thousand to one ; or, in other words, we have a probability of twenty to one for the anomalous low-water. So that with the evidence of one instrument alone, the violation of a long-observed order may be abundantly established ; and it is a possible thing that the experience which stands opposed to the testimony of this solitary witness may, singly in the 38 ON man's instinctive belief witness itself, be greatly surpassed by the experience in its favour.* 20. Or the accession to the evidence of the tide-index may be obtained in another way. Instead of widening the range of its application, so as to collect twenty thousand instances of its accuracy wherewith to overbear the thousand instances of regular high-water, the very same power and superiority of evidence could be had by means of another tide-index. We have supposed a number of these instruments which, either from their various mechanisms, or from their being constructed with more or less skill, gave forth their depositions with more or less accuracy. Let us compute the effect then which lies in the concurrence of two testimonies to the fact of an anomalous low- water — one given by a tide- index of yet unfailing correctness, and another which in the thousand instances of regular high-water failed no less than fifty times. Still it has been twenty times right for once being wrong ; and the presumption in favour of its testimony for any indifferent thing is just as twenty to one — though in favour of its testimony for an anomalous low- water in the face of a thou- sand regular high-waters it be only as one to fifty. This how- ever does not prevent the multiple effect of its evidence when united with that of another instrument. This tide-index, which has been right without exception in a thousand instances, has acquired the probability of a thousand to one for its next deposi- tion — and, should the other instrument which has been right twenty times for one, agree in the same deposition, the united testimony of both has precisely the force of twenty thousand to one for any indifferent thing — and in the present case of twenty to one for an anomalous low-water. There is no one versant in the doctrine of probabilities who will dispute the soundness or accuracy of these conclusions — a doctrine not only of mathema- tical precision in the abstract — but whose precision is verified on the average in all the practical affairs of experience and human life. The probability arising from the concurrence of the two testimonies which we have now specified is just as we have stated * The accuracy of the tide-gauge may obtain enhanced confirmation by observing the truth of its depositions, not at the highest and lowest levels of the tide only, but at all in- termediate ones — so that our experience of this accuracy may greatly overpass our experi- ence of the regularity whether of high or low water. This mathematical style of reasoning on a question which respects the truth of Christi- anity will be excused — first, by those who feel it to be effective ; and secondly, because if effective, it is the best fitted to neutralize the mischievous influence superadded to the scepticism of Hume by the great name of La Place. IN THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE. 39 it. And to vary the supposition — should the tide-index which has failed ten times in a thousand, agree in its evidence with the tide-index that has failed twenty times — still the former has only been wrong once in a hundred times and the other once in fifty — so that their united testimony has in it the strength of five thousand to one for an indifferent thing, and five to one for an anomalous low-water. It were easy to calculate the results in all other instances of agreement. The joint testimony of the tide-gauge that has failed five times with that which has failed fifty times has in it the absolute force of four thousand to one, or the relative force of four to one for an anomalous low- water. The joint effect of the one that has failed five times with the one that has failed ten is equivalent to twenty in favour of the same fact — and should the evidence of the one that has failed twenty times be added to the two former, the testimony of all the three would have the force of no less than a million to one for any in- different thing, or of a thousand to one for the anomalous devia- tion which is the subject of our argument. 21. On the subject of the amount of evidence that lies in the concurrence of two or more such notices as we are now specifying, it must be observed that these notices should be independent of each other. For example, when the tide-index B announces a low-water, it must not be because the tide-index A announces the same thing. Each by being similarly related to the waters of the sea is subject to a common influence from it — but neither should have any influence the one upon the other. It is easy to perceive that in the present instance they stand so disjoined, as to give us the advantage of all the united strength that lies in separate and independent testimonies. It is not because A gives a right deposition that B gives the same. B is sometimes wrong when A is right — and beside, each would operate precisely as it does though the other were removed or taken down. 22. By the concurrence of independent notices on the subject, the amount of evidence for an anomalous low-water may become indefinitely great. There may be other tide-indices, and that too of the best sort, in other houses beside our own — and each of which has never been known to present a false indication in the whole course of human experience. The concurrent testimony of two such instruments yields the probability of a thousand — of three no less than a million — till the number of distinct and in- dependent testimonies be so great as to make the superiority of evidence quite overwhelming, and to afford practically the force 40 MR. HUME'S OBJECTION of an absolute moral certainty on the side of an anomalous low- water. Or, instead of an anomalous if it be called a miraculous low-water — this is only lengthening out the experience that we have had of Nature’s regularity in this department of observation. Instead of one deviation in a thousand instances of observed con- stancy, the event in question may be the only deviation that has taken place in the regular succession of tides since the commence- ment of the world. To meet this we have just to imagine a tide- index that was never known to give forth a false intimation ; and to overmatch this, we have just to imagine so many distinct and separate intimations from a certain number of such indices. The falsity of the instrument may be as great an anomaly or if you will as great a miracle as the phenomenon of which it tells — and the concurrence of a few such miracles may establish for the truth of the miracle deponed to as overwhelming a superiority of evi- dence as before. It remains to be seen how much or how little can be done in this way by living witnesses — but it seems very clear to us on the strength of the above reasoning, that at the mouth of two or three inanimate witnesses the truth of a miracle may be established. CHAPTER III. ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY FOR THE PROOF OF MIRACLES. MR. HUME’S OBJECTION TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. Section I . — On the Origin of our Belief in Testimony. I. The following is Dr. Campbell’s abstract of Hume’s argu- ment on the subject of miracles : — “ Experience is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. Experience is in some things variable, in some things uniform. A variable experience gives rise only to probability ; a uniform experience amounts to a proof. Probability always supposes ari opposition of experi- ments and observations, where the one side is found to over- balance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence propor- tioned to the superiority. In such cases we must balance the opposite experiments, and deduct the lesser number from the greater, in order to know the exact force of the superior evi- dence. Our belief or assurance of any fact from the report of TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 41 eye-witnesses is derived from no other principle than experience ; that is, our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the report of witnesses. Now if the fact attested partakes of the marvellous, if it is such as has seldom fallen under our observation, here is a contest of two op- posite experiences, of which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind by the force which remains. The very same principle of experience which gives us a certain degree of assurance in the testimony of witnesses, gives us also, in this case, another degree of assurance against the fact which they endeavour to establish, from which contradiction there necessarily arises a counterpoise, and mutual destruction of belief and authority. Further, if the fact affirmed by the witnesses, instead of being only marvellous, is really mir- aculous ; if, besides, the testimony considered apart and in itself amounts to an entire proof ; in that case there is proof against proof, of which the strongest must prevail, but still with a diminution of its force in proportion to that of its antagonist. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature ; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. And if so, it is an undeniable consequence, that it cannot be surmounted by any proof whatever from testimony. A miracle, therefore, however attested, can never be rendered credible, even in the lowest de- gree.” 2. And the following is the outset of Dr. Campbell’s reply : — “ In answer to this, I propose first to prove that the whole is built upon a false hypothesis. That the evidence of testimony is derived solely from experience, which seems to be an axiom of this writer, is at least not so incontestable a truth as he supposes it ; that, on the contrary, testimony hath a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience, will, I imagine, easily be evinced. For this purpose, let it be remarked, that the earliest assent which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact the most unlimited ; that by a gradual experience of mankind, it is gradually con- tracted, and reduced to narrower bounds. To say, therefore, that our diffidence in testimony is the result of experience, is more philosophical, because more consonant to truth, than to say that our faith in testimony has this foundation. Accordingly, youth, which is unexperienced, is credulous ; age on the contrary is dis- 42 MR. HUME S OBJECTION trustful. Exactly the reverse would be the case were this author's doctrine just." 3. Such is the opening of the controversy between Hume and Campbell on the subject of miracles, and wherewith the latter ushers in his celebrated reply to the argument of the former. We have long stood in doubt of the validity of that reply, notwith- standing the singular acumen and dexterity and power of expres- sion by which it is characterized. We still hold it to be neither a clear nor a conclusive one — and do therefore feel an insecurity and a want of completeness in the Christian defence, whenever this sceptical reasoning of Mr. Hume is again advanced by any of those more recent writers who have succeeded him on the side of infidelity. 4. We, in the first place, doubt whether he is right in the theory which he proposes respecting the origin of our faith in testimony. In opposition to Hume, who grounds it on experi- ence, he makes it a principle sui generis in the mental constitu- tion or an aboriginal instinct of the understanding. We shall, in the course of the following discussion, have to remark on cer- tain phenomena of our belief in testimony which incline us to resolve it, with Mr. Hume, into our faith in the constancy of nature. But we are anxious to have it understood that the refu- tation which we shall venture to propose neither requires nor presupposes any absolute deliverance upon this question. We undertake to prove his conclusion to be wrong, not because but although his premises should be right. We are inclined to think them right. But though we should be in error here, this is not an error by which our counter-argument to Mr. Hume is in the least affected. It is of no consequence, whether we affirm with him the truth of his own principle respecting the origin of our faith in testimony. There is a difference between affirming it and allowing it. The latter is what we certainly do : and a refutation should be held all the more decisive, if it can afford to an adversary those very assumptions on which his argument is built. 5. But, secondly, though Dr. Campbell were right in the view he gave respecting the origin of our faith in testimony, we do not see that this is of decisive avail on his side of the contro- versy. Even though experience were not the source of our be- lief in testimony, it may still be the measure by which to regulate the degree of confidence that we ought to repose in it. The faith may come from one quarter ; and yet the test by which to TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 43 compute the extent of that faith, or the amount of credit due in particular instances, may come from another. We may or we may not he born with a precipitate tendency to believe in the testimony of our fellow-men — and yet if it be found in experi- ence, that testimony in certain given circumstances had deceived us at the rate of once in ten times — it is precisely at that rate that we should deduct from our confidence in the testimony offer- ed in these circumstances ; and our doing so would meet the ap- proval of every enlightened understanding. So that whatever experience Mr. Hume can allege against the testimony which has been given for the miracles of Christianity, whether it relates to the characteristics of the testimony or to its subject-matter — the improbability grounded on such experience will have all to be grappled with — an improbability, we fear, which cannot be neutralized, and far less answered, by any metaphysical statement respecting the principle of our belief, on the question which of them is original and which of them is but derived and secondary in the constitution of human nature. 6. And thirdly, this assertion of our faith in testimony being an original and distinct principle from the faith of experience, so far from clearing the question or advancing it towards a settle- ment, seems but to make it more puzzling and inextricable than before. Dr. Campbell charges Mr. Hume, when the latter alleges experience in opposition to testimony, with the attempt to balance things which are not homogeneous. Now it is pre- cisely, if not homogeneous, that it seems impossible to arbitrate betwixt them. Certain it is that the rarity of an event demands a greater amount of testimony for the establishment of our con- viction in its truth, and greatest of all when the event is so rare as to be miraculous. But the question what augmentation of testimony on the one hand will overcome the augmentation of improbability from a deficient experience on the other, seems of impossible solution, should these two not be homogeneous ele- ments. If not homogeneous they are not commensurable — so that the introduction of this principle on the part of Dr. Camp- bell, instead of helping on the question to a deliverance, has only mystified it to our understanding, and made of it altogether a more baffling and hopeless speculation. 7. We on these grounds are not satisfied with the soundness of Dr. Campbell's refutation ; and we shall attempt to substitute another. It is certainly not essential to the validity of the second, that the insufficiency of the first should be exposed — yet 44 MR. HUME'S OBJECTION both from the interest of the subject in itself, and also from our wish to deliver the argument on the side of Christianity of all that we hold to be questionable or weak, we should like to pro- secute a little further our inquiry into this supposed distinction between faith in testimony and the faith of experience, and that chiefly with the view of stating our main exceptions to the reasoning of Dr. Campbell. 8. After that we have observed once or oftener the prior term of any particular sequence in nature followed up by its posterior term, it is not necessary that both should come into view on any new occasion, to make us believe that both have on that occasion actually taken place. For this purpose, it is enough that any one of the terms should be observed by us — and it is a matter of indifference which of them. If we have seen the prior term A, we conclude that it will be followed by the posterior term B, though we should not see B — or if we have seen the posterior term B, we infer that it has been preceded by the prior term A, though A in like manner has not been seen by us. For our be- lief in the existence of the one term, even of that which we have seen, we have had the evidence of observation. For our belief in the existence of the other, or of that which we have not seen, it would perhaps be more correct, and certainly more distinctive, to say that we have had the evidence of experience. 9. Ere proceeding further, it may be proper to remark, that it is not necessary for the two terms in question to be contiguous in the order of successive nature. The truth of the inference depends, not on the closeness, but on the certainty of the con- nexion between them. Between A and F there may be a train of intermediate events — yet if A always originate that train, and F be always the concluding term of it, we should, from the ob- servation of either singly, conclude the existence of the other, with as great confidence as if they stood related in immediate succession. It is of no consequence to the argument whether F be the posterior or the postreme term to A — the posterior term of a sequence, or the postreme term of a series. 10. Now an event in nature, and the* testimony which affirms it, stand related to each other precisely in this way. The one is the posterior, or, if you will, the postreme term to the other. There may be intermediate steps between the event and the testimony — its impression on the belief of the witness — its con- tinued hold of his memory — the opportunity of narrating it to others — the circumstances which prompted him to make the TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 45 communication — and lastly, the communication itself. There is here a progression of terms, each related to the one immediately next it, in the way of antecedent and consequent ; and there seems nothing in the process at all distinguishable from any other chain of sequences, when from the seen and the present, we infer the anterior and the unseen term, lying back at some distance either more or less remote in the train of causation. To infer the reality of an event from the testimony which relates it, seems in no way distinguishable from the process by which we infer the reality of some antecedent term in any other observed progression in nature, from a subsequent term now manifesting itself to the senses. It is an inference grounded on our past observation of the conjunction between the event and the testi- mony. Or, in other words, the evidence of testimony seems resolvable into that of experience. 11. Now this is not the opinion of Dr. Campbell ; nor of any, we believe, who have taken part with him in the controversy against Mr. Hume. He holds the evidence of testimony to be distinct from that of experience, and resolvable into a separate and original principle of its own. It serves unnecessarily to complicate a subject, when first principles are multiplied without cause. But, when to serve a cause, that which is pronounced upon as a first principle, is far from being obviously so ; it goes to mystify a subject, and to weaken exceedingly the impression of the argument which is founded thereupon. 12. The reason which Dr. Campbell alleges for faith in testi- mony being an instinctive and original principle, and not derived from any other, is, that it is strongest in infancy, and that it be- comes weaker as we advance to manhood and old age. He would hold it therefore to be apart from the faith of experience— seeing that experience does not strengthen, but rather weaken our faith in testimony. It is our diffidence rather than our confidence in testimony which seems to be the result of experience. And, on the unsuspecting trust and simplicity of childhood, contrasted with the growing jealousy and slowness of belief, which are characteristic of those who have had many years of experience and been much conversant with the world — would he ground the conclusion, that our faith in testimony is one of the primary and independent principles of our nature. 13. We have already said, that even though this w’ere con- ceded to Dr. Campbell, it is by no means sure that it ought to be regarded as of any service in his argument. Though we 46 me. hume's objection should grant that it was not experience which originated our credit in testimony, yet from his own account, it would appear, that experience limited the degree of credit which was due to it. Faith in testimony would seem, by his own account, to operate as a blind and undiscerning instinct which led, in the first instance, astray, till rectified by a subsequent experience. If it be the office of experience to regulate and restrain the head- long tendencies of the original instinct, Dr. Campbell will not deny that this is her rightful office ; and that, on the whole, she discharges it rightly. This is very like bringing the decisions of our intuitive faith in testimony to the test of experience ; or making experience the arbiter of when we ought and when we ought not to repose our confidence in the testimony of others. At this rate, experience, if not the originator, is at least the corrector of our belief in testimony ; and, after all, supplies the rule or the measure by which we ascertain the degree of credit that is due to it. This would leave Hume’s argument, such as it is, as much or as little in possession of the ground as before ; and, we fear, that this assertion of our faith in testimony, as a separate and original principle of man’s constitution, has in no way helped, but on the contrary injured the cause.* 13. But let us try to ascertain what this argument of Dr, Campbell amounts to. There is really nothing in that diffidence of the veracity of others which he lias noticed, that is at all inconsistent with its derivation from experience. The child who has observed once the conjunction between an event and * It seems to have been a very general faith of our Scottish philosophers, that belief in testimony is an independent principle of our nature. The following passage, not to instance other authors, occurs in the writings of Dr. Adam Smith : — “There seems to be in young children an instinctive disposition to believe whatever they are told. Nature seems to have judged it necessary for their preservation that they should, for some time at least, put im- plicit confidence in those to whom the care of their childhood, and of the earliest and most necessary part of their education, is intrusted. Their credulity, accordingly, is excessive, and it requires long and much experience, of the falsehood of mankind, to reduce them to a reasonable degree of diffidence and distrust. In grown-up people, the degrees of credulity are, no doubt, very different. The wisest and most experienced are generally the least credulous. But the man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be, and who does not, upon many occasions, give credit to tale^ which not only turn out to be perfectly false, but which a very moderate degree of reflection and attention might have taught him could not well be true. The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all, frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed amd astonished that he could possibly think of believing.” — Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments , vol. ii. p. 363, eleventh edition. See al>o Reid’s In- quiry into the Human Mind, chap. vi. sect. 24. TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 47 the testimony which relates it, is in the same circumstances, with regard to this sequence, as the child who has observed once the conjunction between a stroke on the table with his spoon and the noise that proceeds from it. In the latter case, it will anticipate a repetition of the noise from any stroke upon any substance ; and in the former case, it will infer the truth of an event from any testimony of any witness. The confidence, in both instances, is alike strong and alike indiscriminating ; and, in both instances, is checked and limited in the very same way. So long as the child continues to strike on the table, or on any sonorous substance whatever, it will experience the wonted noise. So long as it hears the testimony of a sincere witness, it will experience in the corresponding fact the truth of his attestation. But, at this stage, it will expect a noise from all sorts of substances ; and at this stage, too, it will count on the truth of all sorts of testimony. The whole amount of the matter is, that it has not yet learned to sort and to discriminate — and the precise office of experience is to enable it to do so. This is all the amount of the growing diffidence which Dr. Campbell speaks of. In the one case, the child has experienced that all impulsion will not be followed up by noise. In the other case, it has experienced that all testimony has not been preceded by the reality of that which the testimony affirms. There is a growing diffidence in the truth of testimony, just as there is a growing diffidence in the effect of impulsion. This phenomenon is realized in the one process which is by all allowed to be strictly experimental ; and there is therefore nothing in this same phenomenon that bespeaks the other process not to have been strictly experimental also. 14. Let us now attend more narrowly to what the diffidence in both cases precisely is. The child has struck its spoon upon the table, and elicited a noise ; and it expects to elicit the same noise by a stroke on all sorts of substances. It tries to obtain it, by a like application of the instrument in its hand on other smooth surfaces, and is disappointed — as on the surface of water, on the surface of the sandy beach, or on the surface of the bed upon which it happens to be seated. There is a growing diffidence a s to the effect of impulsion, in the general. There is a check upon the largeness and universality of this expectation. And with just as good reason as Dr. Campbell affirms that experience be- gets a growing diffidence in the evidence of testimony, may it be said, that experience begets a growing diffidence in the evi- 48 MR. HUME S OBJECTION dence of experience. The truth is, that experience does not appear, either to augment or diminish our general faith in the constancy of nature’s sequences — though it may either augment or diminish our expectation of a given result in particular cases. The reason of this we have already endeavoured to make plain. We are born with the tendency to expect similar results in simi- lar circumstances. But there is often an apparent without a real similarity, or a similarity in some circumstances though not a similarity in all, and these perhaps the essential circumstances. It is just because, at the outset of observation, we overlook the differences, and are more impressed by the similarities of things, that in virtue of our native instinct we expect the same result in cases which have an apparent sameness, though they be really distinct from each other. The diffidence in question arises from nothing else than the correction which is subsequently laid on the indefiniteness and generality of this expectation. Experience, whose proper office is, not to instruct us in the constancy of na- ture’s sequences, but to inform us what the sequences actually are, enables us at length to discriminate between those antece- dents which have but a seeming and those which have an actual identity with each other. It teaches us, not to confound the things which differ — nor to expect that what we have found in one case, we shall always find in another though an apparently similar case. It is in virtue of the infantine tendency to confound and to assi- milate the things which be distinct, that a child looks in the first instance for the same noise from the carpet that it had from the table — and it is the office of experience to limit and restrain this indefinite expectation. In regard to all those substances on which it made the trial and met with disappointment, experi- ence begets a diffidence where before there was a confidence. But, in regard to the material on which it made its first experi- ment, it retains unabated confidence — or rather a confidence which grows and strengthens with every repetition of the experi- ment.* The child has lost the indiscriminate confidence which it had at the outset of its experimental career — just because * This growing confidence does not mark any increase in our expectation of a similar result from similar circumstances — for this expectation seems as strong in infancy as in man- hood. It only marks an increasing assurance on our part of the circumstances in question being really as well as apparently the same. A thousand possibilities can be imagined which might have affected the sonorousness of wood, such as its temperature, the state of the at- mosphere, and many other things which we need not specify. Every new experience of the wonted noise from a stroke assures us the more, that the result is not liable to be disturbed by the complication of any new or unobserved antecedents — See the preceding Chapter. TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 40 experience has taught it to discriminate. It loses the a priori con- fidence wherewith, at one time, it would have expected a noise in striking on wood or paper or the loose earth beneath its feet — but it does not lose its confident expectation of a noise by im- pulsion on the table, or, to speak more correctly, by impulsion upon wood. Experience teaches to distinguish the things which he distinct — and thus while it nullifies one set of expectations, it fortifies and builds up another set.* 15. And it is just this, and nothing else, which takes place in testimony. The growing diffidence of a child, in the general power of testimony to indicate truth, is, in every respect, the same with its growing diffidence in the general power of im- pulsion to effect a noise. Having once experienced, testimony to be true, it expects it to be true in all time coming — as, hav- ing once elicited a noise from a stroke, it expects a noise from a stroke in all time coming. The first individual of whose testi- mony it had the observation, one may conceive to be actuated by the high principle of never deceiving a child ; and the ex- perience of his truth will be as uniform as the experience of a noise by impulsion on a table. But the second individual may occasionally amuse himself with practising on the credulity of children — and in his testimony, that expectation of truth which was quite general and unexcepted at the first, will meet with disappointment. This is the whole amount of that diffidence in testimony which has been noticed by Dr. Campbell. There is a growing diffidence as to the truth of testimony in the gross — but no such growing diffidence as to the truth of particular species % of testimony. The child learns to discriminate between A who * The following is an extract from Dugald Stfcwart, in whose faintest hints there may so often be detected the germinating principles of a solid and profound yet withal cautious philosophy. — “ It has been remarked by some eminent writers in this part of the island that our expectation of the continuance of the laws of nature has a very close affinity to our faith in human testimony. The parallel might perhaps be carried, without any over- refinement, a little farther than these writers have attempted ; inasmuch as, in both cases, the instinctive principle is in the first case unlimited, and requires, for its correction and re- gulation, the lessons of subsequent experience. As the credulity of children is originally without bounds, and is afterwards gradually checked by the examples which they occasion- ally meet with of human falsehood, so, in the infancy of our knowledge, whatever objects or events present to our senses a strong re emblance to each other, dispose us, without any very accurate examination of the minute details by which they may be really discriminated, to conclude with eagerness, that the experiments and observations which we make with re- spect to one individual, may be safely extended to the whole class. It is experience alone that teaches us caution in such inferences, and subjects the natural principle to the disci- pline prescribed by the rules of induction.’' VOL. VI. I) 50 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION never deceives, and B who does so occasionally ; just as it learns to discriminate between the table that never misgives its noisy response to the stroke of a spoon, and the sand that never yields it. Experience has taught him a growing diffidence in the tes- timony of B— but so far from being its proper and exclusive office to beget a diffidence in testimony, the very same experience also teaches him a growing confidence in the testimony of A. 16. But the little learner will not only be taught by experi- ence to discriminate between man and man — he will learn by experience to discriminate between the characteristics in general of a true, and that of a false testimony. Just as he is taught by experience to expect a noise, not from the individual table only, but from everything of the same mater ial — so will he be tutored by experience to expect truth, not from the individual alone who never deceived him, but from every individual bear- ing the same marks of veracity. In the school of experience he will be exercised, and make daily progress in the recognition of these marks, and become more intelligent as he advances to manhood in the natural signs of honesty, the manner and the tone, and the whole expression of moral earnestness. He will learn to read the veracity of a witness in the air, and the dis- tinctness, and the simplicity, and withal the circumstantial na- ture of his testimony. He will come to know how to derive a further confirmation from the state and circumstances of the reporter, from the condition of life he occupies, and which may be such as makes him peculiarly alive to a sense of honour, from the utter absence of every inducement that could lead him to falsify, and from direct knowledge or information of the charac- ter that he bears, and of the high-toned principle by which he is actuated. Experience may lead our young disciple to be diffident of some testimony, but not of this testimony — of the testimony that is accompanied by an opposite set of character- istics, but not of the testimony whose characteristics we have now enumerated, and which are specifically distinct from the other. He learns to expect truth or the want of it in man, from the marks of character which are presented to him, just as he learns to expect sonorousness or the want of it in body from the materials which are presented to him. It makes no difference to our argument between the two cases, that the one subject is greatly more complex than the other, or that a greater number of particulars must be considered ere we ascertain the truthful- ness of an individual man than are necessary to be considered TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 5L ere we ascertain the sonorousness of an individual body. There are antecedents and consequents in both processes ; and the con- nexion between them is not the less real, that in the one process the term which is presented to view is more difficult to be esti- mated than in the other process. The inference in both cases is alike experimental, notwithstanding. In looking to the ma- terial subject, w~e infer a sonorousness on the observation of cer- tain marks wherewith this quality has, in all past experience, stood associated. In looking to the moral subject, we infer a truthfulness on the observation of certain marks wherewith this quality has, in all past experience, stood associated. In the cases where we do not meet with these marks, we have learned by experience to be diffident of testimony. But in the cases where we do meet with these marks, we have learned, at the very same school, even the school of experience, to be confident in testimony. When Dr. Campbell says that experience teaches us to be diffident of testimony, we reply, that this wholly de- pends on the marks or characters wherewith this testimony is associated. The same experience which teaches us to be diffi- dent of the testimony that presents to notice the usual marks of falsehood, teaches us to be confident in the testimony that pre- sents to notice the usual marks of truth. Dr. Campbell affirms in the general, that experience begets a diffidence in testimony ; we reply, not in all testimony— or, when it is testimony asso- ciated with the usual concomitants of truth, not in such testi- mony. 17. It is thus that in opposition to Dr. Campbell it may be contended, that our faith in testimony does not rest on any prin- ciple different from our experience of its truth. If we have found that in all past cases a certain mode of relating an event stands conjoined, as the posterior term, with the reality of the event itself as the prior term, it is on this finding, and for aught we can see, on this alone, that we, in all time coming, ground our belief of any event, when related in the same mode, and amid the same circumstances. The diffidence which Dr. Camp- bell speaks of, only applies to the testimony which is delivered in a different way and under different circumstances. He has used the term “ testimony ” in its generality, when he should have distinguished between one mode of testimony and another — the one bearing those distinct and specific marks which we have ex- perienced to be indicative of truth, the other bearing its own peculiar and distinct marks also, which are specifically diverse 52 MR. HUME S OBJECTION from the former, and which we have experienced to be indicative of falsehood. The same experience which begets a diffidence in the latter testimony, begets a confidence in the former ; and we see in this department the working of the same uniform principle which obtains in all other departments of observation. It is just the principle which leads us to look for the same result in the same circumstances, and for different results in different cir- cumstances. The same experience which leads us to count on the sonorousness of wood, one sort of matter, and the insonorous- ness of sand, another sort of matter, leads us to count on the truth of one sort of testimony andtthe falsehood of another sort of testimony. Dr. Campbell, by making our faith in testimony a distinct principle in our intellectual constitution from our faith in experience, hath mystified his argument, and so far weakened it. In testimony, as in everything else, there is a diffidence in cases of an observed disjunction between the report and the event, and a confidence in the opposite cases of an observed con- junction — just as there is a diffidence in cases of an observed disjunction between a stroke and a noise, and a confidence in the opposite cases of an observed conjunction. The conjunction may, either in the one department or the other, be so unexcepted, as to advance the confidence into a certainty — a certainty differ- ent in kind as relating to different objects, the moral or the physical, but a certainty equal in degree, and alike based upon the evidence of observation in both. 18. But even should, notwithstanding all that we have said, should Campbell’s instinctive faith in testimony be sustained, this will not embarrass or impair our argument. It is not be- cause it would prejudice any refutation of ours that we desire to set it aside — but because we hold ourselves to be independent of its aid. We do not think that the imagination of such an in- stinct helps ; but neither do we think, that if admitted, it hin- ders the cause. Although there were a peculiar mental instinct in our constitution, by which we felt and estimated the force of testimony, this does not hinder that, over and above, there may be a superiority of experimental evidence in its favour. This last is what we attempt to demonstrate — and that, too, even in the case of miracles, where Mr. Hume alleges the superiority of the experience against the testimony to be quite overwhelming. It is on this, and without having recourse to any peculiar in- stinct, that we would rest the strength of our argument. We think that our refutation has at least a greater obviousness to TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 53 recommend it than that of Dr. Campbell ; and on the other hand, should his be sustained by any as a valid refutation, this does not stand in the way of ours, but only affords two solutions in- stead of one for the difficulty in question. Yet for our own part we cannot help the impression of a cause being injured by an ob- scure argument, even though, otherwise, it should be strongly and abundantly propped by such arguments as are distinct and obvious to every understanding. And we do think that the alle- gation of a peculiar instinct for testimony has wrought this very mischief in the controversy which now engages us — it being, in the first place, not very obvious in itself, and secondly, though admitted as to its existence, furnishing no certain data by which to estimate the argumentative strength which should be assigned to it — so that an experimental refutation seems still to be called for. 19. Certain it is, that in all arguments the unnecessary mul- tiplication of first principles ought to be avoided. This has more than once been resorted to for the defence of religion — but not, we fear, without giving to its enemies the impression of a desperate cause. When Hume alleged our want of experience in the making of worlds, and would have built his Atheism on the assertion that the world was a singular effect, this was met by Reid and Stewart with their counter- affirmation, that the argument for design, as indicated by the beneficial adaptations which our universe exhibits, was not grounded on experience at all — but that this design could be read immediately by the mind, through a distinct faculty of prompt and peculiar discernment which they were pleased to ascribe to it.* And in like manner, when the same infidel philosopher alleged our want of experience for miracles, and would have built his Deism on the assertion thaf our variable and defective experience for the truth of testi- mony could never so outweigh our uniform experience against the truth of miracles, as to make it possible that the credit of such extraordinary events should ever be established by the re- port of our fellow-men — this was met by Dr. Campbell with the assertion of an evidence in testimony apart from experience and independent of experience. It was certainly a signal honour done to the intellectual tactics of Mr. Hume, that for the pro- * Perhaps it is the same cause in both instances — the rapidity of the mind’s most familiar and more especially its inferential processes, which has led Reid and Stewart to the imagina- tion of a peculiar instinct being concerned in our reasonings upon design, and Dr Campbell to the like imagination of a peculiar mental instinct in our reasonings upon testimony. 54 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION tection of our cause, two new principles had to be invented wherewith to complicate still more the philosophy of our mental constitution. Yet without such device, we think that in both instances the mischief of his argument might be neutralized — and that without the allegation of any mystic oi peculiar tact whatever, both our belief of contrivance in nature, and our be- lief of miracles from testimony, might be made to rest on an experimental basis. Section II . — On the Power of the Evidence of Testimony. 1. Mr. Hume’s affirmation is that we have never experienced a violation of the laws of nature, but that we have often expe- rienced the falsehood of testimony ; and the argument which he grounds upon this affirmation is, that it is not in the power of testimony to establish the truth of such a violation — for this would be making the weaker experience prevail over the stronger, that which is unstable and uncertain prevail over that which is con- stant and immutable. To meet this, Dr. Campbell asserts that our faith in testimony is a distinct principle from our faith in experience — that the two are not of the same species ; and, therefore, cannot be compared together, as things which are the same in kind, but different in degree ; or that the one does not stand to the other in the relation of a whole to its part, and so, greater than its part — that, generically diverse, they, in fact, are independent and incommensurable — a supposition which, if true, might nullify the argument of Hume, yet mystify the whole subject, by leaving us in the dark, as to the relative value of two elements now made so utterly disparate, and incapable of being referred to a common standard of measurement. It is already understood that we decline all participation in this prin- ciple of Dr. Campbell ; and are willing to forego any benefit- which may be imagined to have come by it to the controversy. We are willing to join issue on the assumption that our faith in testimony resolves itself into our faith in experience — and where- as, in opposition to this, it has been argued by Dr. Campbell that experience weakens our faith in testimony instead of strength- ening it ; we have endeavoured to show that it only weakens our faith in one sort of testimony, while it strengthens our faith in another. In the first instance, it may look adversely to our cause that we should thus detach from it a consideration which TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 55 has long been enlisted upon its side — but the same principle which serves to neutralize the friendly argument is, we think, the most effectual wherewith to meet and to extinguish the hostile argument in this controversy. That force is not to be deprecated, either in military or intellectual tactics, which over- throws the adversary, even though, to make room for it, an im- potent auxiliary must be displaced from the field. 2. We think, then, that both the combatants have erred, by ascribing to testimony in the general , what should only have been ascribed to a certain sort of testimony, and which is in no way ascribable to a certain other sort of it. The diffidence of testimony which Campbell affirms that experience teaches us, he leaves the reader to understand, as being a diffidence of all testi- mony, whereas, experience teaches us to distrust that testimony only which is presented to our notice with the usual character- istics of falsehood ; and, on the other hand, to confide in the testimony which is presented to our notice with the re verge cha- racteristics of truth. But Mr. Hume equally misses the same important distinction, when he affirms, that our experience in the truth of testimony is not so uniform as our experience in the constancy of nature. We would reply, of what testimony is it that our experience in its truth is not so uniform ? We allow the assertion in regard to that testimony which bears upon it the marks of imposture. We further ' allow it of the testimony which, without any glaring marks of imposture, may have the gainly and prepossessing appearance of trnth without its reality. But we cannot allow it of all testimony. We affirm that a tes- timony is conceivable — nay, that a testimony has often been given, having such marks and characteristics of truth accumu- lated upon it, and in such circumstances of unlikelihood or moral impossibility of its falsehood, that we can aver with the utmost confidence of such testimony, that it never has deceived us and never will. What Mr. Hume charges testimony in the general with, is very often realized in one species of testimony — not so often in a second — less frequently in a third — much seldomer in a fourth — with the exceeding rarity of an occurrence quite mar- vellous in a fifth — and never in a sixth species of testimony. The subtle error of Mr. Hume’s sophistry lies in this, that he makes all testimony responsible for all the instances of falsehood — whereas he should make each species responsible only for its own instances. This needs well to be pondered — for it is really here that the whole plausibility of his argument lies. The 56 MR. hitme's objection sophistry retains its force, so long as we look to testimony in the gross — divide the testimony into its kinds, and the sophistry is dissipated. 3. In estimating the credit of a narration, our confidence in the things which are testified is according to the kind of testi- mony. It makes no deduction from this confidence, to he told that testimony has often deceived us. We reply, has this kind of testimony deceived us ? It were thought a strange procedure in ordinary life, to lay upon one man of strict and undeviating honesty any portion of the discredit which is attached to another man who is habitually an impostor, or who has been detected even in one instance of fraud or falsehood. It were equally strange to lay upon testimony, marked throughout by all the characters and accompanied with all the pledges of integrity, the burden of that distrust which belongs to testimony, of specifically distinct, nay opposite characteristics. To recur to an illustration already given, from tide-gauges constructed on different principles, and so differing in their results, those of one species being more and of another less correct in their indications of high and low water. That tide-gauges in general have deceived us, is surely no good reason why we should suspect the intimations of that sort of tide-gauge which never deceived us. It were not very discriminating to accumu- late the burden of all the discredit which attaches to the worst kinds of the instrument, and lay it on the best kind of instru- ment — to collect into one sum the failures of the one which has been found erroneous once in ten times, and of the other which has been found erroneous once in twenty times, and of the other which has been so found once in fifty times, and of the other once in a hundred — and, to make this sum go in deduction from the credit of that instrument which has never been found errone- ous at all. This were most irrational with the testimony of these mechanical ; and it were just equally irrational with the testi- mony of moral instruments. It is, however, the very irration- ality into which Mr. Hume has fallen. He charges the general testimony of human witnesses with falsehood ; and he makes this charge adhere to all and to every sort of testimony. He holds it enough to set aside the credibility of reputed miracles, that we never experienced miracles to be true ; but that we have often experienced testimony to be false. We ask, did he ever experience this sort of testimony to be false ? He tells us that we are never deceived by trusting to the constancy of nature ; TC THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 57 but that testimony often deceives us. We ask, did such testi- mony ever deceive us ? The way in which we would meet the general charge of Mr. Hume against testimony, is, by the separa- tion of testimony into its kinds, and making each kind respon- sible for itself. Each kind has its own special prognostics ; and, as in all other cases of experience, each has its own correspond- ing result. It were strange to anticipate, from testimony having one set of prognostics, the result which belongs to testimony having another set of prognostics. But this is just what Mr. Hume has done. He lays on the kind of testimony which is quite unex- cepted, the burden of the exceptions that belong to other and inferior kinds of testimony. He infers, that because certain species of testimony have deceived us — this species, the purest and the highest, may deceive us also. He does not sink the highest to the discredit of the lowest ; but he at least lays upon it a deduction equal in amount to an average taken from all sorts and all instances of testimony. He would lay upon the testimony that never once misgave, the guilt and the suspicion of all the misgivings that ever took place in testimony — and, because he is able to plead the constancy of nature, against the deceit or the uncertainty that belongs to certain classes of testi- mony — he thinks that he might plead it against that class of testimony whose truth is unfaltering as are the ordinances of nature, as constant and immutable as any of her laws. 4. We hold, that the very principle which serves to rectify the one combatant, serves also to refute the other. Indeed, we should not, perhaps, have insisted at such length on the rectifi- cation of an error in Campbell, had it not been to familiarize ourselves with the very same reasoning, which best prepares us for the refutation of his adversary. Had Dr. Campbell separated testimony into its different species, he would not have come forth with an assertion of such sweeping generality, as that experience begets a diffidence in testimony — or, at least, he would have recognised a kind of testimony, our faith in which is strengthened by every day's experience. Had Mr. Hume made the same separation, he would not have come forth with the alike general assertion, that our experience of the constancy of nature was stronger than our experience of the truth of testimony — or, at least, he would have recognised a certain kind of testimony, that as certainly indicated the event which it related as any one term of an established sequence indicates the other term. He had no more right to make the deceitfulness of certain sorts of testimony 58 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION bring a doubtfulness on others, than he has to make the insonor- ousness of certain material surfaces the ground of a suspicion that certain other surfaces, which had never failed to emit a sound on being struck, might nevertheless fail on the next ex- periment being tried with them. It were a strange inference, that because we expect no sonorousness from sand, which ex- perience now tells us has not the property — therefore, we must not have the same confident experience as before in the sonor- ousness of wood, which all experience tells us has the property. But it is not more strange thus to apply the experience which we have had upon one surface of matter to all surfaces, than to apply the experience we have had of one species of testimony to all the species. We recognise a wooden surface, and can dis- tinguish it from one of sand before that we have struck upon it ; and have just the same ground, from experience, for anticipating a noise from the one as for having no such expectation from the other. We recognise an honest testimony and can distinguish it from a suspicious one, without our immediate perception of the events that are related by them ; and have the very same ground, from experience, for being sure of the one event and doubtful of the other. All surfaces have a common resemblance, in that they are surfaces — yet one may be so unlike to another as to present a wholly distinct antecedent, and so give birth to a wholly distinct consequent. All testimonies bear a common re- semblance, in that they are testimonies — yet one may be so un- like to another as to present the distinct term of a wholly distinct sequence, and so to warrant a different, nay an opposite inference in regard to the other term. While Mr. Hume has professed to deify experience, he has been mainly inattentive to her lessons — confounding the trains which she presents, though she presents them as wholly unlike to each other ; losing sight, because of one general term that is expressive, no doubt, of a general simi- larity, of the specific dissimilarities that are included in it ; and treating the whole matter so indiscriminately, as to look for one and the same consequent from different antecedents, or as to infer one and the same antecedent from different consequents. 5. Both in structure and in complexion, one sort of testimony may differ as much from another sort, as one material substance differs in structure and complexion from another material sub- stance. Of the substances, each gives its own distinct evolu- tions ; and of the two testimonies each is attended with its own distinct result. We never think, because of the want of sonor- TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 59 ousness in one sort of substance, to lessen our confidence in the sonorousness of another sort of substance, which we have always found to possess this property. And neither ought the falsehood of one sort of testimony to lessen our confidence in the truth of another sort of testimony which we have always found to be true. But not so with Mr. Hume. He makes the falsehood of the first operate, in the way of deduction, from our confidence in the second — just as if the experienced insonorousness of earth, should make ns less sure than before of the always experienced sonor- ousness of wood or of metal. In the generic resemblance of things, he overlooks the specific distinction which there is be- tween them — and tries to confound or to hide the distinction under the generality of a common name. 6. By this' habit of confounding the things which are generic- ally alike, however specifically different, we should traverse all the lessons of experience. The thing is imaginable, that there should be twelve species of birds, each having its own appro- priate colour, and each its own special and appropriate note.. If we only knew of an individual, belonging to some one or other of the species, that generally, it was a bird, but knew not to what species it belonged, we should be far from certainty in re- gard to the specific kind of note that was emitted by it — and it would be at the hazard of twelve to one against the assertion, if we venture to affirm which of the twelve notes it was. But sup- pose that we were made further to know, not alone of the bird generally, but of its specific colour, this would advance our knowledge of the note which it gave forth to absolute certainty. After ascertaining it to be white, or green, or yellow, we should be at no loss for the corresponding note to each or any colour — and that, on the basis of our past experience, from which we learned what the certain colour and certain note were, which stood invariably related to each other. But were Mr. Hume’s argument on testimony consistently followed out, our uncertainty and diffidence in regard to the note would still adhere to us, even after the colour had been ascertained. On being told generally that a certain note had proceeded from a bird, he would blend all the specific varieties into one under this general appellation of the creature — and, overlooking the consideration, that to the particular colour which had been certified and made known to him, there belonged a particular note, he would still hesitate and be uncertain, because of the experience that other notes had proceeded from the genus. The proper reply is — But 60 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION did not this note, and no other, always proceed from the species ? — and the reply is equally a proper and effective one by which to overset his argument respecting testimony. We might ima- gine, too, twelve distinct species comprehended under the generic term “ testimony” — from that kind of it which, by all experience, is characteristic of habitual falsehood, to that kind of it which, by all experience also, is characteristic of scrupulous and un- veering honesty. It should not shake our confidence in the indications given forth by the last, that we had experienced something different from truth or opposite to truth in other sorts of testimony, which gave forth other indications. It is quite enough that we never experienced aught but truth in this sort of testimony — and we are not to lay upon it the servitude of all the falsehood that has ever been detected in other sorts of it. The question, Did we ever experience any other than a certain specific note from such a coloured bird ? is in no way a more competent question' — than, Did we ever experience any other than truth in such a coloured or in such a circumstanced testi- mony ? The moral certainty, in the one case, is just as great as the physical certainty in the other. The two certainties relate to different objects, and so may be said to be of different kinds — but they are of equal degree in both. 7. Give me an individual with all the indications, both in his manner and conduct, of perfect moral honesty ; let me recognise, whether in his oral or written testimony, a directness, and a simplicity, and a high tone of virtuousness, and withal a con- sistent while minutely circumstantial narrative, which all ex- perience declares to. be the signs and the characteristics of an upright testimony ; let me understand that he forfeited every interest which is dear to nature, the countenance of friends, the affection of relatives, the comfort and security of home, the blessings of domestic society, the distinctions as well as the plea- sures of affluence, and lastly, the enjoyment of life itself, in a resolute adherence to the avowals which he made, and which had brought upon him such a weight of persecution and odium ; let me plainly see that there is nothing in the whole exhibition which can either mark the falsehood of imposture or the frenzy of enthusiasm ; let me know the subject-matter of his attestation to be some palpable fact, addressed to senses which could not be deceived, because, instead of a momentary glare, there was daily and repeated converse with a visible thing, and where both the sight and the touch lent to each other a mutual con- TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 61 iirmation ; let me further make the supposition that the state- ment in question was the resurrection of one from the dead, and who had been seen to expire by thousands of assembled witnesses. — If it be objected that the truth of such a fact would imply a phenomenon wholly unexampled in the history of the species, our reply is, that the falsehood of such a testimony would imply a phenomenon equally unexampled in the history of the species — if it be said that we have no experience of such an event turning out to be real, it may be said as truly, that we have no experience of such an averment turning out to be fallacious ; and the one singularity, if it do not overmatch the other, will at least neutralize it. There is nothing in the occasional falsehood of other and inferior grades of testimony, which can inflict dis- credit or disparagement upon this. It stands aloof from all the suspicion which attaches to these, because exempted from all those similarities which make it questionable like these. The renovation of a lifeless corpse that had been laid in the tomb, but emerged from it again in the full possession of wonted activity and consciousness, is said to be a miracle — but equal, at least would be the miracle of either a falsehood or an error in him who, throughout the whole of a life devoted to the highest objects of philanthropy, made constant assertion of his having seen and handled and companied with the risen man — who maintained this testimony amid the terrors and the pains of martyrdom — and in the words of such an exclamation as “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” breathed it out as the last and the dying utterance of his faith. 8. In the course of our reading on this controversy, we have met with no work which contains a full development of our argument, or where the author kept a steady hold of it in the course of his reasoning. Yet it is but fair to mention, that it must, in various degrees of dimness or of distinctness, have been present to the minds of several of the writers. The principle has been slightly noticed, but not insisted on, like a germ that did not germinate. It is well that it has ever come, though but momentarily, into their view’ — for this may be held as their recognition of its soundness, although, as if without an adequate sense of its importance and power, they have only bestowed on it a passing notice, instead of expanding it into a distinct and formal refutation. 8. The following are a few r instances — Le Bas, in his review of Penrose, presents us with the following abstract of an argu- 02 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION ment by the latter against what he terms Hume’s “ wretched fallacy.” “ The general improbability of miracles is undoubtedly very great ; but this improbability, great as it is, can never accumulate to a certainty that all miracles are without exception false. The general probability that human testimony should be faithful and trustworthy may perhaps be slight (or at least it may be allowed to be so for the purposes of this argument) — but this probability is capable, under some circumstances, of being converted into a moral certainty that in a particular instance the testimony is true. To argue from the general improbability of any class of occurrences to the universal certainty of their falsehood is manifestly illegitimate. But there is nothing illo- gical in proceeding, even from a considerable probability of their falsehood in ordinary cases, to a positive certainty of their truth in extraordinary ones. We have here a distinction of immense importance. It looks very plausible to say that miracles are highly improbable, while the deceitfulness of human testimony is notorious ; and on the strength of this vague and general comparison to reject all accounts of preternatural agency. But the above considerations effectually unmuffle this egregious sophism. They enable us to see that there may be cases in which even the miracle is not improbable, and in which the testimony is absolutely conclusive.” 9. Dr. John Cook, in his treatise on the Books of the New Testament — a work throughout of strenuous elaboration, has in the following sentence made a good beginning towards the refuta- tion of Hume on the ground of experience : “ Every man's testi- mony is to be tried by the peculiar circumstances in which it has been given, and not by the truth or falsehood which other men in different circumstances may have uttered.” This should have made him independent of that instinctive propensity which Dr. Campbell ascribes to the human understanding — instead of which, he has recourse to it in the argument, and makes our belief in testimony an ultimate law of thought, and distinct from experi- ence. Both Penrose and he had hold of the principle which might have availed them for the vindication of testimony as an experimental evidence — a principle which the former announces with greater distinctness in the quotation that follows, than in the one that has been already given from him. “ Because there have been many false pretensions to miracles, this authorizes a summary rejection of all such made in like circumstances, while we retain our confidence in those made in wholly dissimilar circumstances.” TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 63 10. But nowhere have we met with a more distinct announce- ment of the true principle on this subject, than in the brief sen- tence by Dr. Whately, taken from his masterly treatise on Logic — u It w r ould be absurd to consider merely the average chances for the truth of testimony in the abstract , without inquiring what the testimony is, in the instance before us.” 11. The reasoning of Mr. Hume may be cast into the follow- ing syllogism. Testimony has deceived us, but Nature is never known to have done so by the violation of her constancy : But these violations of Nature's constancy termed miracles are only reported to us by testimony : Therefore these events never known to have happened, as being deponed to by an evidence that has often deceived us, must be rejected as untrue. — The fallacy of this syllogism is akin to that which is termed by logicians the fallacy of composition — the middle term being used in the one premise distributively, and in the other collectively. In the above syllogism the middle term, or testimony, is used collectively in one of the premises and distributively in another. It is true that testimony has deceived us — but this ought not to have been charged collectively upon all testimony ; and it is also true that miracles, especially the miracles of the gospel, are reported to us by testimony, but if by a sort of testimony which never has de- ceived us, this at least countervails, if it do not overmatch, the improbability which attaches to the event in question because of its miraculous character. In this section of our argument w r e may be said to have but neutralized the hostile argument of Mr. Hume. In the following section we shall attempt to establish something more than a counterpoise. We shall attempt to esta- blish a preponderance. 12. After what has been advanced, we regard it as unneces- sary to advert to the views of Dr. Price, who shares in the general sentiment of the philosophers of his period, in making our faith in testimony distinct from the faith of experience. Section III. — On the Power even of a single Testimony to accredit improbable or singular Events. 1. We hold ourselves to have abundantly proved, that even a single testimony may be of force, to countervail the improba- bility which is grounded on the singularity of the event that it records. In opposition to the statement, that no experience has furnished another instance of such an event being true, we might 64 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION be able to affirm that no experience has furnished another instance of such a testimony being false. We can establish in this way, at least an equipoise, between the unlikelihood of a marvellous occurrence being real, and the unlikelihood of its supporting testimony being deceitful. But we require more than an equipoise between the event and its testimony. We require an overpassing force on the part of the latter, ere we reach the length of a posi- tive evidence in behalf of the former. Now we believe that such an overpassing force may often belong to a single testi- mony — or, more properly perhaps, to the testimony of a single witness. Not that we need to avail ourselves of this considera- tion, in demonstrating the historic truth of the Christian miracles. The great strength, as we afterwards hope to prove, of the argu- ment for them — lies in the combination and multitude of testi- monies. Still, it is an interesting inquiry, in how far a separate testimony, or rather a separate witness may suffice for establish- ing the truth of a miracle. We shall therefore bestow some consideration upon this — not so much because of its being a curi- ous speculation in itself, but because of certain analogies which it suggests between the evidence of testimony and the evidence of the senses in relation to miracles, and which serve for the further enforcement and illustration of our general argument. 2. To illustrate then this evidence of testimony by the evi- dence of the senses — a man, by a single act of perception, may be convinced of the truth of an event wholly unexampled in his- tory, or of the reality of an object wholly unexampled in nature. Let him be consciously awake and in possession of his right senses — and his eye will give him the authoritative intimation of every- thing within the range of his vision, however anomalous or un- precedented the thing may be — an information on which he will place instant and implicit reliance. Should there be a low-water at the regular time of high-water, one glance at the shore would -convince him of its reality. This breach of the customary suc- cessions of nature would be verified to him by a single look — nor is it difficult to explain why, on the principles of experience, he should have full confidence in the truth of what is seen by him. The number of times in which, to his observation, a regular tide never has misgiven, is but an insignificant fraction when com- pared with the number of times in which his eye never has de- ceived him. If he have taken note of a high and low water a thousand times in his life, he has taken note of the eyes’ infor- mations and of their correctness at least a million times. This TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 65 organ is not only his instrument of observation for the alterna- tions of the sea — but an instrument of observation for all the visible phenomena that have ever come within the reach of his notice. He is verifying its informations every minute of his waking history. He does not confine it to any one phenomenon, but is ever gathering new confidence in its accuracy, exercising it as he does on thousands of phenomena. An anomaly in regard to some one phenomenon might prove an exception to some regu- larity that has been observed by us hundreds of times before — yet if this anomaly have been seen by us, it is instantly and firmly believed notwithstanding — else we behoved to admit the still more violent and incredible anomaly of deceitful intimation by the eye, or an exception to a regularity that may have been observed many thousands of times before. It is like a tide-gauge that never failed in giving correct intimation ; and so had an equal claim to be trusted for its accuracy, as the phenomenon of which it gave the intimation had to be expected for its regularity. Should the same tide-gauge be applied to other measurements besides — should we have observed the unfailing correctness wherewith it indicates the level of fluids ten times oftener than we have observed the regular variations of level in the waters of the ocean — then the strength of our belief in the testimony of the instrument should more than countervail, it should ten times overpass the strength of our expectation in that regularity which we suppose to have been violated. 3. Now what is true of the testimony of a material instrument may be alike true of the testimony of many a moral instrument. In our daily converse with society, we may be called upon to have greatly more frequent observation of human testimony than of many a distinct class of phenomena in the territory of nature. We may have much oftener observed that sequence by which the reality of an event stands related to a faithful testimony than we have observed the sequence which relates a high-water to a certain position of the moon in the heavens — and, on the ground of this arithmetical superiority, we may be justified in believing the one witness who depones to the reverse phenomenon of a low-water when there should have been a high. It is true that we are in- dependent of this point — nor need we labour tp establish it. It is not for the mere purpose of vindicating the actual historical evidence for the miracles of Christianity, that we thus insist on the power of one single and unsupported testimony. But it goes to complete and the more to accredit our theory, when we can VOL. VI. E MR. HUME’S OBJECTION 60 demonstrate it to be in unison with the felt and undoubted phe- nomena of human belief. And we must often have been sensible of the unhesitating belief that we give even to an account of one witness though he should depone to matters altogether unexpect- ed and altogether new, different from or opposite to all former experience. Often on the single word of one whom we knew to be an honest man, we should believe in any fact or object how- ever special that he might tell us of — as of the tide that rises to the height of fifty feet in one part of the world, or of the wind that blows from the same quarter all the year round in another part, or of stones that have fallen from upper regions of the at- mosphere, or of results however unexpected in the processes of science — as when the strange and before unheard or unseen evo- lution of some one experiment is implicitly believed on the faith of but one testimony; 4. The same reason, then, which justifies our belief in the violation of a wonted sequence on the faith of one observation, may justify our belief in that violation on the faith of one testi- mony. The number of times in which we have experienced such a particular sequence may be greatly overpassed by the number of times in which w r e have experienced the unfailing truth either of such an observation in the one case, or of such a testimony in the other. And it serves still further to establish our vindication of the evidence of testimony, when it is considered that we do it on the same principle by which we would vindicate the evidence of the senses. The truth is, that instances can be alleged of one of our senses having deceived us, as well as of the testimony of others having deceived us. There can be alleged cases of false perception as well as of false testimony — and were Mr. Hume's argument consistently carried out, it might as well be contended that we should not believe a miracle though we saw it, as that we should not believe a miracle however it may be re- ported to us. It might be said in the one case as in the other, that we have had no experience of miracles, but we have had experience of the senses being imposed upon. Our reply is the same to both. Testimony may have misled you — but did ever such testimony ? Perception, too, may have deluded you, but did ever such perception? You may have had experience a hun- dred times that such a sequence never once misgave. But you may have had the experience a thousand times that such an ob- servation or such a testimony never did mislead you. In this case, and without having recourse to the supposition of there be- TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 67 in g any particular species of evidence, either in the senses or in testimony, we, on experimental ground alone, obtain an overpass- ing evidence from both. 5. But we are yet far from having made an adequate represen- tation of the multiple force that lies in the evidence of the senses — and from which we might still further illustrate the power that belongs to one testimony, or that belongs at least to the testimony of one witness. When by one look we observe an ob- ject which surprises us by its rarity, there may be a momentary suspicion on our part of the accuracy of our own perceptions, and we look again. We must all be conscious how soon it is that we can satisfy ourselves in this way — and with what rapi- dity, in fact, the evidence accumulates by this repetition of notices, so as at length to become quite overpowering. The truth is, that if one such look never deceived us above once in a thousand times, it carries in it the evidence of a thousand to one in favour of what is perceived by it ; and the concurrent evidence of two such looks, equal to the product of both, amounts to no less than a million to one. In like manner the evidence of three distinct looks is justly represented by the enormous pro- portion of a thousand millions to one, so that it is not to be marvelled at, if in a portion of time almost imperceptible we attain to absolute certainty regarding the reality of any object, however anomalous or unexpected that object may be. La Place, in his treatise on the doctrine of probabilities, admits this power of the senses to ascertain the truth even of events the most vio- lently improbable. He puts the case of a hundred dice being thrown into the air, and of their all falling on the same faces. “ If we had ourselves/’ he says, “ been spectators of such an event, we would not believe our own eyes, till we had scrupu- lously examined all the circumstances, and assured ourselves that there was no trick nor deception. After such an examination, we would not hesitate to admit it notwithstanding its great im- probability.”* Yet La Place, while he thus admits that the * The following is the translation of a passage from La Place’s Essai Philosophique sm les Probability, p. 15. Paris, 1814. “ We should not give credit to the testimony of a man who affirmed that he had seen a hundred dice thrown in the air, and that they all fell on the same faces. If we ourselves had been spectators of thi s event we should npt have believed our own eyes, till, after hav- ing scrupulously examined all the circumstances, we had assured ourselves of there being no deception. But after this examination we should not hesitate to admit it, in spite of its extreme improbability, and no one would try to explain it by having recourse to the idea of an illusion produced through a reversion of the laws of vision. We ought to conclude that 88 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION evidence of the senses may be enhanced to a degree that is quite overbearing, would set aside, summarily and at once, the evi- dence of testimony, without considering whether that evidence too might not be enhanced in the very same way. He, in the instance now adduced, vindicates, and aright too, the authority of the senses, but without inquiring whether he might not just so vin- dicate the authority of testimony. His reply, and it is a sound one, to the observation, that we have been deceived by the report of our own senses, would have been, that we never are deceived by the kind of report now given. He has not chosen to investi- gate, whether a like reply might not be made to the observation that we have been deceived by the report of other men, which is never by such a report as that wherein I am now resting my faith in some extraordinary event. But they are not the ene- mies of religion alone who have been insensible to the force of the probability of the constancy of the laws of nature is superior to the improbability of the event in question having taken place— a probability which should carry it over that of the best-attested historical facts. We may judge from this of the immense weight of testimony necessary to establish a suspension of the natural laws ; and what an abuse it were to apply here the ordinary rules of criticism. All those who, without this immense amount of testi- mony, rest what they advance on the recital of events contrary to these laws, weaken rather than augment that confidence which they seek to inspire— for such recitals make all the more probable the mistake or imposture of their authors. But that which lessens the belief of the enlightened, often confirms the faith of the vulgar ; and we have already given the reason of this. “There are some things so extraordinary that nothing can balance the improbability of them. But this, in virtue of a reigning opinion, can be weakened down to the point of ap- pearing inferior to the probability of the supporting testimonies ; and when this opinion undergoes a change, an absurd recital, admitted unanimously in the age which gave it birth, offers to succeeding ages but a new proof of the extreme influence of general opinion even on minds of the highest order.” The attentive reader will not fail to remark a certain perverse dexterity, by which, in comparing the evidence of testimony with the evidence of the senses, La Place gives to the latter the benefit of that constancy which obtains in the laws of nature— while he keeps out of view that the former also has its nature, and its laws, and their constancy. He is right in the extraordinary case which he has specified, in not believing his own eyes till he has made a further and careful examination of the report which they have brought to him. But he is not right in not believing testimony at all hazards, and without bestowing on it too in any instance when it depones to an event as extraordinary the same careful examination. Though sight has sometimes deceived me, did ever such a sight deceive me ? — is not a more competent question, than Though testimony has often deceived me, did ever such a testimony ? In passing from perception to testimony, La Place makes a strange transmutation between the medium of proof and the thing to be proved, and so pronounces against the latter evi- dence and in favour of the former ; but by a sort of reverse treatment, which of course lands him in a conclusion the reverse of what it ought to be. In estimating the evidence of per- ception, he attaches the consideration of nature’s constancy to the medium of proof, and withholds it from the thing to be proved — and thus makes the certainty of the proof prevail over the improbability, ho wever violent, of the thing to be proved. In estimating the evi- . TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 69 such an application. It has been missed by its ablest defend- ers. For example, this matter, as far as the evidence of the senses is concerned, has been exceedingly well argued by Mr. Somerville,* in his acute and enlightened remarks on the Edin- burgh review of La Place’s book. The author had only to ex- tend a similar remark to testimony, and then he might have felt himself quite independent of the supposition that our faith in it was a peculiar instinct of the understanding. The truth of per- ception, in fact, and the truth of testimony, might both be advo- cated on the same grounds. It must be admitted that the senses have sometimes deceived us, but did ever the senses tried and exercised in this particular manner deceive us ? And it must be admitted that testimony has often deceived us, but did ever testi- mony given in such a style and under such circumstances, or so thoroughly sifted and examined as this has been — did ever such dence of testimony, he shifts the ground, or gratuitously attaches the consideration of na- ture’s constancy to the thing to be proved, and withholds it from the medium of proof— and thus assigns to the thing to be proved an impossibility so absolute, that no proof from testi- mony, however strong, can possibly establish it. Why did he not recollect his own ad- mission that the laws of the mental have as great a uniformity as those of the material world ? — and if the study of these laws enables us to distinguish between the cases of true and false perception, it also enables us to distinguish between the cases of true and false testimony. * We cannot too highly appreciate the merit of the contribution which this most respect- able Scottish clergyman, the minister of a remote and retired country parish, has made to the Christian argument. The following extract will serve as a specimen of his able pamphlet, entitled, “ Remarks on an article in the * Edinburgh Review,’ in which the Doctrine of Hume on Miracles is maintained.” It was first published in 1815. The article referred to is a review of La Place’s Essay. “ I shall now examine the reason which he 'La Place) assigns why we would believe our own eyes in case of our seeing a hundred dice fall on the same faces, or a stone suspended in the air. It is, says he, our belief of the immutability of the laws of vision. “ This, like the former, is mere assertion, without an attempt towards proof ; and, like the former, it must also be referred to general opinion. The question is, why do we believe, in such a wonderful instance, that our eyes have not deceived us ? that we do not see deuces on the dice when they are really aces ? La Place says, because we are persuaded of the im- mutability of the laws of vision. But the fact is, we are persuaded of no such matter, for we know that in many instances a man sees a single object as double ; and in many cases, as of drunkenness or disease, he believes that he sees objects which have no existence at all. In any particular instance, therefore, whether common or extraordinary, a man believes his eyes, because he is convinced by a rapid, and perhaps unobserved process of reasoning that the general laws of vision have not, in that particular instance, been changed or suspended. Thb process of reasoning on which he arrives at that conclusion is that on all other objects with which he has been long acquainted, his eyes are doing their office truly as usual. He looks up to the sky, and sees not two suns but one ; and he observes all the people who were about him, not having two heads, or four eyes, but the usual number. Finding his eyes testifying truly in all these matters, he believes that they are doing the same, in the case of the dice or the stone. All this, like many other processes of reasoning, may be so rapid as to 70 MU. hume’s objection testimony deceive us? Had there been aught in the sophistry of Home, it would have disparaged the evidence of the senses as well as that of testimony. But both admit of being alike vindi- cated, and that by means of one and the same argument. 6. It is possible that in a fit of insanity my imagination may prevail over my senses ; but if now in the cool and conscious possession of all my faculties, such an exception is not applicable to the instance on hand. Or it is possible that by one rapid glance at an object, I may be thrown into a momentary delusion respecting it ; but if it present the same aspect, after I have rubbed mine eyes, or tried them well on other familiar and well- known objects, and then looked again and again at the object in question, all suspicion is rightfully done away, and a fixed well-warranted certainty succeeds in its room. It is thus that the intimations, even of one sense, may be abundantly confirmed by a repetition of trials and exercises upon itself. Or additionally to this, the intimations of one sense may be verified by the con- current intimations of another. If, after all, for example, there should be still a lingering scepticism in the mind, the evidence of touch may be superadded to that of sight — and both senses may concur in deponing, that the appearance in question is indeed a substantial and not a spectral one. A prodigious aug- mentation might thus accrue to the evidence upon the whole. The truth is, if it be but once in a million of times, that such a sigiit as I have now gotten, when taken singly, has ever been be unobserved ; but that this is really the ground of belief, and the process by which a per- son arrives at it, will appear evident from this circumstance — that if any doubt were for- mally to arise in his own mind, or to be suggested by another, this is the very plan he would have recourse to in order to be sure what was the fact. He would not rest on the general ground, that any change in the laws of vision was impossible ; but, knowing that such changes are not only possible but frequent, he would proceed to try his eyes upon other objects, or to examine the objects in question by his other senses, that he might know whether or not any such change had taken place in the laws of vision in the present instance. The credit, therefore, which we give to our own eyes, when we see any wonderful appearance, is not founded on our persuasion of the immutability of the laws of vision, but on this, that in that instance we have abundant proof that the laws of vision are not changed.” We willingly accept the premises both of Hume and the Edinburgh reviewer, the latter of whom affirms, “that testimony itself derives all its force from experience seems very certain.” We cannot agree with him, however, when he tells us that — “ The first author, we believe, who stated fairly the connexion between the evidence of testimony and the evidence of experience was Hume, in his Essay on Miracles, a work full of deep thought and enlarged views ; and, if we do not stretch the principle so far as to interfere with the truths of religion, abounding in maxims of great use in the conduct of life, as well as in the speculations of philosophy”— still less can we agree with him in the assertion respecting certain facts which he specifies, “that their improbability is so strong, that no testimony can prevail against it.” TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 71 deceived ; and if it be also once in a million of times, that such a touch as I have now had, when taken singly, has ever been deceived — there is the enormous probability of a million of million of times on the side of that compound evidence which is founded on the agreement of both taken together. In all these ways, it will be observed, that one may have the utmost con- fidence in the reality of events, however unexpected or mar- vellous, when thus taken cognizance of by the senses — the confidence, in fact, of absolute certainty — or the certainty of what has been termed ocular demonstration — so named, because, though different in kind, held to be equal in degree to that of mathematical demonstration. 7. It is not because that practically we stand in need of it for the Christian argument, but in justice to the philosophy of the subject that we present this analogy between the case of testimony and the case of the senses. In like manner, as there are circumstances which enhance, and that to an indefinite extent, the evidence of the senses ; so may the evidence of testi- mony be enhanced in the same way, and that without calling in the aid of other testimony ; for at present, though under no necessity to push the argument thus far, we are employed in demonstrating the way in which accessions may be made to the force that lies in one testimony, or rather that lies in the testi- mony of one witness. In like manner, then, as to verify some strange information by the eye we try the goodness of that organ upon other objects of sight — so to* verify some equally strange information brought us by a fellow-man, we may try his fitness as a medium of conveyance for other informations. It is thus that if we find an unexcepted honesty and an unexcepted ac- curacy of remembrance in his depositions as to all other things, this fortifies our confidence in his deposition as to the thing in question. And then, when satisfied in this way that he is a faithful and competent informer, there does lie a strength in his repeated asseverations, just as when there is a consciousness of a wholesome state of the organs, strength is given to the evi- dence of the senses by the repeated looks that we cast on any object which may be placed before us. Every time that he tes- tifies anew the thing at issue, he makes another draught upon his memory by which to verify the correctness of his recital, and another draught upon his moral principles that would be exposed to violence by the recital of a falsehood. If we have already demonstrated of certain testimony, that the thing which 72 MK. HUME’S OBJECTION it depones to is not more extraordinary that would be the false- hood of its own deposition, then by this one deposition an equipoise is gained between the truth of the matter in question and its falsehood. But surely the testimony gathers in strength by its being repeated and persisted in — so as to make the sup- position of its truth outweigh that of its falsehood. It is always, we should imagine, reckoned a favourable circumstance, that a witness perseveres in his story — and more especially if he do so, not only when put anew to the question by others, but should he, in coming forth with it spontaneously, prove how intimately the conviction of it is blended with the whole system and habi- tude of his thoughts — and still more, should he, at every fresh utterance, incur a fresh danger and inconvenience, which he might easily have avoided. It is thus that through the medium of but one acquaintance, of whose soundness and integrity I have the daily and accumulating evidence, I might come to the moral certainty even of a miracle, should he thus persevere both in vouching for it by a constant testimony, and in proceeding on it by the whole habit and regulation of his life. Such a witness as this may be regarded as an organ through whom I receive the knowledge of what happens at a distance, just as a telescope or even an eye is the organ by which I become acquainted with the appearance and reality of distant objects. And, just as I gain an augmented confidence in the informations of the latter, when upon repeated trials I find the same consistent appearance of some visible phenomenon presented to my notice — -so, in the repeated and consistent testimonies of the living organ, the human informer, there would seem at each time to be a new guarantee for the truth of his one averment. 8. But there is still another way in which a multiple force is given to the evidence of the senses. We have already explained how this is obtained by a number of distinct trials with the organ, as in the case of sight, by a repetition of looks, for ex- ample.* But beside this way, a multiple force might be ob- tained, even at one look, by a number of distinct objects, seen at the same time, with the anomalous or extraordinary object in question ; and each in perfect keeping or harmony therewith. * If the first look by which I have obtained my information has not deceived me more than once in a million times — and the second look be of the same kind and quality with the first, then by this simple repetition I obtain the probability of a million millions to one for the truth of the information. It is thus that by a series of looks, or which is tantamount to this, by a prolonged look I become satisfied in a time too short for being computed, that there is no deceptioa TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 73 This number of contemporaneous things, perceived along with some given occurrence, might overbear, with a superiority almost infinite, any improbability, founded on the rare or unprecedented nature of the occurrence itself. An anomalous low-water, for example, would accredit itself, we have already affirmed by a single look on the part of the observer — but if, in addition to this, he further, in the conscious possession of recollection and of all his faculties, recognised every well-known rock within the field of vision, that the sea, on retiring, leaves behind it, and the whole arrangement of those objects which had indelibly im- pressed themselves upon his remembrance — each object would be a distinct witness for him of the trueness of his perception. Even granting that he could be deceived, when observing exclusively, the now lower level of the water, he could not be deceived in his perception of the sand and the ground and the rocks, and all the familiar objects that were now uncovered by the retreat of the ocean. It would require not one only, but a multitude of depo- sitions, the falsehood of each of which were violently improbable, to impose on a spectator thus attempting to verify the informa- tion of his own senses by an examination of each separate object on the exposed and forsaken beach. The indefinitely large pro- duct of so many probabilities would outweigh the one improba- bility which was opposed to them — and which lay in the mere singularity of the event. There would not be the hesitation of a single minute, in the way of a full assurance that what he saw in appearance he saw in reality — and there is not a visible phenomenon, whether on earth or in the heavens, though a vio- lation of the undisturbed repose and stability of nature from time immemorial, that could not, on the strict principles of experi- mental calculation, be verified in the same way. The appear- ance of written characters in the sky, the arrest or retrogression of the sun, the vacillation of the moon in an unclouded atmos- phere so as to alternate along a given arch like the ball of a pendulum — are not only possible to God, but may be made cre- dible to man, with no other access to the knowledge of them than his actual senses, and no other grounds of judgment than the actual and received laws of evidence. The last phenomenon, in particular, might admit of many thousand verifications, and each of them as strong as the evidence of vision, upon each of the single objects of which the eye takes cognizance. For every vibration of the moon, there might be a corresponding vibration in the shadows which it casts of every terrestrial object. If 74 MR HUME S OBJECTION mistake was possible, in the direct perception of the moon in the heavens, there might be innumerable guarantees for the accu- racy thereof, in the perceived oscillation of the shadows upon earth. Let the observer but take notice, that for every move- ment which he sees, or which he fancies to see, of the luminary above, there is a correct and corresponding movement of each shadow below — and, if conscious all the while that his senses are in a wholesome state, he, with almost the speed of lightning, will be convinced that there is no fancy or illusion in the matter. The imagination might be deceived in one thing — though that deception would be as utterly in violation of all past experience, as the reality of the phenomenon in question — but it would need the concurrence of a thousand as strong violations, or the product of a thousand as strong improbabilities to deceive us in so many things, to deceive us in regard to the oscillation of all the shadows of which distinct observation might be taken, as to deceive us in regard to the one oscillation of the moon in the firmament. To admit the reality of the phenomenon, we have only to admit one exception to all experience. To reject its reality, we must admit the concurrence of a thousand exceptions to all experience. 9. We will not contend that the testimony of a single wit- ness admits of equal accessions to the force and intensity of its evidence, from a cause analogous to that which we have now been considering, in regard to the evidence of the senses. But surely it does give augmented weight to the testimony of a wit- ness for some unprecedented fact or phenomenon, when all that he testifies beside is either known to be true, or is in perfect keeping and consistency with the principal deposition. We may conceive him, for example, to avouch, on the evidence of his own senses, the resurrection of one from the dead. We have already affirmed, that such may be the peculiar characteristics of this testimony, and such the peculiar circumstances in which it was delivered, as to make its falsehood, though unsupported and alone, as improbable as the event testified. And surely it does superadd weight to this solitary deposition, when the same wit- ness depones to other facts wherewith it harmonizes, and the truth of which we either independently know, or have the same evidence for that we have for the main fact, in the strong and unsuspicious appearances of perfect integrity on the part of the witness. For example, when the resurrection is not only de- poned to, but the despair and affliction of friends at the death TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 75 and subsequent joy at the revival ; the sudden enlargement of prosperity to that cause which, but for the alleged resurrection, would have been annihilated, as any other infant cause, by the destruction of its founder ; the acceptance of the testimony on the part of the many to whom it was addressed ; and the variety of other things which entered into the narrative, and were so bound up as it were with the principal fact, that but for its truth they could have had no historical existence whatever — these all serve as confirmations of the single testimony in question. Each separate congruity affords a distinct guarantee against the nar- rator having been mistaken or deceived himself; while the man- ner of perfect undesignedness and simplicity wherewith each is introduced, might afford a distinct evidence for his not being a deceiver. If, apart then from such confirmations, the probability that lay in the testimony was just equal to the improbability that lay in the thing testified, then, with the confirmations, the former must outweigh the latter ; and though we do not ground the establishment of our cause on the force that might thus be superadded to the testimony of a single witness, we feel, that had we not attempted to make the exhibition of it that we have done, we should have been keeping back part at least of the strength of our argument. 10. This power, however, of a single testimony or of a single witness to establish the truth of a miracle, 1 is practically, and in reference to the miracles of the New Testament, a minor consi- deration. For the accrediting of our religion, it is not necessary to insist upon it. But if it can be explained, and without re- course to any peculiar instinct of the understanding, it serves to give completeness and consistency to our whole speculation. It might seem to warrant the imagination of such an instinct, that, in point of fact, the belief of a miracle might be felt upon the authority even of a single informer ; and that, with a certain number of credentials accumulated upon his person, the belief would be felt instantly and irreversibly. To be impressed rightly by such belief, it is not necessary that we should be able to state the grounds of it. Still, however, the explanation of the actual phenomena of belief is of itself an interesting object, when it can be accomplished. We hold that, in this instance, an account can be given of the phenomena without calling in the aid of any distinct or original principle in the constitution of the human mind — another example, out of the many, of that marvellous coincidence which obtains between the apparently intuitive 76 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION judgments of the vulgar, and the calculations of scientific men. 11. This marvellous coincidence, so well noticed by La Place in various parts of his work,* is not only one of his most pro- found, but one of the most solid of those general observations in which he has indulged himself, and by which he relieves the more abstruse and scientific character both of his Analytic Theory and of his Essay on Probabilities. It is not certainly the love of the marvellous, but strict and sound philosophy, which prompted him to make the observation ; and it might have led him, we think, to assign another possible reason for the faith of the vulgar, in certain miracles, at least, than the only one which he has been pleased to allege — even their love of the marvellous. Nothing can be truer than the harmony which obtains between their most rapid and confident intuitions on the one hand, and the results of strict calculation on the other. For example, what can be more prompt, and at the same time more unfailingly accurate, than their identification of a personal ac- quaintance — proceeding, doubtless, on the felt unlikelihood of any other person realizing the very combination of lineaments and features by which he is ascertained and distinguished from the rest of the species? Should there be only one man in a thousand who possesses a deceiving resemblance in any one in- dividual feature to the person in question, then it is by a very high power of a thousand, by a number amounting to many millions, that a calculator of probabilities would estimate the unlikelihood of any other person uniting all the same features and same peculiarities, or by which he would estimate the chance bordering upon certainty that he was not deceived in the particular instance before him. It is by such a product, in fact, of separate unlikelihoods, that a man can identify on the instant, not merely his own friend, but his own hat, his own staff, his own umbrella. It is the number of independent characteristics which meet in any of these articles, that leads to so swift and sound a conclu- sion in regard to them ; and precisely on the same principle, it * “ It is this principle of Daniel Bernoulli’s which makes the results of calculation to co- incide with the indications of common sense, and which affords the means of appreciating with some exactness these otherwise vague indications.” — Thdorie Analytique des Proba- bility, p. 440. 1812. “We see by this essay, that the Theory of Probabilities is nothing at bottom but good sense reduced to calculation. It makes us estimate with exactness what just spirits feel by a sort of instinct, and without being able to render an account of it.” — Essai Philosophique rur les Probabilites, p. 96. 1814. TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 77 is the number of the independent characteristics of truth meeting in one testimony which gives a power of conviction to it that surmounts the most violent improbability. This surely is a possible explanation of the fact, that so many enlightened minds, on a specific examination of the actual evidence for the miracles of Christianity, have deferred to them — long before Hume framed his metaphysical argument, or La Place revived it in a mathe- matical form. It is well, however, that it admits both of a metaphysical and mathematical refutation — the strength of which, however, becomes more palpable, when we pass, as in the follow- ing section, from the consideration of a single testimony to that of a concurrence of testimonies. Section IY . — On the Power which lies in the Concurrence of distinct Testimonies. 1. In throwing a pair of dice, the chance that aces shall cast up, is as one to thirty-six. There being six sides on each of the dice, the chance that an ace shall cast up with the first of them is as one to six, and with the second is also one to six : and one to thirty-six expresses the probability that both shall concur — the chance of both conditions being realized at once, being just equal to the product of the separate chances into each other. 2. It is precisely at such a rate that the probability for the falsehood of any definition decreases, or the probability for its truth increases, with the concurrence of testimonies in its favour. If one of these testimonies be of such a kind, as, taking all the ostensible circumstances together, to have proved false once in six times, this single testimony gives the probability of six to one on the side of the thing deponed to. The addition of just such another testimony would make out the probability of thirty-six, and of a third two hundred and sixteen — or the probability on the whole, arising from the testimony or the truth of any occur- rence, may be represented, by the product of the separate pro- babilities for the truth of each individual testimony. 3. Of course, the testimonies must be supposed independent of each other. And then, we are not to wonder at the speedy and perfect assurance which, by their means, we obtain of many events, although they should have no other evidence to rest upon. Such, after all, is the majority of truth to falsehood in the world — that, on the strength even of one of its every-day testimonies, 78 MR. HUME’S OBJECTION we place implicit reliance on the truth of an event, whereof previously we had no expectation. Of how many of our fami- liars may it be said, that the chance is at least as a thousand to one, of his speaking truth rather than falsehood. Let two such concur, then, in any deposition — and, in as far as the probability of an event depends on the integrity of the witnesses, there are the chances of no less than a million to one in its favour. There must, then, be the inherent improbability of a million to one in the event itself, ere, with such a support from testimony, it can be dismissed as unworthy of credit. It will be seen, by what an immense superiority of evidence, on the addition of a third or a fourth or a certain number of witnesses, even this or indeed any definite improbability might be overcome — an evidence, which grows and gathers in rapid multiple progression by the ad- dition of every new witness — provided always, that each depones on his own independent knowledge, and that they have no collu- sion with one another. 4. It is thus that, had we good enough separate testimonies, we might obtain by their conjunction, an evidence in behalf of a miracle that would outweigh to any amount the improbability which is inherent- in the miracle itself. It is quite true that the establishment of a miracle requires stronger testimony than an ordinary event does — yet let that stronger testimony only he multiplied as much as the weaker, and the result would be, that the miracle should not only be as credible, but indefinitely and to any extent more credible, than the ordinary event. For ex- ample, let the improbability of a miracle be estimated at a million, and attested by three witnesses for each of whose separate in- tegrities there is the probability of a million — then from the testimony of any one of these witnesses we obtain an equivalent or equipoise to the improbability of the miracle — leaving the product of the remaining two integrities, or a million of millions, to represent the strength of our reason for believing the alleged miracle to be true. Should the ordinary event, on the other hand, have, in certain given circumstances, the improbability of a thousand attached to it, and be attested by three witnesses for each of whose integrities there is the probability of a thousand — then, as before, would the deposition of one of these witnesses neutralize the improbability of the event ; but the joint testi- mony of the remaining two witnesses would only afford the pro- bability of a thousand times a thousand, or of one million, to represent the strength of our reason for believing the alleged TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 79 event to be true. In other words, we should, in the respective circumstances now stated, have a million times better reason for believing in the truth of the miracle than in that of the ordinary event; Sceptics complain of the tax on their credulity, when they are called upon to put faith in miracles. Let them have a care, lest they, all the time, should, in reference to the miracles of the gospel, be resisting a claim upon their belief, many million- fold greater than is possessed even by the commonest events in the history of past ages. 5. But, to obtain the requisite strength of evidence for over- coming the native improbability of a miracle, it is not necessary that all the separate testimonies should be of the best and high- est description. By one such testimony we might effect an equipoise. And by the addition of another, though of a very inferior sort, we might gain a preponderancy. One testimony of a superlative order, and whose falsehood would be miraculous, is of force enough, at least to countervail the improbability of an event whose truth would be miraculous. The superacid ition of another testimony, of so low a character as to have deceived or misgiven once in six times, would of itself establish a proof of six times greater strength than the improbability that had to be overcome by it. It is thus that subsidiary, though inferior testi- monies, are not without effect on the general result. They could even of themselves overbalance the unlikelihood of a miracle — and when compounded, as they are in gospel history, with so many testimonies of the highest kind, the effect exceeds all con- ception, if not all computation. Nothing therefore can be juster than the reflection of Dr. Paley, when, in coming to a conclusive reckoning with Mr. Hume, he practically disposes of his argument by showing how it fails in a specific case.* 6. This deliverance of Paley proceeded from the force of the evidence being felt, not from its being calculated. For in order to be felt, and felt rightly too, or in some sort of general propor- tion to its strength, it is not necessary that the calculation should precede the feeling. There is nothing more familiar than the instant formation of a shrewd and unerring judgment by men who are wholly unable to state the grounds of it. With what confidence, for example, will a man identify his acquaintance among the many thousands of human beings who pass before him — yet who never has either reflected on the principles or estimated the strength of that evidence on which his determina- * See Cbap. I. § 20. 80 mr. hume’s objection tion proceeds. He may never have computed how indefinite is the variety of human countenances which can be formed by means of the possible changes in the combination of a few linea- ments or features — and yet with what perfect accuracy as well as confidence will he recognise his own friend, or his own hat, or his own umbrella? He feels the evidence without knowing anything of its philosophical vindication. He has the sense of it, though not the science of it — and this is enough to carry him in safety through the manifold judgments he is called upon to make in the practical business of life. It is thus that an un- lettered workman, incapable though he be of all nice calculation, may, in these matters, have the nicest propriety of quick and instant discernment. Whether it be the circumstantial testi- mony of one witness, or the multiple testimony of several, he cannot make the correct numerical estimate, but he can take on the correct impression of each new circumstance in the former case, or of each new deposition in the latter. It would not make him a better juryman though he were tutored in the philosophy of evidence — at least, it is the common sense of a jury, and not their philosophy, which forms, in every instance when there is to be a judgment founded upon testimony, our best guarantee for the soundness of their decision. And as it is not necessary, for their coming to a right practical judgment on any given case, that they should be able to comprehend the true philosophy on the subject of testimony, as little is it necessary that they should be able to confute a false philosophy on the same subject. The true philosophy does not aid them — the false does not impede or unsettle them. They judge as they would have done although no philosophy had been raised upon the question — and it is pre- cisely thus, that the practical and home-bred sagacity of Dr. Paley meets with the sophistry of Hume. 9. Still, it is desirable that it should be met on its own ground, and refuted in the terms of a general argument. And for this purpose we revert with all confidence to the argument which we have already employed. When Mr. Hume affirms that testi- mony has often deceived us, our reply is that there is a species of testimony which never deceived us — and that when a testi- mony of this species is associated with a miracle, then there is an evidence for its reality at least as strong as the counter- evidence which lies in the improbability of a miracle as such. After this we seek no aid, though we believe it to be had, from the principles adverted to in our last section — and by which we TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 81 endeavoured to make it apparent, that even a single testimony might more than countervail the improbability of a singular event. The vast, the indefinite superiority of the evidence over the objection may be made out in another way — by the composi- tion of testimonies. 8. Having thus freed the argument in the abstract from the objection of Mr. Hume, we can now, with all the greater confi- dence, pass to the argument in the concrete, as founded on the actual state of the testimony for our religion. There, we behold an indefinitely greater strength of evidence than that afforded by the twelve men who make up the supposed case of Dr. Paley. Those ages of unquestionable martyrdom furnish us with thou- sands — and, in each of their dying testimonies, we behold a separate argument in favour of the Christian miracles, as strong as the objection laid to their charge, on the score of dissimilarity to all example and experience. The argument, grounded on the combination of such testimonies, exceeds all computation — and, whatever strength there may be in the consideration, that never did such an event as the resurrection of our Saviour before occur in the annals of our species, it is overpassed by the more than million-fold strength of the reply, that never did there occur in the annals of our species the falsehood of any one such testi- mony as that whereof we can allege the consent of many thou- sands to the fact in question. We have not only the countless depositions of witnesses absolutely without exception — but these multiplied in force and effectiveness times without number, by witnesses of every inferior grade beneath them — men of probity, and good sense, though not signalized by martyrdom — authors who have left their written testimonies with every character both of simplicity and earnestness behind them — oral witnesses ac- credited by their sufferings or their readiness to suffer, and as numerous as were the individual members of all the Christian churches in the days of the apostles — the testimony of a whole nation of enemies, and that signified in a way the most expres- sive, even by their silence on the subject of the Christian miracles, those best vouchers for a faith which they detested — a like silence, virtually expressive of the same thing, among the hosts more numerous still of provoked and persecuting Gentiles — the utter destitution of all credible testimony or credible proof against the cause, among its adversaries — while among its friends, a multitude of distinct, and separate, and wholly inde- pendent testimonies, each followed by a track of historic evi- vnn. yi. f/ 82 MR. HUMF/S OBJECTION dence and light that comes after it, and altogether composing a broad stream of effulgence that has borne down the gospel story on such characters of brightness as no distance of time can ob- scure, and as, in fact, the researches of each successive genera- tion among the documents of antiquity only serve to irradiate the more. When Mr. Hume appeals to our experience of the falsehood of testimony, we ask, if ever on the face of the earth, there has been the experience of the falsehood of such testimony — or rather, when we think of the rapid progression by which it grows and multiplies with every new accession that is made to it, may we confidently affirm of its evidence that no anomalies in nature or history however unexampled, that no miracles how- ever stupendous, can withstand it. 9. And Mr. Hume himself confesses of testimony that it might, in particular circumstances, have a force of evidence sufficient to overpower his own argument. He imagines a uni- versal darkness to have lasted for some days in a bygone age, and that had been the subject of a universal and uncontradicted tradition down to the present times — that it was either incident- ally noticed, or expressly deponed to by contemporary authors — that, in every newly-visited country, the same thing, handed down by transmission, remained the current and strong belief of all the inhabitants — that there was a perfect historical consist- ency, both in all the accounts of it at the time, and in the con- stant allusion made to it by succeeding authors. Mr. Hume, when directly judging of the event in question in the light of this evidence, even though the evidence of testimony, feels him- self forced to admit the truth of it — a conclusion altogether the opposite of that to which he is led by the reflex cognizance which he takes of the evidence itself. He cannot resist the admission of a most stupendous miracle, when supported by evi- dence so strong. In a word, he defers to our own principle of the confidence due to such testimony ; or, of not making one sort of testimony responsible for the errors or the falsities which may be detected in other and altogether distinct sorts of testimony. This he admits in one case — and it is just by specific examina- tion that we ascertain whether it may not be applicable to other cases also. Mr. Hume, without computation, and by the dictate of an instant and intuitive sagacity, gives his consent to the truth of a miracle, on the strength of a certain imagined testi- mony by which he conceives it to be supported. And many a sound believer, without computation, but in virtue of the same TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 83 felt strength which lies in the real testimony for the miracles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, comes to a like firm, and, we main- tain, a like warrantable conviction in their favour. We hold that, apart from computation, the belief in both instances is alike warrantable. But it is well, if the scientific or arithmetical proof can be superadded to the popular and instant persuasion — that so, the doctrine of probabilities which, in the hands of La Place, has been turned to the purposes of infidelity, might be converted into an auxiliary and voucher for the faith. It is desirable that the evidence for the miracles of the New Testa- ment were not only felt to be overbearing, but were exhibited in calculation to be so. 10. Before taking leave of Mr. Hume, let us endeavour to point out by what dexterity it was, that he managed to construct two plausible arguments — the first on the side of Atheism, the second on the side of Deism. The reader will recollect his atheistical argument grounded on the allegation of the world being a singular effect — and that we could not, therefore, reason to its cause, as we can to the cause of any other consequent whose antecedent we had ourselves observed on some former occasion-. We met that argument by the counter allegation, that though the world viewed in its totality, and as a compound aggregate, was singular, yet that it had a. something in common with all those productions which were the effects of a designing cause, and that in respect of that thing it had no singularity. There is the adaptation of means to an end in the world, as distinct and dis- cernible as there is such adaptation in a w r atch — and as it is adaptation, and that alone, in the watch, which indicates the watchmaker, so it is adaptation, and that alone, in the world, from which we infer a world- maker. Now we should like to notice a kind of reverse artifice to this in the construction of his other argument. In devising the first argument, he specialized the world from all kindred phenomena, notwithstanding the common property of adaptation which it had along with them. In devising the second argument, he confounded the first and highest sort of testimony with all the sorts, notwithstanding the special property by which it stands distinguished from the rest. In the first argument, he overlooks the common property, and specializes ; in the second, he overlooks the special property, and confounds. Whether it proceeded from design or the want of discrimination we know not — but when ho looked to the world and pronounced it singular, he made no mention of that in the MR. HUME’S OBJECTION 81 world, which likens it to all other examples of mechanism. And when he looked to the best and highest species of testimony and pronounced it fallacious, because under the general name of testimony instances of error and falsity were comprehended, he made no mention of that in the superior which distinguished it from all the other and inferior species of testimony. In the one case, where there is a common ingredient, yet he would specialize and separate from all. In the other case, where there is a special ingredient, yet he would confound and reduce it to a state of commonness with all. He calls the world singular, when the one thing which it has in common with others, is that on which may be founded the inference of a God. He calls the Christian testimony common, when the one thing, which it has in contra- distinction to many other testimonies, is that on which may be founded the inference of a revelation from God. He views the world in its singularity ; and, when so doing, overlooks the com- mon attribute which it possesses, and which constitutes the strength of the theistical argument. He views testimony in its generality ; and, when so doing, overlooks the special property which it possesses, and which constitutes the strength of the Christian argument. He chooses, in the first instance, to dis- criminate where there is no difference, or at least no difference of argumentative effect against the existence of a God. He chooses, in the second instance, to confound where there is a difference, and a difference of the utmost argumentative effect in favour of revelation. In both he hath violated, though by cross and con- tradictory methods, a principle of logic — and it needs but a logical rectification to restore both to the argument for a God and to the argument for Christianity, the strength which belongs to them.* * The great name of a philosopher gives a destructive fascination to any dogmata he may utter, however rash or reckless they should be ; and the defenders of Christianity, therefore, cannot be at too much pains to expose their real character. After Hume, we know of none who has converted the reputation he earned in the other sciences into a more dangerous in- strument of unfair and injurious offence to the science of Theology than La Place, the greatest mathematician and astronomer of the present century. In his two works on the “ Doctrine of Probabilities,” he makes frequent discovery of his inclination to throw discredit on the pretensions both of natural and revealed religion. For example, in speaking of events and of their necessary dependence on the laws of nature, he tells us that — “ In our ignorance of those links by which they are united with the entire system of the universe, we ascribe them to final causes or to chance, according as they happen regularly or without apparent order ; but these imaginary causes have successively given way with the limits of our knowledge, and disappear entirely before that sound philosophy which sees nothing in them but the expression of our ignorance of the true causes.” They are such exhibitions of senti- TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 85 11. Hitherto both these arguments have been disposed of in a way that we deem to be unsatisfactory. Each has been met by the assertion of a distinct and original principle in our intel- lectual constitution that we believe had been previously unheard of — the one, an instinctive perception of design apart from ex- perience ; the other, an instinctive faith in testimony equally apart from experience. This was certainly a great homage to the ingenuity of Hume on the part of his opponents — being, in ment as these, which convince us of the vast importance of the distinction that we make between the laws of matter and its dispositions. It seems clear from the above extract that La Place thinks the final cause for any event or class of events might be dispensed with, so soon as the discovery has been made of its efficient or physical cause. But physical causes, as we have already explained, account only for the events which take place in successive nature. They do not account for the existing relations which take place in contemporaneous nature. Now we can afford to give up the laws of matter ; and rest our main argument for the being of God, in as far as it can be gathered from the external world, upon its colloca- tions. The above extract evinces a hostile feeling towards the religion of nature. The following, as directed against the historical evidence of Christianity, evinces a no less hostile feeling towards the religion of the Bible. “ Let us suppose a fact conveyed to us through twenty witnesses — the first conveying it to the second, the second to the third, and so on. Let us also suppose that the probability in favour of each witness is equal to nine-tenths — the probability of the fact will then be less than one-eighth — that is to say, we shall have more chances than seven to one for its being false. We cannot better illustrate this diminution of probability, than by the extinction which takes place on the clearness of objects when several pieces of glass are interposed — a very small number of pieces sufficing to intercept the view of an object which a single piece would allow us to perceive in a distinct manner. Historians do not appear to have attended enough to this reduction in the probability of facts, when they are looked to across a great number of successive generations : several historical events now reported certain, would become at least doubtful if submitted to this proof.” — It is thus that by the glare of false analogy, and having in it much at least of the semblance of science, the evidence for the miracles of the gospel might be represented as having undergone successive abstractions, till now attenuated to a shadow. Now, what do we find to be the true state of the matter, when we abstain from bringing the vague analogies of one science or one subject into contact with another, to which it is in no way applicable ? We at this moment enjoy a much greater sufficiency and splendour of historical evidence for the narratives of the gospel than the Christian world did three hundred years ago — from the discovery since that period of innumerable documents then unknown, and from the results of that laborious investigation by which they have been made to cast the light of a constantly increasing confirmation on each other. The geologists of the present day are in infinitely better circumstances for guessing at the past history of the globe, than the geologists of five hundred years back ; and that, because they know infinitely more of those fossil characters and remains, which may be regarded as so many vestiges or inscriptions by the hand of nature, and because they can now read these records of hers with a better exercised discernment than before. In like manner, the sacred eruditionists of the present day see much clearer and farther than their forefathers did into the records of Christianity ; and since the invention of printing, the discoveries which are perpetually being made by them, invest the credentials of our faith with a lustre that always increases and never de- cays — after they have been consigned to the “ immortal custody of the press.” 86 MR. HUME ? S OBJECTION fact, a full admission of the soundness of his reasoning on the then only existing data — that is, on all which had yet been known of the mental philosophy. Insomuch, that to stem his infidelity in both its branches, they had to discover what was before unknown ; or rather, we think, to invent or imagine what was before unthought of. We hold both the cause of Natural Theology and the cause of Christianity to be independent of any such device — and that without complicating and mystifying the science of human nature, or having recourse to questionable novelties, there might, on the ground of experimental evidence alone, be raised a defence against each of his two sophistries, more effective than any which has been hitherto attempted, and certainly far more luminous. 12. One main advantage of such a refutation as we have at- tempted, is, that if effective, it goes conclusively to establish the experimental character of the evidence for the truth of Chris- tianity — the only appropriate evidence for a religion of facts. We feel anxious for the removal of all from the Christian side of the controversy, which might obliterate that character — and we did feel an obliteration, so long as no other argument could be de- vised, by which to meet the sophistry of Hume, but such as recognised our faith in testimony to be distinct from our faith in experience. I hold it a most important demonstration, if it have really been made out, that the historical argument for the truth of Christianity has a purely inductive basis to rest upon ; and that all the strength and glory which modern science has taken to herself, because of her firm standing on the groundwork of observation, belongs, without mixture and without attenuation, to the faith which we profess. The characteristic thing which gives such vigorous and enduring staple to the philosophy of our age, is that she now builds up all her doctrine on the findings of experience — and no longer, as before, on the fancies of a creative imagination. What we hold then a most desirable thing in argumenting the cause of Christianity, is to preserve this strictly experimental character to the reasonings on which her authority is founded — and we ever felt this subtlety of Hume, not as argued by him, but as redargued by his opponents, to be an obstacle in the way. It seemed a giving up of the authority of experience, to affirm of testimony, a character sui generis , and which owned no fellowship with the other — and we do feel, as if restored to comfort and to confidence, when, on the premises of our anta- gonist, that testimony is reducible to experience, we can never- TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES. 87 theless make good an overwhelming superiority of proof, for the miracles of Christ and His immediate followers. We now, in reference to onr gospel and our faith, hold ourselves to he as firmly posted, as the disciples of modern science, on the evidence, the purely observational evidence of ascertained facts. It only remains to follow the investigation consistently out, from the evidence of Christianity to the substance of Christianity — and to take our lessons from the volume of revelation, just as every sound experimental philosopher takes his from the volume of nature. They hold the authority of one natural observation to be of more weight than the goodliest theory however plausible. And we, with our well-accredited record, should hold one scrip- tural observation taken from its pages, to be of surpassing autho- rity and value over all gratuitous imaginations of our own. The question of sound philosophy is, What findest thou ? The ques- tion of sound theology is, What readest thou ? There have been repeated attempts to put these two at variance — and to oppose the lessons taken from the works, to the lessons taken from the word of God. But there is the same reigning spirit that actu- ates the true disciple in each of these departments, and a har mony of principle in both. BOOK II. ON THE MIRACULOUS EVIDENCE FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER I. ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE, AND THEIR APPLICATION TO THK QUESTION OF THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. Were a verbal communication to come to us from a person at a distance, there are two ways in which we might try to satisfy ourselves that this was a true communication, and that there was no imposition in the affair. We might either sit in examination upon the substance of the message, and then, from what we knew of the person from whom it professed to come, judge whether it was probable that such a message would be sent by him ; or we may sit in examination upon the credibility of the messengers. 2. It is evident, that in carrying on the first examination, we might be subject to very great uncertainty. The professed author of the communication in question may live at such a dis- tance from us, that we may never have it in our power to verify his message by any personal conversation with him. We may be so far ignorant of his character and designs, as to be unquali- fied to judge of the kind of communication that should proceed from him. To estimate aright the probable genuineness of the message from what we know of its author, would require an acquaintance with his plans, and views, and circumstances, of which we may not be in possession. We may bring the greatest degree of sagacity to this investigation ; but then the highest sagacity is of no avail, when there is an insufficiency of data. PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 89 Our ingenuity may be unbounded ; but then we may want the materials. The principle which we assume may be untrue in itself, and, therefore, may be fallacious in its application. 3. Thus we may derive very little light from our first argu- ment. But there is still a second in reserve — the credibility of the messengers. We may be no judges of the kind of communi- cation which is natural, or likely to proceed from a person with whom we are but imperfectly acquainted ; but we may be very competent judges of the degree of faith that is to be reposed in the bearers of that communication. We may know and appre- ciate the natural signs of veracity. There is a tone and a manner characteristic of honesty, which may be both intelligible and convincing. There may be a concurrence of several mes- sengers. There may be their substantial agreement. There may be the total want of anything like concert or collusion among them. There may be their determined and unanimous perseverance, in spite of all the incredulity and all the opposition which they meet with. The subject of the communication may be most unpalatable to us ; and we may be so unreasonable as to wreak our unpleasant feelings upon the bearers of it. In this way they may not only have no earthly interest to deceive us, but have the strongest inducement possible to abstain from in- sisting upon that message which they were charged to deliver. Last of all, as the conclusive seal of their authenticity, they may all agree in giving us a watchword, which we previously knew could be given by none but their master ; and which none but his messengers could ever obtain the possession of. In this way, unfruitful as all our efforts may have been upon the first subject of examination, we may derive from the second the most decisive evidence that the message in question is a real message, and was actually transmitted to us by its professed author. (4.) Now this consideration applies in all its parts to a mes- sage from God. The argument for the truth of this message re- solves itself into the same two topics of examination. We may sit in judgment upon the subject of the message ; or we may sit in judgment upon the credibility of its bearers. 4. The first forms a part at least of that argument for the truth of the Christian religion, which comes under the head of its internal evidences. The substance of the message is neither more nor less than that particular scheme of the Divine economy which is revealed to us in the New Testament ; and the point of inquiry is, whether this scheme be consistent with that knowledge 90 PRINCIPLES OF of God and His attributes which we are previously in posses- sion of? 5. It is doubtful to many whether any effectual argument can be founded upon this consideration, because they do not count themselves enough acquainted with the designs or character of the Being from whom the message professes to have come. Were the author of the message some distant and unknown individual of our own species, we would scarcely be entitled to found an argument upon any comparison of ours, betwixt the import of the message and the character of the individual, even though we had our general experience of human nature to help us in the specu- lation. Now, of the invisible God they affirm that we have no experience whatever. We are still further removed from all di- rect and personal observation of Him or of His counsels. Whe- ther we think of the eternity of His government, or the mighty range of its influence over the wide departments of nature and of providence, He stands at such a distance from us, as to make the management of His empire a subject well-nigh inaccessible to all our faculties. 6. It is evident, however, that this does not apply to the second topic of examination. The bearers of the message were beings like ourselves ; and we can apply our safe and certain ex- perience of man to their conduct and their testimony. We may know too little of God to found any confident argument a priori upon the coincidence which we conceive to exist between the subject of the message and our previous conceptions of its author. But we may know enough of man to pronounce upon the credibility of the messengers. Had they the manner and physiognomy of honest men ? Was their testimony resisted, and did they per- severe in it ? Had they any interest in fabricating the message ; or did they suffer in consequence of this perseverance ? Did they suffer to such a degree as to constitute a satisfying pledge of their integrity? Was there more than one messenger, and did they agree as to the substance of that communication which they made to the world ? Did they exhibit any special mark of their office as the messengers of God ; such a mark as none but God could give, and none but His approved messengers could ob- tain the possession of? Was this mark the power of working miracles ; and were these miracles so obviously addressed to the senses as to leave no suspicion of deceit behind them ? These are questions which we feel our competency to take up, and to decide upon. They lie within the legitimate boundaries of human HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 91 observation ; and upon the solution of these do we at present rest the question of the truth of the Christian religion. 7. This, then, is the state of the question with those to whom the question was originally addressed. They had personal ac- cess to the messengers ; and the evidences of their veracity lay before them. They were the eye and ear witnesses of those tacts, which occurred at the commencement of the Christian religion, and upon which its credibility rests. What met their observation must have been enough to satisfy them ; but we live at the dis- tance of nearly two thousand years, and is there enough to satisfy us? Those facts which constitute the evidence for Christianity, might have been credible and convincing to them, if they really saw them ; but is there any way by which they can be rendered credible and convincing to us, who only read of them ? What is the expedient by which the knowledge and belief of the men of other times can be transmitted to posterity ? Can we dis- tinguish between a corrupt and a faithful transmission ? Have we evidence before us by which we can ascertain what was the belief of those to whom the message was first communicated ? And can the belief which existed in their minds be derived to ours, by our sitting in judgment upon the reasons which pro- duced it ? 8. The surest way in which the belief and knowledge of the men of former ages can be transmitted to their descendants, is through the medium of written testimony ; and it is fortunate for us that the records of the Christian religion are not the only his- torical documents which have come down to us. A great variety of information has come down to us in. this way ; and a great part of that information is as firmly believed and as confidently proceeded upon, as if the thing narrated had happened within the limits of our eye-sight. No man doubts the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar; and no man doubts, therefore, that a convic- tion of the truth of past events may be fairly produced in the mind by the instrumentality of a written memorial. This is the kind of evidence which is chiefly appealed to for the truth of an- cient history ; and it is counted satisfying evidence for all that part of it which is received and depended upon. 9. In laying before the reader, then, the evidence for the truth of Christianity, we do not call his mind to any singular or unprecedented exercise of its faculties. We call him to pro- nounce upon the credibility of written documents, which profess to have been published at a certain age and by certain authors. GO PRINCIPLES OF The inquiry involves in it no principle which is not appealed to every day in questions of ordinary criticism. To sit in judgment on the credibility of a written document, is a frequent and fami- liar exercise of the understanding with literary men. It is for- tunate for the human mind, when so interesting a question as its religious faith can be placed under the tribunal of such evi- dence as it is competent to pronounce upon. It was fortunate for those to whom Christianity (a professed communication from heaven) was first addressed, that they could decide upon the genuineness of the communication by such familiar and every-day principles, as the marks of truth or falsehood in the human bearers of that communication. And it is fortunate for us, that when, after that communication has assumed the form of a his- torical document, we can pronounce upon the degree of credit which should be attached to it, by the very same exercise of mind which we so confidently engage in, when sitting m exami- nation upon the other historical documents that have come down to us from antiquity. 10. If two historical documents possess equal degrees of evi- dence, they should produce equal degrees of conviction. But if the object of the one be to establish some fact connected with our religious faith, while the object of the other is to establish some fact, about which we feel no other interest than that gene- ral curiosity which is gratified by the solution of any question in literature, this difference in the object produces a difference of effect in the feelings and tendencies of the mind. It is impos- sible for the mind, while it inquires into the evidence of a Chris- tian document, to abstain from all reference to the important conclusion of the inquiry. And this will necessarily mingle its influence with the arguments which engage its attention. It may be of importance to attend to the peculiar feelings which are thus given to the investigation, and in how far they have affected the impression of the Christian argument. 11. We know it to be the opinion of some, that in this way an undue advantage has been given to that argument. Instead of a pure question of truth, it has been made a question of senti- ment, and the wishes of the heart have mingled with the exer- cises of the understanding. There is a class of men who may feel disposed to overrate its evidences, because they are anxious to give every support and stability to a system wdiich they con- ceive to be most intimately connected with the dearest hopes and wishes of humanity ; because their imagination is carried HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 93 away by the sublimity of its doctrines, or their heart engaged by that amiable morality which is so much calculated to improve and adorn the face of society. 12. Now, we are ready to admit, that as the object of the in- quiry is not the character, but the truth of Christianity, the philosopher should be careful to protect his mind from the delu- sion of its charms. He should separate the exercises of the un- derstanding from the tendencies of the fancy or of the heart. He should be prepared to follow the light of evidence, though it may lead him to conclusions the most painful and melancholy. He should train his mind to all the hardihood of abstract and unfeeling intelligence. He should give up everything to the supremacy of argument, and be able to renounce, without a sigh, all the tenderest prepossessions of infancy, the moment that truth demands of him the sacrifice. Let it be remembered, how- ever, that while one species of prejudice operates in favour of Christianity, another prejudice operates against it. There is a class of men who are repelled from the investigation of its evi- dences, because in their minds Christianity is allied with the weakness of superstition ; and they feel that they are descending when they bring down their attention to a subject which en- grosses so much respect and admiration from the vulgar. 13. It appears to us, that the peculiar feeling which the sacredness of the subject gives to the inquirer, is, upon the whole, unfavourable to the impression of the Christian argument. Had the subject not been sacred, and had the same testimony been given to the facts that are connected with it, we are satis- fied that the history of Jesus in the New Testament would have been looked upon as the best supported by evidence of any his-, tory that has come down to us. It would assist us in appreci- ating the evidence for the truth of the gospel history, if we could conceive for a moment that Jesus, instead of being the founder of a new religion, had been merely the founder of a new school of philosophy, and that the different histories which have come down to us had merely represented him as an extraordinary per- son, who had rendered himself illustrious among his countrymen by the wisdom of his sayings and the beneficence of his actions. We venture to say, that had this been the case, a tenth part of the testimony which has actually been given would have been enough to satisfy us. Had it been a question of mere erudition, where neither a predilection in favour of a religion nor an anti- pathy against it could have impressed a bias in any one direction, 94 PRINCIPLES OF the testimony, both in weight and in quantity, would have been looked upon as quite unexampled in the whole compass of ancient literature. 14. To form a fair estimate of the strength and decisiveness of the Christian argument, we should if possible divest ourselves of all reference to religion, and view the truth of the gospel his- tory purely as a question of erudition. If, at the outset of the investigation, we have a prejudice against the Christian religion, the effect is obvious ; and, without any refinement of explanation, we see at once how such a prejudice must dispose us to annex suspicion and distrust to the testimony of the Christian writers. But even when the prejudice is on the side of Christianity, the effect is unfavourable on a mind that is at all scrupulous about the rectitude of its opinions. In these circumstances, the mind gets suspicious of itself. It feels a predilection, and becomes apprehensive lest this predilection may have disposed it to cherish a particular conclusion, independently of the evidences by which it is supported. Were it a mere speculative question, in which the interests of man and the attachments of his heart had no share, he would feel greater confidence in the result of his in- vestigation. . But it is difficult to separate the moral impressions of piety, and it is no less difficult to calculate their precise influ- ence on the exercises of the understanding. In the complex sentiment of attachment and conviction which he annexes to the Christian religion, he finds it difficult to say how much is due to the tendencies of the heart, and how much is due to the pure and unmingled influence of argument. His very anxiety for the truth disposes him to overrate the circumstances which give a bias to his understanding ; and, through the whole process of the inquiry he feels a suspicion and an embarrassment, which he would not have felt had it been a question of ordinary erudition. 15. The same suspicion which he attaches to himself, he will be ready to attach to all whom he conceives to be in similar cir- cumstances. Now, every author who writes in defence of Chris- tianity is supposed to be a Christian ; and this, in spite of every argument to the contrary, has the actual effect of weakening the impression of his testimony. The suspicion affects, in a more remarkable degree, the testimony of the first writers on the side of Christianity. In opposition to it, you have, no doubt, to allege the circumstances under which the testimony was given ; the tone of sincerity which runs through the performance of the author ; the concurrence of other testimonies ; the persecutions which HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 95 were sustained in adhering to them, and which can be accounted for on no other principle than the power of conscience and con- viction ; and the utter impossibility of imposing a false testimony on the world, had they even been disposed to do it. Still there is a lurking suspicion, which often survives all this strength of argument, and which it is difficult to get rid of, even after it has been demonstrated to be completely unreasonable. He is a Christian. He is one of the party. Am I an infidel ? I per- sist in distrusting the testimony. Am I a Christian ? I rejoice in the strength of it ; but this very joy becomes matter of sus- picion to a scrupulous inquirer. He feels something more than the concurrence of his belief in the testimony of the writer. He catches the infection of his piety and his moral sentiments. In addition to the acquiescence of the understanding, there is a con amore feeling, both in himself and in his author, which he had rather be without, because he finds it difficult to compute the precise amount of its influence ; and the consideration of this re- strains him from that clear and decided conclusion, which he would infallibly have landed in, had it been purely a secular in- vestigation. 16. There is something in the very sacredness of the subject, which intimidates the understanding, and restrains it from mak- ing the same firm and confident application of its faculties, which it would have felt itself perfectly warranted to do, had it been a question of ordinary history. Had the apostles been the disciples of some eminent philosopher, and the Fathers of the Church their immediate successors in the office of presiding over the discipline and instruction of the numerous schools which they had esta- blished, this would have given a secular complexion to the argu- ment, which, we think, would have been more satisfying to the mind, and have impressed upon it a closer and more familiar con- viction of the history in question. We should have immediately brought it into comparison with the history of other philosophers, and could not have failed to recognise that, in minuteness of in- formation, in weight and quantity of evidence, in the concurrence of numerous and independent testimonies, and in the total ab- sence of every circumstance that should dispose us to annex sus- picion to the account which lay before us, it far surpassed any thing that had come down to us from antiquity. It so happens, however, that instead of being the history of a philosopher, it is the history of a prophet. The veneration we annex to the sacred- ness of such a character, mingles with our belief in the truth of 96 PRINCIPLES OF his history. From a question of simple truth it becomes a ques- tion in which the heart is interested ; and the subject from that moment assumes a certain holiness and mystery, which veils the strength of the argument, arid takes off from that familiar and intimate conviction which we annex to the far less authenticated histories of profane authors. 17. It may be further observed, that every part of the Chris- tian argument has been made to undergo a most severe scrutiny. The same degree of evidence which, in questions of ordinary his- tory, commands the easy and universal acquiescence of every in- quirer, has, in the subject before us, been taken most thoroughly to pieces, and pursued, both by friends and enemies, into all its ramifications. The effect of this is unquestionable. The genuine- ness and authenticity of the profane historian are admitted upon much inferior evidence to what we can adduce for the different pieces which make up the New Testament. And why ? Be- cause the evidence has been hitherto thought sufficient, and the genuineness and authenticity have never been questioned. Not so with the gospel history. Though its evidence is precisely the same in kind, and vastly superior in degree, to the evidence for the history of the profane writer, its evidence has been questioned, and the very circumstance of its being questioned has annexed a suspicion to it. At all points of the question there has been a strug- gle and a controversy. Every ignorant objection, and every rash and petulant observation, has been taken up and been commented upon by the defenders of Christianity. There has at last been so much said about it, that a general feeling of insecurity is apt to accompany the whole investigation. There has been so much fight- ing, that Christianity is now looked upon as debatable ground. Other books, where the evidence is much inferior, but which have had the advantage of never being questioned, are received as of established authority. It is striking to observe the perfect con- fidence with which an infidel will quote a passage from an an- cient historian. He perhaps does not overrate the credit due to him. But present him with a tabellated and comparative view of all the evidences that can be adduced for the Gospel of Mat- thew, and any profane historian whom he chooses to fix upon, and let each distinct evidence be discussed upon no other princi- ple than the ordinary and approved principles of criticism, we assure him that the sacred history would far outweigh the profane in the number and value of its testimonies. 18. In illustration of the above remarks, we can refer to the HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 97 experience of those who have attended to this examination. We ask them to recollect the satisfaction which they felt, when they came to those parts of the examination where the argument as- sumes a secular complexion. Let 11s take the testimony of Taci- tus for an example. He asserts the execution of our Saviour in the reign of Tiberius, and under the procuratorship of Pilate ; the temporary check which this gave to His religion ; its revival, and the progress it had made, not only over Judea, but to the city of Rome. How all this is attested in the Annals of Tacitus. But it is also attested in a far more direct and circumstantial manner in the annals of another author, in a book entitled the u History of the Acts of the Apostles, by the Evangelist Luke.” Both of these performances carry, on the very face of them, the appearance of unsuspicious and well-authenticated documents. But there are several circumstances in which the testimony of Luke possesses a decided advantage over the testimony of Tacitus. He was the companion of these very apostles. He was an eye- witness to many of the events recorded by him. He had the advantage over the Roman historian in time, and in place, and in personal knowledge of many of the circumstances in his history. The genuineness of his publication, too, and the time of its ap- pearance, are far better established, and by precisely that kind of argument wdrich is held decisive in every other question of eru- dition. Besides all this, we have the testimony of at least five of the Christian Fathers, all of whom had the same, or a greater advantage in point of time than Tacitus, and who had a much nearer and readier access to original sources of information. Now, how comes it that the testimony of Tacitus, a distant and later historian, should yield such delight and satisfaction to the inquirer, while all the antecedent testimony (which, by every principle of approved criticism, is much stronger than the other) should produce an impression that is comparatively languid and ineffectual ? It is owing in a great measure to the principle to which we have already alluded. There is a sacredness annexed to the subject, so long as it is under the pen of Fathers and Evangelists, and this very sacredness takes away from the free- dom and confidence of the argument. The moment that it is taken up by a profane author, the spell which held the under- standing in some degree of restraint is dissipated. We now tread on the more familiar ground of ordinary history ; and the evidence for the truth of the Gospel appears more assimilated to VOL. VI. G 98 PRINCIPLES OF that evidence which brings home to our conviction the particulars of the Greek and Roman story. 19. To say that Tacitus was upon this subject a disinterested his- torian, is not enough to explain the preference which you give to his testimony. There is no subject in which the triumph of the Christian argument is more conspicuous than the moral qualifi- cations which give credit to the testimony of its witnesses. We have every possible evidence that there could be neither mistake nor falsehood in their testimony ; a much greater quantity of evi- dence, indeed, than can actually be produced to establish the credibility of any other historian. Now, all we ask is, that where an exception to the veracity of any historian is removed, you re- store him to that degree of credit and influence which he ought to have possessed, had no such exception been made. In no case has an exception to the credibility of an author been more tri- umphantly removed, than in the case of the early Christian writers ; and yet, as a proof that there really exists some such delusion as we have been labouring to demonstrate, though our eyes are perfectly open to the integrity of the Christian witnesses, there is still a disposition to give the preference to the secular historian. When Tacitus is placed by the side of the Evangelist Luke, even after the decisive argument which establishes the credit of the latter historian has convinced the understanding, there remains a tendency in the mind to annex a confidence to the account of the Roman writer, which is altogether dispropor- tioned to the relative merits of his testimonv. * 20. Let us suppose, for the sake of further illustration, that Tacitus had included some more particulars in his testimony, and that, in addition to the execution of our Saviour, he had asserted in round and unqualified terms that this said Christus had risen from the dead, and was seen alive by some hundreds of His ac- quaintances. Even this would not have silenced altogether the cavils of enemies ; but it would have reclaimed many an infidel ; been exulted in by many a sincere Christian ; and made to oc- cupy a foremost place in many a book upon the evidences of our religion. Are we to forget all the while that we are in actual pos- session of much stronger testimony ? that we have the concurrence of eight or ten contemporary authors, most of whom had actually seen Christ after the great event of His resurrection ? that the veracity of these authors, and the genuineness of their respective publications, are established on grounds much stronger than have ever been alleged in behalf of Tacitus, or any ancient author ? HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 99 Whence this unaccountable preference of Tacitus? Upon every received principle of criticism, we are bound to annex greater confidence to the testimony of the apostles. It is vain to recur to the imputation of its being an interested testimony. This the apologists for Christianity undertake to disprove, and actually have disproved it, and that by a much greater quantity of evi- dence than would be held perfectly decisive in a question of com- mon history. If, after this, there should remain any lurking sentiment of diffidence or suspicion, it is entirely resolvable into some such principle as I have already alluded to. It is to be treated as a mere feeling — a delusion wdiich should not be ad- mitted to have any influence on the convictions ot the under- standing. 21. The principle which we have been attempting to expose is found, in fact, to run through every part of the argument, and to accompany the inquirer through all the branches of the in- vestigation. The genuineness of the different books of the New Testament forms a very important inquiry, wherein the object of the Christian apologist is to prove that they were really written by their professed authors. In proof of this, there is an uninter- rupted series of testimony from the days of the apostles ; and it was not to be expected that a point so esoteric to the Christian society could have attracted the attention of profane authors, till the religion of Jesus, by its progress in the world, had rendered itself conspicuous. It is not, then, till about eighty years after the publication of the different pieces, that w r e meet with the testimony of Celsus, an avowed enemy to Christianity, and who asserts, upon the strength of its general notoriety, that the his- torical parts of the New Testament were written by the disciples of our Saviour. This is very decisive evidence. But how does it happen, that it should throw a clearer gleam of light and satisfaction over the mind of the inquirer than he had yet expe- rienced in the whole train of his investigation ? Whence that disposition to underrate the antecedent testimony of the Christian writers ? Talk not of theirs being an interested testimony ; for, in point of fact, the same disposition operates after reason is con- vinced that the suspicion, is totally unfounded. What we con- tend for is, that this indifference to the testimony of the Christian writers implies a dereliction of principles which we apply with the utmost confidence to all similar inquiries. 22. The effects of this same principle are perfectly discernible in the writings of even our most judicious apologists. We offer 100 PRINCIPLES OF no reflection against the assiduous Lardner, who, in his Credi- bility of the Gospel History, presents us with a collection of testimonies which should make every Christian proud of his religion. In his evidence for the genuineness of the different pieces which make up the Hew Testament, he begins with the oldest of the Fathers, some of whom were the intimate com- panions of the original writers. According to our view of the matter, he should have dated the commencement of his argument from a higher point, and begun with the testimonies of these original writers to one another. In the Second Epistle of Peter there is a distinct reference made to the writings of Paul, and in the Acts of the Apostles there is a reference made to one of the four Gospels. Had Peter, instead of being an apostle, ranked only with the Fathers of the Church, and had his epistle not been admitted into the canon of Scripture, this testimony of his would have had a place in the catalogue, and been counted pe- culiarly valuable both for its precision and its antiquity. There is certainly nothing in the estimation he enjoyed, or in the cir- cumstances of his epistle being bound up with the other books of the Hew Testament, which ought to impair the credit of his testimony. But, in effect, his testimony does make a weaker impression on the mind than a similar testimony from Barnabas, or Clement, or Polycarp. It certainly ought not to do it, and there is a delusion in the preference that is thus given to the later writers. It is, in fact, another example of the principle which we have been so often insisting upon. What profane authors are in reference to Christian authors at large, the Fathers of the Church are in reference to the original writers of the Hew Testament. In contradiction to every approved principle, we prefer the distant and the later testimony to the testimony of writers who carry as much evidence and legitimate authority along with them, and who differ from others only in being nearer the original sources of information. We neglect and undervalue the evidence which the Hew Testament itself furnishes, and rest the whole of the argument upon the external and superinduced testimony of subsequent authors. 23. A great deal of all this is owing to the manner in which the defence of Christianity has been conducted by its friends and supporters. They have given too much in to the suspicions of the opposite party. They have yielded their minds to the in- fection of their scepticism, and maintained through the whole process a caution and a delicacy which they often carry to a HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 101 degree that is excessive, and by which, in fact, they have done injustice to their own arguments. Some of them begin with the testimony of Tacitus as a first principle, and pursue the in- vestigation upwards — as if the evidence that we collect from the annals of the Roman historian were stronger than that of the Christian writers, who flourished nearer the scene of the investi- gation, and whose credibility can be established on grounds which are altogether independent of his testimony. In this way they come at last to the credibility of the New Testament writers, but by a lengthened and circuitous procedure. The reader feels as if the argument were diluted at every step in the process of derivation, and his faith in the gospel history is much weaker than his faith in histories that are far less authenticated. Bring Tacitus and the New Testament to an immediate comparison, and subject them both to the touchstone of ordinary and received principles, and it will be found that the latter leaves the former out of sight in all the marks, and characters, and evidences of an authentic history. The truth of the gospel stands on a much firmer and more independent footing than many of its defenders would dare to give us any conception of. They want that bold- ness of argument which the merits of the question entitle them to assume. They ought to maintain a more decided front to their adversaries, and tell them, that in the New Testament it- self — in the concurrence of its numerous, and distinct, and inde- pendent authors — in the uncontradicted authority which it has maintained from the earliest times of the Church— in the total inability of the bitterest adversaries of our religion to impeach its credibility — in the genuine characters of honesty and fairness which it carries on the very face of it, — that in these, and in everything else which can give validity to the written history of past times, there is a weight and a splendour of evidence which the testimony of Tacitus cannot confirm, and which the absence of that testimony could not have diminished. 24. If it were necessary, in a court of justice, to ascertain the circumstances of a certain transaction, which happened in a par- ticular neighbourhood, the obvious expedient would be to ex- amine the agents and the eye-witnesses of that transaction. If six or eight concurred in giving the same testimony — if there was no appearance of collusion amongst them — if they had the manner and aspect of creditable men — above all, if this testi- mony were made public, and not a single individual, from the numerous spectators of the transaction alluded to, stept forward 102 - PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. to falsify it, then, we apprehend, the proof would be looked upon as complete. Other witnesses might be summoned from a dis- tance to give in their testimony, not of what they saw, but of what they heard upon the subject ; but their concurrence, though a happy enough circumstance, would never be looked upon as any material addition to the evidence already brought forward. Another court of justice might be held in a distant country ; and, years after the death of the original witnesses, it might have oc- casion to verify the same transaction, and for this purpose might call in the only evidence which it was capable of collecting — the testimony of men who lived after the transaction in question, and at a great distance from the place where it happened. There would be no hesitation, in ordinary cases, about the relative value of the two testimonies ; and the records of the first court would be appealed to by posterity as by far the more valuable document, and far more decisive of the point in controversy. Now, what we complain of is, that in the instance before us this principle is reversed. The report of hearsay witnesses is held in higher esti- mation than the report of the original agents and spectators. The most implicit credit is given to the testimony of the distant and later historians ; and the testimony of the original witnesses is received with as much distrust as if they carried the marks of villany and imposture upon their foreheads. The authenticity of the first record can be established by a much greater weight and variety of evidence than the authenticity of the second. Yet all the suspicion that we feel upon this subject annexes to the for- mer ; and the apostles and evangelists, with every evidence in their favour which it is in the power of testimony to furnish, are, in fact, degraded from the place which they ought to occupy among the accredited historians of past times. 25. The above observations may help to prepare the inquirer for forming a just and impartial estimate of the merits of the Christian testimony. His great object should be to guard against every bias of the understanding. The general idea is, that a predilection in favour of Christianity may lead him to overrate the argument. We believe that if every unfair tendency of the mind could be subjected to a rigorous computation, it would be found that the combined operation of them all has the effect of impressing a bias in a contrary direction. All we wish for is, that the arguments which are held decisive in other historical questions, should not be looked upon as nugatory when applied to the investigation of those facts which are connected with the GENUINENESS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103 truth and establishment of the Christian religion ; that every prepossession should be swept away, and room left for the under- standing to expatiate without fear and without encumbrance. CHAPTER II. ON THE GENUINENESS OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 1. There is a confusion in the language of writers on the evi- dences of Christianity, in regard to the> terms genuineness and authenticity and integrity , as applied to the books of the New Testament, which it were desirable should be rectified and adjusted. At all events, a consistent phraseology should be maintained upon these subjects. Doubtless this is an affair of definition rather than of doctrine. But it saves the misconception of doctrines, when, after that definitions are settled, they should, though not altogether invulnerable to verbal criticism, be held as settled conclusively. 2. Even Dr. Paley is not free of all ambiguity in the use of these terms. In one chapter of his Evidences, he evidently un- derstands by the genuineness of any book in the New Testament, that it is the production of the author whose name it bears. In another chapter, he seems to regard this as one of the particulars belongingto the authenticity of the book, and not to its genuine- ness.* It is an awkward thing that there should be any inter- change of meaning between these two terms ; and more espe- cially, as some of our best authors have come forth with formal definitions of them which are contradictory to each other. Ac- * “ Now, in treating of this part of our argument, the first, and a most material, obser- vation upon the subject is, that such was the situation of the authors to whom the four gos- pels were ascribed, that, if any one of the four gospels be genuine, it is sufficient for our purpose. The received author of the first was an original apostle and emissary of the reli- gion. The received author of the second was an inhabitant of Jerusalem at the time, to whose house the apostles were wont to resort, and himself an attendant upon one of the most eminent of that number. The received author of the third was a stated companion and fellow-traveller of the most active of all the teachers of the religion, and in the course of his travels frequently in the society of the original apostles. The received author of the fourth, as well as of the first, was one of these apostles.” — Paley’s Evidence, Part I. chap. viii. In his next chapter, "Of the Authenticity of the Scriptures,” he proceeds to state among other things, " the high probability there is that they actually come from the persons whose names they bear.” 104 GENUINENESS OF cording to Dr. Hill, the authenticity of a book signifies that it is the production of its professed author ; and its genuineness sig- nifies the incorruptness of its received text. In this he is fol- lowed by Dr. John Cook, author of an inquiry published some years ago into the books of the Hew Testament. The English writers in general, however, notwithstanding the vacillation on this matter now instanced in Dr. Paley, understand by the genuineness of the book its being the production of the author whose name it bears, and by its authenticity the truth of its con- tents and informations. For example, Horne does so ; and that very estimable author, Isaac Taylor, who has contributed so much of late to the illustration of the historical evidences.* 3. This confusion in the application of the term authentic might be accounted for in this way: Authentic, with all the writers, is tantamount to true. But this characteristic of true- ness has been applied by them to different things. The first class, in their application of the term u authentic,” meant to express that the book is true ; the second class meant the same term to convey that this book contains a true history. The former had respect to the history of the book, the latter to the history in the book. The most remarkable circumstance in the history of the book is the origination of it — and, more especially, the Author who framed it ; and so, then, by the term “ authentic,” the for- mer would signify that the author to whom it was commonly ascribed Was its real author. But the latter, looking to the his- tory in the book, and not to the external history of the book itself, would signify by the term u authentic ” that the history which it contained was a real history. On this subject we feel inclined to abandon that sense of the term in which we have been educated, and to side with the two authors whom we have last referred to ; and shall henceforth employ the term “ authen- tic,” as applied to any book, not to denote that it has been as- cribed to its proper author, but to denote the truth and authority of its information. 4. The term genuineness , then, is left to denote the former circumstance in regard to any book — that is, its being the pro- * Taylor, in his Transmission of Ancient Books to Modem Times, p. 7, says, ‘‘Satisfactory evidence in support of the first proposition (the genuineness of the books) will prove that the works in question are not forgeries ; and of the second (their authenticity) will show that they are not fictions." Both the book now quoted, and another by the same author, on The Process of Historical Proof, are most important accessions to the literature of the argumentative evidence for Chris- tianity. Few writers have exhibited in such bold relief the strength and solidity of the cause. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 105 duction of the author whose name it bears. And it will not be difficult to perceive, how the meaning of this term may be still farther extended. If the book being genuine is contrasted, as is done by Taylor, with the book being a forgery, then, doubtless, it is as much a forgery by a wrong name upon its title-page, as a letter is a forgery by a wrong name for its subscription. But there is another way in which a book may at length be trans- formed into a forgery. It may be mutilated or interpolated, or made to undergo so many changes, whether by additions or erasures, as virtually to be a different book from what it was when it came forth originally from the hands of its author. In both cases there is a forgery — in the first case, by means of a wrong man for the book ; and in the second case, by means of a wrong book for the man. And the meaning of the word genu- ine has been so far extended by some, as to make it expressive of freeness from both sorts of forgery — in the first place, denoting that the supposed author of the book was the real one ; and, in the second place, that the book was free of all those larger cor- ruptions that proceed from the art and the wilfulness of man. When the meaning of the term genuineness is thus far extended, then the third and last term which we proposed to explain, that is integrity , denotes the freedom of the book from those smaller corruptions which accumulate in the progress of ages, by the mistake and the carelessness of transcribers. 5. After more deliberation on this matter than perhaps some may think was at all necessary, we feel disposed to settle it in this way. We would understand by the authenticity of the book the truth of its informations ; by its genuineness , that it is the production of the author whose name it bears ; and by its inte- grity , the incorruptness of its received copies, or the agreement in the main between the book as it exists at present, and the book as it came from the hands of its author. 6. The argument for the truth of the different facts recorded in the gospel history resolves itself into four parts. In the first, it shall be our object to prove, that the different pieces which make up the New Testament were written by the authors whose names they bear, and in the age which is commonly assigned to them. In the second, we shall exhibit the internal marks of truth and honesty which may be gathered from the compositions themselves. In the third, we shall press upon the reader the known situation and history of the authors, as satisfying proofs of the veracitv with which they delivered themselves. And, in IOG GENUINENESS OF the fourth, we shall lay before them the additional and subse- quent testimonies by which the narrative of the original writers is supported. 7. In every point of the investigation, we shall meet with examples of the principle which we have already alluded to. We have said, that if two distinct inquiries be set on foot, where the object of the one is to settle some point of sacred history, and the object of the other is to settle some point of profane history, the mind acquiesces in a much smaller quantity of evidence in the latter case than it does in the former. If this be right (ana to a certain degree it undoubtedly is), then it is incumbent on the defender of Christianity to bring forward a greater quantity of evidence than would be deemed sufficient in a question of com- mon literature, and to demand the acquiescence of his reader upon the strength of this superior evidence. If it be not right beyond a certain degree, and if there be a tendency in the mind to carry it beyond that degree, then this tendency is founded upon a delusion, and it is well that the reader should be apprized of its existence, that he may protect himself from its influence. The superior quantity of evidence which we can bring forward, will in this case all go to augment the positive effect upon his convictions ; and he will rejoice to perceive, that he is far safer in believing what has been handed down to him of the history of Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of His apostles, than in believ- ing what he has never doubted — the history of Alexander, and the doctrine of Socrates. Could all the marks of veracity, and the list of subsequent testimonies, be exhibited to the eye of the reader in parallel columns, it would enable him, at one glance, to form a complete estimate. We shall have occasion to call his attention to this so often, that we may appear to many of our readers to have expatiated upon our introductory principle to a degree that is tiresome and unnecessary. We conceive, however, that it is the best and most perspicuous way of putting the argument. 8. — I. The different pieces which make up the New Testament were written by the authors whose names they bear, and at the time which is commonly assigned to them. 9. After the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the curiosity of the human mind was awakened, and felt its attention power- fully directed to those old writings which have survived the waste of so many centuries. It were a curious speculation to ascertain the precise quantity of evidence which lav in the infor- THE NEW TESTAMENT. 107 mation of these old documents. And it may help us in our estimate, first to suppose, that in the researches of that period there was only one composition found which professed to be a narrative of past times. A number of circumstances can be assigned, which might give a certain degree of probability to the information even of this solitary and unsupported document. There is, first, the general consideration, that the principle upon which a man feels himself induced to write a true history, is of more frequent and powerful operation than the principle upon which a man feels himself induced to offer a false or a disguised representation of facts to the world. This affords a general pro- bability on the side of the document in question being a true narrative ; and there may be some particulars connected with the appearance of the performance itself, which might strengthen this probability. We may not be able to discover in the story itself any inducement which the man could have in publishing it, if it ere mainly and substantially false. We might see an expressio of honesty, which it is in the power of written lan- guage, as well as of spoken language to convey. We might see that there was nothing monstrous or improbable in the narrative itself. And, without enumerating every particular calculated to give it the impression of truth, we may, in the progress of our inquiries, have ascertained that copies of this manuscript were to be found in many places, and in different parts of the world, proving, by the evidence of its diffusion, the general esteem in which it was held by the readers of past ages. This gives us the testimony of these readers to the value of the performance ; and, as we are supposing it a history, and not a work of ima- gination, it could only be valued on the principle of the infor- mation which was laid before them being true. In this way, a solitary document, transmitted to us from a remote antiquity, might gain credit in the world, though it had been lost sight of for many ages, and only brought to light by the revival of a literary spirit, which had lain dormant during a long period of history. 10. We can further suppose, that in the progress of these re- searches another manuscript was discovered, having the same characters, and possessing the same separate and original marks of truth with the former. If they both touched upon the same period of history, and gave testimony to the same events, it is plain that a stronger evidence for the truth of these events would be afforded than what it was in the power of either of the testi- 108 GENUINENESS OF monies, taken separately, to supply. The separate circumstances which give a distinct credibility to each of the testimonies, are added together, and give a so much higher credibility to those points of information upon which they deliver a common testi- mony. This is the case when the testimonies carry in them the appearance of being independent of one another. And even when the one is derived from the other, it still affords an acces- sion to the evidence ; because the author of the subsequent testi- mony gives us the distinct assertion, that he believed in the truth of the original testimony. 11. The evidence may be strengthened still further by the accession of a third manuscript, and a third testimony. All the separate circumstances which confer credibility upon any one document, even though it stands alone, and unsupported by any other, combine themselves into a much stronger body of evidence when we have obtained the concurrence of several. If, even in the case of a single narrative, a probability lies on the side of its being true from the multitude and diffusion of copies, and from the air of truth and honesty discernible in the composition itself, the probability is heightened by the coincidence of several nar- ratives, all of them possessing the same claims upon our belief. If it be improbable that one should be written for the purpose of imposing a falsehood upon, the world, it is still more improbable that many should be written, all of them conspiring to the same perverse and unnatural object. No one can doubt, at least, that of the multitude of written testimonies which have come down to us, the true must greatly preponderate over the false ; and that the deceitful principle, though it exists sometimes, could never operate to such an extent, as to carry any great or general imposition in the face of all the documents which are before us. The supposition must be extended much further than we have yet carried it, before we reach the degree of evidence and of testimony which, on many points of ancient history, we are at this moment in actual possession of. Many documents have been collected, professing to be written at different times, and by men of different countries. In this way, a great body of ancient literature has been formed, from which we can collect many points of evidence too tedious to enumerate. Do we find the express concurrence of several authors to the same piece of history? Do w T e find, what is still more impressive, events for- mally announced in one narrative, not told over again, but im- plied and proceeded upon as true in another? Do we find the THE NEW TESTAMENT. 109 succession of history, through a series of ages, supported in a way that is natural and consistent? Do we find those composi- tions which profess a higher antiquity appealed to by those which profess a lower? These, and a number of other points, which meet every scholar who betakes himself to the actual in- vestigation, give a most warm and living character of reality to the history of past times. There is a perversity of mind which may resist all this. There is no end to the fancies of scepticism. We may plead in vain the number of written testimonies, their artless coincidence, and the perfect undesignedness of manner by which they often supply the circumstances that serve both to guide and satisfy the inquirer, and to throw light and support upon one another. The infidel will still have something behind which he can intrench himself; and his last supposition, mon- strous and unnatural as it is, may be, that the whole of written history is a laborious fabrication, sustained for many ages, and concurred in by many individuals, with no other purpose than to enjoy the anticipated blunders of the men of future times, whom they had combined with so much dexterity to bewilder and lead astray. 12. If it were possible to summon up to the presence of the mind the whole mass of spoken testimony, it tyould be found that what was false bore a very small proportion to what was true. For many obvious reasons, the proportion of the false to the true must be also small in written testimony. Yet instances of false- hood occur in both ; and the actual ability to separate the false from the true in written history, proves that historical evidence has its principles and its probabilities to go upon. There may be the natural signs of dishonesty. There may be the wildness and improbability of the narrative. There may be a total want of agreement on the part of other documents. There may be the silence of every author for ages after the pretended date of the manuscript in question. There may be all these in sufficient abundance to convict the manuscript of forgery and falsehood. This has actually been done in several instances. The skill and discernment of the human mind, upon the subject of historical evidence, have been improved by the exercise. The few cases in which sentence of condemnation has been given are so many testimonies to the competency of the tribunal which has sat in judgment over them, and give a stability to their verdict, when any document is approved of. It is a peculiar subject, and the men who stand at a distance from it may multiply their sus- 110 GENUINENESS OF picions and their scepticism at pleasure ; but no intelligent man ever entered into the details without feeling the most familiar and satisfying conviction of that credit and confidence which it is in the power of historical evidence to bestow. 13. Now, to apply this to the object of our present division, which is to ascertain the age of the document, and the person who is the author of it. There are points of information which may be collected from the performance itself. They may be found in the body of the composition, or they may be more for- mally announced in the title-page ; and every time that the book is referred to by its title, or the name of the author and age of the publication are announced in any other document that has come down to us, these points of information receive additional proof from the testimony of subsequent writers. 14. The New Testament is bound up in one volume, but we would be underrating its evidence if we regarded it only as one testimony, and that the truth of the facts recorded in it rested upon the testimony of one historian. It is not one publication, but a collection of several publications, which are ascribed to different authors, and made their first appearance in different parts of the world. To fix the date of their appearance, it is necessary to institute a separate inquiry for each publication ; and it is the unexcepted testimony of all subsequent writers, that two of the Gospels, and several of the Epistles, were written by the immediate disciples of our Saviour, and published in their lifetime. Celsus, an enemy of the Christian faith, refers to the affairs of Jesus, as written bv His disciples. He never thinks of disputing the fact ; and from the extracts, which he makes for the purpose of criticism, there can be no doubt in the mind of the reader, that it is one or other of the four Gospels to which he refers. The single testimony of Celsus may be considered de- cisive of the fact, that the story of Jesus and of His life was actually written by His disciples. Celsus writes about a hun- dred years after the alleged time of the publication of this story ; but that it was written by the companions of this Jesus, is a fact which he never thinks of disputing. He takes it up upon the strength of its general notoriety, and the whole history of that period furnishes nothing that can attach any doubt or suspicion to this circumstance. Referring to a principle already taken notice of, had it been the history of a philosopher instead of a prophet, its authenticity would have been admitted without any formal testimony to that effect. It would have been admitted, THE NEW TESTAMENT. Ill so to speak, upon the mere existence of the title-page, combined with this circumstance, that the whole course of history or tra- dition does not furnish us with a single fact leading us to believe that the correctness of this title-page was ever questioned. It would have been admitted, not because it was asserted by subse- quent writers, but because they made no assertion upon the subject ; because they never thought of converting it into a matter of dis- cussion ; and because their occasional references to the hook in question would be looked upon as carrying in them a tacit ac- knowledgment that it was the very same book which it professed to be at the present day. The distinct assertion of Celsus, that the pieces in question were written by the companions of Jesus, though even at the distance of a hundred years, is an argument in favour of their authenticity which cannot be alleged for many of the most esteemed compositions of antiquity. It is the addi- tion of a formal testimony to that kind of general evidence whicn is founded upon the tacit or implied concurrence of subsequent writers, and which is held to be perfectly decisive in similar cases. 15. Had the pieces which make up the Hew Testament been tne only documents of past times, the mere existence of a preten- sion to such an age, and to such an author, resting on their own information, would have been sustained as a certain degree of evidence that the real age and the real author had been assigned to them. But we have the testimony of subsequent authors to the same effect ; and it is to be remarked, that it is by far the most crowded, and the most closely-sustained series of testimonies of which we have any example in the whole field of ancient his- tory. When we assigned the testimony of Celsus, it is not to be supposed that this is the very first which occurs after the days of the apostles. The blank of a hundred years betwixt the publi- cation of the original story and the publication of Celsus, is filled up by antecedent testimonies, which, in all fairness, should be counted more decisive of the point in question. They are the testimonies of Christian writers, and in as far as a nearer oppor- tunity of obtaining correct information is concerned, they should be held more valuable than the testimony of Celsus. These references are of three kinds : — First , In some cases their reference to the books of the New Testament is made in the form of an express quotation, and the author particularly named. Secondly , In other cases the quotation is made without reference to the particular author, and ushered in by the general words — 112 GENUINENESS OF 11 As it is written And, thirdly , There are innumerable allusions to the different parts of the New Testament scattered over all the writings of the earlier Fathers. In this last case there is no express citation ; but we have the sentiment, the turn of expres- * sion, the very words of the New Testament, repeated so often, and by such a number of different writers, as to leave no doubt upon the mind, that they were copied from one common original, which was at that period held in high reverence and estimation. In pursuing the train of references, we do not meet with a single chasm from the days of the original writers. Not to re- peat what we have already made some allusions to — the testi- monies of the original writers to one another, we proceed to assert, that some of the Fathers, whose writings have come down to us, were the companions of the apostles, and are even named in the books of the New Testament. St. Clement, Bishop of Borne, is, with the concurrence of all ancient authors, the same whom Paul mentions in his Epistle to the Philippians. In his epistle to the Church of Corinth, which was written in the name of the whole church of Borne, he refers to the first epistle of Paul to the former church. “ Take into your hands the epistle of the blessed Paul, the apostle / * He then makes a quotation which is to be found in PauPs First Epistle to the Corinthians. Could Clement have done this to the Corinthians themselves had no such epistle been in existence ? And is not this an undoubted testimony, not merely from the mouth of Clement, but on the part of the churches both of Borne and Corinth, to the authen- ticity of such an epistle ? There are in this same epistle of Clement several quotations of the second kind, which confirm the existence of some other books of the New Testament ; and a multitude of allusions or references of the third kind, to the writ- ings of the Evangelists, the Acts of the Apostles, and a great many of those epistles which have been admitted into the New Testament. We have similar testimonies from some more of the Fathers, who lived and conversed with Jesus Christ. Besides many references of the second and third kind, we have also other instances of the same kind of testimony which Clement gave to St. PauPs First Epistle to the Corinthians, than which nothing can be conceived more indisputable. Ignatius, w r riting to the church of Ephesus, takes notice of St. PauPs epistle to that church ; and Polycarp, an immediate disciple of the apostles, makes the same express reference to St. PauPs Epistle to the Philippians, in a letter addressed to that people. In carrying THE NEW TESTAMENT. 113 our attention down from the apostolical Fathers, we follow an uninterrupted series of testimonies to the authenticity of the canonical Scriptures. They get more numerous and circumstan- tial as we proceed — a thing to be expected from the progress of Christianity, and the greater multitude of writers who came for- ward in its defence and illustration. 16. In pursuing the series of writers from the days of the apostles down to about 150 years after the publication of the pieces which make up the New Testament, we come to Tertul- lian, of whom Lardner says, u that there are perhaps more and longer quotations of the small volume of the New Testament in this one Christian author, than of all the works of Cicero, though of so uncommon excellence for thought and style, in the writers of all characters for several ages.” 17. We feel ourselves exposed, in this part of our investiga- tion, to the suspicion which adheres to every Christian testimony. We have already made some attempts to analyze that suspicion into its ingredients, and we conceive that the circumstance of the Christians being an interested party, is only one, and not per- haps the principal, of these ingredients. At all events, this may be the proper place for disposing of that one ingredient, and for offering a few general observations on the strength of the Chris- tian testimony. 18. In estimating the value of any testimony, there are two distinct subjects of consideration ; the person who gives the tes- timony, and the people to whom the testimony is addressed. It is quite needless to enlarge on the resources which, in the present instance, we derive from both these considerations, and how much each of them contributes to the triumph and solidity of the Christian argument. In as far as the people who give the testi- mony are concerned, how could they be mistaken in their account of the books of the New Testament, when some of them lived in the same age with the original writers, and were their intimate acquaintances; and when all of them had the benefit of an un- controlled series of evidence, reaching down from the date of the earliest publications to their own times ? Or how can we sus- pect that they falsified, when there runs through their writings the same tone of plainness and sincerity which is allowed to stamp the character of authenticity on other productions ; and, above all, when, upon the strength even of heathen testimony, we conclude that many of them, by their sufferings and death, gave the highest evidence that man can give of his speaking VOL. vi. h 114 GENUINENESS OF under the influence of a real and honest conviction ? In as far as the people who received the testimony are concerned, to what other circumstances can we ascribe their concurrence, than to the truth of that testimony ? In what way was it possible to deceive them upon a point of general notoriety ? The books of the New Testament are referred to by the ancient Fathers as writings generally known and respected by the Christians of that period. If they were obscure writings, or had no existence at the time, how can we account for the credit and authority of those Fathers who appealed to them, and had the effrontery to insult their fel- low-Christians by a falsehood so palpable and so easily detected ? Allow them to be capable of this treachery, we have still to ex- plain how the people came to be the dupes of so glaring an im- position ; how they could be persuaded to give up everything for a religion whose teachers were so unprincipled as to deceive them, and so unwise as to commit themselves upon ground where it was impossible to elude discovery. Could Clement have dared to refer the people of Corinth to an epistle said to be received by themselves, and which had no existence ? or could he have re- ferred the Christians at large to writings which they never heard of? And it was not enough to maintain the semblance of truth with the people of their own party. Where w r ere the Jews all the time ? and how was it possible to escape the correction of these keen and vigilant observers ? We mistake the matter much, if we think that Christianity at that time was making its insidious way in silence and in secrecy, through a listless and unconcerned public. All history gives an opposite representation. The passions and curiosity of men were quite upon the alert. The popular enthusiasm had been excited on both sides of the ques- tion. It had drawn the attention of the established authorities in different provinces of the empire, and the merits of the Chris- tian cause had become a matter of frequent and formal discussion in courts of judicature. If, in these circumstances, the Christian writers had the hardihood to venture upon a falsehood, it would have been upon safer ground than what they actually adopted. They would never have hazarded to assert what was so open to contradiction, as the existence of books held in reverence among all the churches, and which nobody either in or out of these churches ever heard of. They would never have been so unwise as to commit in this way a cause which had not a single circum- stance to recommend it but its truth and its evidences. 19. The falsehood of the Christian testimony on this point THE NEW TESTAMENT. 115 would carry along with it a concurrence of circumstances, each of which is the strangest and most unprecedented that ever was heard of. First, That men, who sustained in their writings all the characters of sincerity, and many of whom submitted to mar- tyrdom as the highest pledge of sincerity which can possibly be given, should have been capable of falsehood at all. Second , That this tendency to falsehood should have been exercised so unwisely, as to appear in an assertion perfectly open to detection, and which could be so readily converted to the discredit of that religion which it was the favourite ambition of their lives to pro- mote and establish in the world. Third , That this testimony could have gained the concurrence of the people to whom it was addressed, and that, with their eyes perfectly open to its false- hood, they should be ready to make the sacrifice of life and of fortune in supporting it. Fourth , That this testimony should never have been contradicted by the Jews, and that they should have neglected so effectual an opportunity of disgracing a reli- gion, the progress of which they contemplated with so much jealousy and alarm. Add to this, that it is not the testimony of one writer which we are making to pass through the ordeal of so many difficulties. It is the testimony of many writers who lived at different times, and in different countries, and who add the very singular circumstance of their entire agreement with one another, to the other circumstances, equally unaccountable, which w 7 e have just now enumerated. The falsehood of their united testimony is not to be conceived. It is a supposition which we are warranted to condemn, upon the strength of any one of the above improbabilities taken separately. But the fair way of esti- mating their effect upon the argument is to take them jointly ; and, in the language of the doctrine of chances, to take the pro- duct of all the improbabilities into one another. The argument which this product furnishes for the truth of the Christian testi- mony, has, in strength and conclusiveness, no parallel in the whole compass of ancient literature. 20. The testimony of Celsus is looked upon as peculiarly valu- able, because it is disinterested. But if this consideration gives so much weight to the testimony of Celsus, w T hy should so much doubt and suspicion annex to the testimony of Christian writers, several of whom, before his time, have given a fuller and more express testimony to the authenticity of the Gospel ? In the persecutions they sustained ; in the obvious tone of sincerity and honesty which runs through their writings ; in their general 116 INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH agreement upon this subject ; in the multitude of their followers, who never could have confided in men that ventured to commit themselves by the assertion of what was obviously and notori- ously false ; in the check which the vigilance both of Jews and heathens exercised over every Christian writer of that period ; — in all these circumstances they give every evidence of having delivered a fair and unpolluted testimony. CHAPTER III. ON THE INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH AND HONESTY TO BE FOUND IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 1. — II. We shall now look into the Hew Testament itself, and endeavour to lay before the reader the internal marks of truth and honesty which are to be found in it. 2. Under this head it may be right to insist upon the minute accuracy which runs through all its allusions to the existing manners and circumstances of the times. To appreciate the force of this argument, it would be right to attend to the peculiar situation of Judea at the time of our Saviour. It was then un- der the dominion of the Roman Emperors, and comes frequently under the notice of the profane historians of that period. From this source we derive a great variety of information, as to the manner in which the emperors conducted the government of their different provinces ; what degree of indulgence was allowed to the religious opinions of the people whom they held in subjec- tion ; in how far they were suffered to live under the adminis- tration of their own laws ; the power which was vested in the presidents of provinces ; and a number of other circumstances relative to the criminal and civil jurisprudence of that period. In this way, there is a great number of different points in which the historians of the New Testament can be brought into com- parison with the secular historians of the age. The history of Christ and His apostles contains innumerable references to the state of public affairs. It is not the history of obscure and un- noticed individuals. They had attracted much of the public attention. They had been before the governors of the country. They^had passed through the established forms of justice ; and some of them underwent the trial and punishment of the times. IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 117 It is easy to perceive, then, that the New Testament writers were led to allude to a number of these circumstances in the po- litical history and constitution of the times, which came under the cognizance of ordinary historians. This was delicate ground for an inventor to tread upon ; and particularly if he lived at an age subsequent to the time of his history. He might in this case have fabricated a tale, by confining himself to the obscure and familiar incidents of private history ; but it is only for a true and a contemporary historian to sustain a continued accuracy through his minute and numerous allusions to the public policy and government of the times. 3. Within the period of the gospel history, Judea experienced a good many vicissitudes in the state of its government. At one time it formed part of a kingdom under Herod the Great. At another, it formed part of a smaller government under Archelaus. It after this came under the direct administration of a Homan governor, which form was again interrupted for several years by the elevation of Herod Agrippa to the sovereign power as exer- cised by his grandfather ; and it was at last left in the form of a province, at the conclusion of the evangelical history. There were also frequent changes in the political state of the countries adjacent to Judea, and which are often alluded to in the New Testament. A caprice of the reigning emperor often gave rise to a new form of government, and a new distribution of territory. It will be readily conceived how much these perpetual fluctua- tions in the state of public affairs, both in Judea and its neigh- bourhood, must add to the power and difficulty of that ordeal to which the gospel history has been subjected. 4. On this part of the subject there is no want of witnesses with whom to confront the writers of the New Testament. In addition to the Homan writers who have touched upon the affairs of Judea, we have the benefit of a Jewish historian, who has given us a professed history of his own country. From him, as was to be expected, we have a far greater quantity of copious and detailed narrative relative to the internal affairs of Judea, to the manners of the people, and those particulars which are connected with their religious belief and ecclesiastical constitu- tion. With many, it will be supposed to add to the value of his testimony that he was not a Christian, but that, on the other hand, we have every reason to believe him to have been a most zealous and determined enemy to the cause. It is really a most useful exercise to pursue the harmony which subsists between • J 1 8 INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH the writers of the New Testament, and those Jewish and profane authors with whom we bring them into comparison. Through- out the whole examination, our attention is confined to forms of justice, succession of governors in different provinces, manners, and political institutions. We are therefore apt to forget the sacredness of the subject ; and we appeal to all who have prose- cuted this inquiry, if this circumstance is not favourable to their having a closer and more decided impression of the truth of the gospel history. By instituting a comparison betwixt the Evan- gelists and contemporary authors, and restricting our attention to those points which come under the cognizance of ordinary history, we put the apostles and evangelists on the footing of ordinary historians ; and it is for those who have actually under- gone the labour of this examination, to tell how much this cir- cumstance adds to the impression of their authenticity. The mind gets emancipated from the peculiar delusion which attaches to the sacredness of the subject, and which has the undoubted effect of restraining the confidence of its inquiries. The argu- ment assumes a secular complexion, and the writers of the New Testament are restored to that credit with which the reader de- livers himself up to any other historian, who has a much less weight and quantity of historical evidence in his favour. 5. We refer those readers who wish to prosecute this inquiry to the first volume of Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospels . We shall restrict ourselves to a few general observations on the na- ture and precise effect of the argument. 6. In the first place, the accuracy of the numerous allusions to the circumstances of that period which the Gospel history em- braces, forms a strong corroboration of that antiquity which we have already assigned to its writers from external testimony. It amounts to a proof that it is the production of authors who lived antecedent to the destruction of Jerusalem, and consequently about the time that is ascribed to them by all the external testi- mony which has already been insisted upon. It is that accuracy which could only be maintained by a contemporary historian. It would be difficult, even for the author of some general specu- lation, not to betray his time by some occasional allusion to the ephemeral customs and institutions of the period in which he wrote. But the authors of the New Testament run a much greater risk. There are five different pieces of that collection which are purely historical, and where there is a continued re- ference to the characters, and politics and passing events of the IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 119 day. The destruction of Jerusalem swept away the whole fabric of Jewish polity ; and it is not to be conceived that the memory of a future generation could have retained that minute, that varied, that intimate acquaintance with the statistics of a nation no longer in existence, which is evinced in every page of the evangelical writers. We find, in point of fact, that both the heathen and Christian writers of subsequent ages do often betray their ignorance of the particular customs which obtained m Judea during the time of our Saviour. And it must be esteemed a strong circumstance in favour of the antiquity of the New Testament, that on a subject in which the chances of detection are so numerous, and where we can scarcely advance a single step in the narrative without the possibility of betraying our time by some mistaken allusion, it stands distinguished from every later composition, in being able to bear the most minute and intimate comparison with the contemporary historians of that period. 7. Th‘e argument derives great additional strength from view- ing the New Testament, not as one single performance, but as a collection of several performances. It is the work of no less than eight different authors, who wrote without any appearance of concert, who published in different parts of the world, and whose writings possess every evidence, both internal and exter- nal, of being independent productions. Had only one author exhibited the same minute accuracy of allusion, it would have been esteemed a very strong evidence of his antiquity. But when we see so many authors exhibiting such a well-sustained and almost unexcepted accuracy through the whole of their varied and distinct narratives, it seems difficult to avoid the con- clusion that they were either the eye-witnesses of their own his- tory, or lived about the period of its accomplishment. 8. When different historians undertake the affairs of the same period, they either derive their information from one another, or proceed upon distinct and independent information of their own. Now, it is not difficult to distinguish the copyist from the origi- nal historian. There is something in the very style and manner of an original narrative which announces its pretensions. It is not possible that any one event, or any series of events, should make such a similar impression upon two witnesses as to dispose them to relate it in the same language ; to describe it in the same order ; to form the same estimate as to the circumstances which should be noticed as important, and those other circum- 120 INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH stances which should be suppressed as immaterial. Each wit- ness tells the thing in his own way ; makes use of his own language ; and brings forward circumstances which the other might omit altogether, as not essential to the purpose of his nar- rative. It is this agreement in the facts, with this variety in the manner of describing them, that never fails to impress upon the inquirer that additional conviction which arises from the concurrence of separate and independent testimonies. Now, this is precisely that kind of coincidence which subsists between the New Testament writers and Josephus, in their allusions to the peculiar customs and institutions of that age. Each party main- tains the style of original and independent historians. The one often omits altogether, or makes only a slight and distant allu- sion to what occupies a prominent part in the composition of the other. There is not the slightest vestige of anything like a studied coincidence betwixt them. There is variety, but no opposition ; and it says much for the authenticity of both his- tories, that the most scrupulous and attentive criticism can scarcely detect a single example of an apparent contradiction in the testimony of these different authors, which does not admit of a likely, or at least a plausible, reconciliation. 9. When the difference betwixt two historians is carried to the length of a contradiction, it enfeebles the credit of both their testimonies. When the agreement is carried to the length of a close and scrupulous resemblance in every particular, it destroys the credit of one of the parties as an independent historian. In the case before us, we neither perceive this difference nor this agreement. Such are the variations, that at first sight the reader is alarmed with the appearance of very serious and em- barrassing difficulties. And such is the actual coincidence, that the difficulties vanish when we apply to them the labours of a profound and intelligent criticism. Had it been the object of the gospel writers to trick out a plausible imposition on the credulity of the world, they would have studied a closer resem- blance to the existing authorities of that period ; nor would they have laid themselves open to the superficial brilliancy of Vol- taire, which dazzles every imagination, and reposed their vindi- cation with the Lelands and Lardners of a distant posterity, whose sober erudition is so little attended to, and which so few know how to appreciate. 10. In the Gospels, we are told that Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, married his brother Philip's wife. In Josephus we have IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 121 the same story ; only he gives a different name to Philip, and calls him Herod ; and, what adds to the difficulty, there was a Philip of that family, whom we know not to have been the first husband of Herodias. This is at first sight a little alarming. But in the progress of onr inquiries, we are given to understand from this same Josephus that there were three Herods in the same family, and therefore no improbability in there being two Philips. We also know, from the histories of that period, that it was quite common for the same individual to have two names ; and this is never more necessary than when employed to dis- tinguish brothers who have one name the same. The Herod who is called Philip is just as likely a distinction as the Simon who is called Peter, or the Saul who is called Paul. The name of the high-priest, at the time of our Saviour’s crucifixion, was Caiaphas, according to the Evangelists. According to Josephus, the name of the high-priest at that period was Joseph. This would have been precisely a difficulty of the same kind, had not Josephus happened to mention that this Joseph was also called Caiaphas. Would it have been dealing fairly with the Evangel- ists, we ask, to have made their credibility depend upon the ac- cidental omission of another historian ? Is it consistent with any acknowledged principle of sound criticism, to bring four writers so entirely under the tribunal of Josephus, each of whom stands as firmly supported by all the evidences which can give authority to a historian ; and who have greatly the advantage of him in this, that they can add the argument of their concurrence to the argument of each separate and independent testimony? It so happens, however, in the present instance, that even Jewish writers, in their narrative of the same circumstance, give the name of Philip to the first husband of Herodias. We by no means conceive that any foreign testimony was necessary for the vindication of the Evangelists. Still, however, it must go far to dissipate every suspicion of artifice in the construction of their histories. It proves that, in the confidence with which they delivered themselves up to their own information, they ne- glected appearance, and felt themselves independent of it. This apparent difficulty, like many others of the same kind, lands us in a stronger confirmation of the honesty of the Evangelists ; and it is delightful to perceive how truth receives a fuller acces- sion to its splendour from the attempts which are made to dis- grace and to darken it. 11. On this branch of the argument, the impartial inquirer 122 INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH must be struck with the little indulgence which infidels, and even Christians, have given to the evangelical writers. In other cases, when we compare the narratives of contemporary historians, it is not expected that all the circumstances alluded to by one will be taken notice of by the rest ; and it often happens that an event or a custom is admitted upon the faith of a single historian ; and the silence of all other writers is not suffered to attach sus- picion or discredit to his testimony. It is an allowed principle, that a scrupulous resemblance betwixt two histories is very far from necessary to their being held consistent with one another. And, what is more, it sometimes happens, that with contemporary historians there maybe an apparent contradiction, and the credit of both parties remains as entire and unsuspicious as before. Posterity is, in these cases, disposed to make the most liberal allowances. Instead of calling it a contradiction, they often call it a difficulty. They are sensible that in many instances a seeming variety of statement has, upon a more extensive knowledge of ancient his- tory, admitted of a perfect reconciliation. Instead, then, of referring the difficulty in question to the inaccuracy or bad faith of any of the parties, they, with more justness and more modesty, refer it to their own ignorance, and to that obscurity which necessarily hangs over the history of every remote age. These principles are suffered to have great influence in every secular investigation ; but so soon as, instead of a secular, it becomes a sacred investigation, every ordinary principle is abandoned, and the suspicion annexed to the teachers of religion is carried to the dereliction of all that candour and liberality with which every other document of antiquity is judged of and appreciated. How does it happen that the authority of Josephus should be acquiesced in as a first principle, while every step in the narra- tive of the Evangelists must have foreign testimony to confirm and support it? How comes it that the silence of Josephus should be construed into an impeachment of the testimony of the Evangelists, while it is never admitted for a single moment that the silence of the Evangelists can impart the slightest blemish to the testimony of Josephus? How comes it that the supposition of two Philips in one family should throw a damp of scepticism over the gospel narrative, while the only circum- stance which renders that supposition necessary is the single testimony of Josephus ; in which very testimony it is necessarily implied, that there are two Herods in that same family? How comes it that the Evangelists, with as much internal, and a vast IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 123 deal more of external evidence in their favour, should be made to stand before Josephus, like so many prisoners at the bar of justice ? In any other case, we are convinced that this would be looked upon as rough handling . But we are not sorry for it. It has given more triumph and confidence to the argument. And it is no small addition to our faith, that its first teachers have survived an examination, which, in point of rigour and severity, we believe to be quite unexampled in the annals of criticism. 12. It is always looked upon as a favourable presumption, when a story is told circumstantially. The art and the safety of an impostor is to confine his narrative to generals, and not to commit himself by too minute a specification of time and place, and allusion to the manners or occurrences of the day. The more of circumstance that we introduce into a story, we multiply the chances of detection, if false ; and therefore, where a great deal of circumstance is introduced, it proves, that the narrator feels the confidence of truth, and labours under no apprehension for the fate of his narrative. Even though we have it not in our power to verify the truth of a single circumstance, yet the mere property of a story being circumstantial is always felt to carry an evidence in its favour. It imparts a more familiar air of life and reality to the narrative. It is easy to believe that the groundwork of a story may be a fabrication ; but it requires a more refined species of imposture than we can well conceive, to construct a harmonious and well-sustained narrative, abound- ing in minute and circumstantial details, which support one another, and where, with all our experience of real life, we can detect nothing misplaced, or inconsistent, or improbable. 13. To prosecute this argument in all its extent, it would be necessary to present the reader with a complete analysis or examination of the gospel history. But the most superficial observer cannot fail to perceive that it maintains, in a very high degree, the character of being a circumstantial narrative. When a miracle is recorded, we have generally the name of the town or neighbourhood where it happened ; the names of the people concerned ; the effect upon the hearts and convictions of the bystanders ; the arguments and examinations it gave birth to ; and all that minuteness of reference and description which im- presses a strong character of reality upon the whole history. If we take along with us the time at which this history made its appearance, the argument becomes much stronger. It does not 124 INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH merely carry a presumption in its favour, from being a circum- stantial history : it carries a proof in its favour, because these circumstances were completely within the reach and examination of those to whom it was addressed. Had the Evangelists been false historians, they would not have committed themselves upon so many particulars. They would not have furnished the vigi- lant inquirers of that period with such an effectual instrument for bringing them into discredit with the people ; nor foolishly supplied, in every page of their narrative, so many materials for a cross-examination, which would infallibly have disgraced them. 14. How, we of this age can institute the same cross-examina- tion. We can compare the evangelical writers with contempor- ary authors, and verify a number of circumstances in the history, and government, and peculiar economy of the Jewish people. We therefore have it in our power to institute a cross-examina- tion upon the writers of the Hew Testament ; and the freedom and frequency of their allusions to these circumstances supply us with ample materials for it. The fact, that they are borne out in their minute and incidental allusions by the testimony of other historians, gives a strong weight of what has been called circum- stantial evidence in their favour. As a specimen of the argu- ment, let us confine our observations to the history of our Saviour’s trial, and execution, and burial. They brought Him to Pontius Pilate. We know, both from Tacitus and Josephus, that he was at that time governor of Judea. A sentence from him was necessary before they could proceed to the execution of Jesus ; and we know that the power of life and death was usu- ally vested in the Roman governor. Our Saviour was treated with derision ; and this we know to have been a customary practice at that time previous to the execution of criminals, and during the time of it. Pilate scourged Jesus before he gave Him up to be crucified. We know, from ancient authors, that this was a very usual practice among the Romans. The account of an execution generally ran in this form : He was stripped, whipped, and beheaded, or executed. According to the Evangelists, His accusation was written on the top of the cross ; and we learn from Suetonius and others, that the crime of the person to be executed was affixed to the instrument of his punishment. Ac- cording to the Evangelists, this accusation was written in three different languages ; and we know from Josephus, that it was quite common in Jerusalem to have all public advertisements IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 125 written in this manner. According to the Evangelists, Jesus had to bear His cross ; and we know, from other sources of infor- mation, that this was the constant practice of these times. Ac- cording to the Evangelists, the body of Jesus was given up to be buried at the request of friends. We know that unless the criminal was infamous, this was the law or custom with all Roman governors. 15. These, and a few more particulars of the same kind, occur within the compass of a single page of the evangelical history. The circumstantial manner of the history affords a presumption in its favour, antecedent to all examination into the truth of the circumstances themselves. But it makes a strong addition to the evidence when we find that in all the subordinate parts of the main story, the Evangelists maintain so great a consistency with the testimony of other authors, and with all that we can collect from other sources of information as to the manners and institutions of that period. It is difficult to conceive, in the first instance, how the inventor of a fabricated story would hazard such a number of circumstances, each of them supplying a point of comparison with other authors, and giving to the inquirer an additional chance of detecting the imposition. And it is still more difficult to believe that truth should have been so artfully blended with falsehood in the composition of this narrative, par- ticularly as we perceive nothing like a forced introduction of any one circumstance. There appears to be nothing out of place ; nothing thrust in with the view of imparting an air of probability to the history. The circumstance upon which we bring the Evangelists into comparison with profane authors, is often not intimated in a direct form, but in the form of a slight or distant allusion. There is not the most remote appearance of its being fetched or sought for. It is brought in accidentally, and flows in the most natural and undesigned manner out of the progress of the narrative. 16. The circumstance that none of the gospel writers are in- consistent with one another, falls better under a different branch of the argument. It is enough for our present purpose, that there is no single writer inconsistent with himself. It often happens that falsehood carries its own refutation along with it ; and that, through the artful disguises which are employed in the construc- tion of a fabricated story, we can often detect a flaw or a contra- diction, which condemns the authority of the whole narrative. Now, every single piece of the New Testament wants this mark 120 INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH or character of falsehood. The different parts are found to sus- tain, and harmonize, and flow out of each other. Each has at least the merit of being a consistent narrative. For anything we see upon the face of it, it may be true, and a further hearing must be given before we can be justified in rejecting it as the tale of an impostor. 17. There is another mark of falsehood which each of the gospel narratives appears to be exempted from. There is little or no parading about their own integrity. We can collect their pretensions to credit from the history itself, but we see no anxious display of these pretensions. We cannot fail to perceive the force of that argument which is derived from the publicity of the Christian miracles, and the very minute and scrupulous exami- nation which they had to sustain from the rulers and official men of Judea. But this publicity, and these examinations, are simply recorded by the Evangelists. There is no boastful reference to these circumstances, and no ostentatious display of the advantage which they gave to the Christian argument. They bring their story forward in the shape of a direct and unencumbered narra- tive, and deliver themselves with that simplicity and unembar- rassed confidence, which nothing but their consciousness of truth, and the perfect feeling of their own strength and consistency, can account for. They do not write as if their object was to carry a point that was at all doubtful or suspicious. It is simply to transmit to the men of other times, and of other countries, a memorial of the events which led to the establishment of the Christian religion in the world. In the prosecution of their nar- rative, we challenge the most refined judge of the human cha- racter, to point out a single symptom of diffidence in the truth of their own story, or of art to cloak this diffidence from the notice of the most severe and vigilant observers. The manner of the New Testament writers does not carry in it the slightest idea of its being an assumed manner. It is quite natural, quite unguarded, and free of all apprehension, that their story is to meet with any discredit or contradiction from any of those nu- merous readers who had it fully in their power to verify or to expose it. We see no expedient made use of to obtain or to con- ciliate the acquiescence of their readers. They appear to feel as if they did not need it. They deliver what they have to say, in a round and unvarnished manner ; nor is it in general accompanied with any of those strong asseverations by which an impostor so often attempts to practise upon the credulity of his victims. IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 127 18. In the simple narrative of the Evangelists, they betray no feeling of wonder at the extraordinary nature of the events which they record, and no consciousness that what they are announcing is to excite any wonder among their readers. This appears to us to be a very strong circumstance. Had it been the newly broached tale of an impostor, he would, in ail likelihood, have feigned astonishment himself, or at least, have laid his account with the doubt and astonishment of those to whom it was ad- dressed. When a person tells a wonderful story to a company who are totally unacquainted with it, he must be sensible, not merely of the surprise which is excited in the minds of the hearers, but of a corresponding sympathy in his own mind with the feelings of those who listen to him. He lays his account with the wonder, if not the incredulity of his hearers ; and this distinctly appears in the terms with which he delivers his story, and the manner in which he introduces it. It makes a wide dif- ference, if, on the other hand, he tells the same story to a com- pany who have long been apprized of the chief circumstances, but who listen to him for the mere purpose of obtaining a more distinct and particular narrative. Now, in as far as we can collect from the manner of the Evangelists, they stand in this last predicament. They do not write, as if they were imposing a novelty upon their readers. In the language of Luke, they write for the sake of giving more distinct information ; and that the readers might know the certainty of those things , wherein they had been instructed. In the prosecution of this task, they deliver themselves with the most familiar and unembarrassed simplicity. They do not appear to anticipate the surprise of their readers, or to be at all aware, that the marvellous nature of their story is to be any obstacle to its credit or reception in the neighbour- hood. At the first performance of our Saviour's miracles, there was a strong and a widely spread sensation over the whole country. His fame went abroad , and all people were amazed. This is quite natural ; and the circumstance of.no surprise being either felt or anticipated by the Evangelists, in the writing of their history, can best be accounted for by the truth of the his- tory itself, that the experience of years had blunted the edge of novelty, and rendered miracles familiar, not only to them, but to all the people to whom they addressed themselves. 19. What appears to us a most striking internal evidence for the truth of the gospel is, that perfect unity of mind and of pur- pose which is ascribed to our Saviour. Had He been an impostor, 128 TESTIMONY OF THE He could not have foreseen all the fluctuations of His history ; and yet no expression of surprise is recorded to have escaped from Him. No event appears to have caught Him unprepared. We see no shifting of doctrine or sentiment, with a view to accom- modate to new or unexpected circumstances. His parables and warnings to His disciples, give sufficient intimation that He laid His account with all those events, v^hich appeared to His unen- lightened friends to be so untoward and so unpromising. In every explanation of His objects, we see the perfect consistency of a mind, before whose prophetic eye all futurity lay open ; and, when the events of this futurity came round, He met them, not as chances that were unforeseen, but as certainties which He had provided for. This consistency of His views is supported through all the variations of His history ; and it stands finely contrasted in the record of the Evangelists, with the misconcep- tions, the surprises, the disappointments of His followers. The gradual progress of their minds, from the splendid anticipations of earthly grandeur to a full acquiescence in the doctrine of a crucified Saviour, throws a stronger light on the perfect unity of purpose and of conception which animated His, and which can only be accounted for by the inspiration that filled and enlight- ened it. It may have been possible enough to describe a well- sustained example of this contrast from an actual history before us. It is difficult, however, to conceive how it could be sustained so well, and in a manner so apparently artless, by means of in- vention ; and particularly when the inventors made their own errors and their own ignorance form part of the fabrication. CHAPTER IY. ON THE TESTIMONY OP THE ORIGINAL WITNESSES TO THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 1. — III. There was nothing in the situation of the New Testament writers, which leads us to perceive that they had any possible inducement for publishing a falsehood. 2. We have not to allege the mere testimony of the Christian writers, for the danger to which the profession of Christianity exposed all its adherents at that period. We have the testimony of Tacitus to this effect. We have innumerable allusions, or ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 129 express intimations, of the same circumstance in the Roman his- torians. The treatment and persecution of the Christians makes a principal figure in the affairs of the empire ; and there is no point better established in ancient history, than that the bare circumstance of being a Christian brought many to the punish- ment of death, and exposed all to the danger of a suffering the most appalling and repulsive to the feelings of our nature. 3. It is not difficult to perceive why the Roman government, in its treatment of Christians, departed from its usual principles of toleration. We know it to have been their uniform practice to allow every indulgence to the religious belief of those different countries in which they established themselves. The truth is, that such an indulgence demanded of them no exertion of mo- deration or principle. It was quite consonant to the spirit of Paganism. A different country worshipped different gods ; but it was a general principle of Paganism, that each country had its gods, to which the inhabitants of that country owed their peculiar homage and veneration. In this w\ay there was no interference between the different religions which prevailed in the world. It fell in with the policy of the Roman government to allow the fullest toleration to other religions, and it demanded no sacrifice of principle. It was even a dictate of principle with them to respect the gods of other countries ; and the violation of a religion different from their own seems to have been felt, not merely as a departure from policy or justice, but to be viewed with the same sentiment of horror which is annexed to blas- phemy or sacrilege. So long as we were under Paganism, the truth of one religion did not involve in it the falsehood or rejec- tion of another. In respecting the religion of another country, we did not abandon our own ; nor did it follow, that the inha- bitants of that other country annexed any contempt or discredit to the religion in which we had been educated. In this mutual reverence for the religion of each other, no principle was de- parted from, and no object of veneration abandoned. It did not involve in it the denial or relinquishment of our owm gods, but only the addition of so many more gods to our catalogue. 4. In this respect, however, the Jews stood distinguished from every other people within the limits of the Roman empire* Their religious belief carried in it something more than attach- ment to their own system. It carried in it the contempt and detestation of every other. Yet, in spite of this circumstance, their religion was protected by the mild and equitable toleration VOL. VI. I 130 TESTIMONY OF THE / of the Roman government. The truth is, that there was nothing in the habits or character of the Jews, which was calculated to give much disturbance to the establishments of other countries. Though they admitted converts from other nations, yet their spirit of proselytism was far from being of that active or adven- turous kind, which could alarm the Roman government for the safety of any existing institutions. Their high and exclusive veneration for their own system, gave an unsocial disdain to the Jewish character, which was not at all inviting to foreigners ; but still, as it led to nothing mischievous in point of effect, it seems to have been overlooked by the Roman government as a piece of impotent vanity. 5. But the case was widely different with the Christian sys- tem. It did not confine itself to the denial or rejection of every other system. It was for imposing its own exclusive authority over the consciences of all, and for detaching as many as it could from their allegiance to the religion of their own country. It carried on its forehead all the offensive characters of a monopoly, and not merely excited resentment by the supposed arrogance of its pretensions, but from the rapidity and extent of its innova- tions, spread an alarm over the whole Roman empire for the security of all its establishments. Accordingly, at the com- mencement of its progress, so long as it was confined to Judea and the immediate neighbourhood, it seems to have been in per- fect safety from the persecutions of the Roman government. It was at first looked upon as a mere modification of Judaism, and that the first Christians differed from the rest of their own coun- trymen only in certain questions of their own superstition. For a few years after the crucifixion of our Saviour, it seems to have excited no alarm on the part of the Roman Emperors, who did not depart from their usual maxims of toleration, till they began to understand the magnitude of its pretensions, and the unlooked- for success which attended them. 6. In the course of a very few years after its first promulga- tion, it drew down upon it the hostility of the Roman govern- ment ; and the fact is undoubted, that some of its first teachers, who announced themselves to be the companions of our Saviour, and the eye-witnesses of all the remarkable events in his history, suffered martyrdom for their adherence to the religion which they taught. 7. The disposition of the Jews to the religion of Jesus was no less hostile ; and it manifested itself at a still earlier stage of ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 131 the business. The causes of this hostility are obvious to all who are in the slightest degree conversant with the history of those times. It is true that the Jews did not at all times possess the power of life and death, nor was it competent for them to bring the Christians to execution by the exercise of legal authority. Still, however, their powers of mischief were considerable. Their wishes had always a certain control over the measures of the Roman governor ; and we know that it was this control which was the means of extorting from Pilate the unrighteous sentence, by which the very first Teacher of our religion was brought to a cruel and ignominious death. We also know that under Herod Agrippa the power of life and death was vested in a Jewish sovereign, and that this power was actually exerted against the most distinguished Christians of that time. Add to this, that the Jews had at all times the power of inflicting the lesser punishments. They could whip, they could imprison. Besides all this, the Christians had to brave the frenzy of an enraged multitude ; and some of them actually suffered martyr- dom in the violence of the popular commotions. 6. Nothing is more evident than the utter disgrace which was annexed by the world at large to the profession of Christianity at that period. Tacitus calls it u superstitio exitiabilis ,” and accuses the Christians of enmity to mankind. By Epictetus and others, their heroism is termed obstinacy ; and it was generally treated by the Roman governors as the infatuation of a miser- able and despised people. There was none of that glory annexed to it which blazes around the martyrdom of a patriot or a philo- sopher. That constancy which, in another cause, would have made them illustrious, was ' held to be a contemptible folly which only exposed them to the derision and insolence of the multitude. A name and a reputation in the world might sustain the dying moments of Socrates or Regulus ; but what earthly principles can account for the intrepidity of those poor and miserable outcasts, who consigned themselves to a voluntary martyrdom in the cause of their religion ? 9. Having premised these observations, we offer the following alternative to the mind of every candid inquirer. The first Christians either delivered a sincere testimony, or they imposed a story upon the world which they knew to be a fabrication. 10. The persecutions to which the first Christians voluntarily exposed themselves, compel us to adopt the first part of the alternative. It is not to be conceived that a man would resign 132 TESTIMONY OF THE fortune and character and life, in the assertion of what he knew to be a falsehood. The first Christians must have believed their story to be true ; and it only remains to prove, that, if they be- lieved it to be true, it must be true indeed. 11. A voluntary martyrdom must be looked upon as the highest possible evidence which it is in the power of man to give of his sincerity. The martyrdom of Socrates has never been questioned, as an undeniable proof of the sincere devotion of his mind to the principles of that philosophy for which he suffered. The death of Archbishop Cranmer will be allowed by all to be a decisive evidence of his sincere rejection of what he conceived to be the errors of Popery, and his thorough convic- tion of the truth of the opposite system. When the council of Geneva burnt Serve tus, no one will question the sincerity of the latter’s belief, however much he may question the truth of it. Now, in all these cases, the proof goes no further than to esta- blish the sincerity of the martyr’s belief. It goes but a little way indeed in establishing the justness of it. This is a different question. A man may be mistaken, though he be sincere. His errors, if they are not seen to be such, will exercise all the in- fluence and authority of truth over him. Martyrs have bled on the opposite sides of the question. It is impossible, then, to rest on this circumstance as an argument for the truth of either system ; but the argument is always deemed incontrovertible, in as far as it goes to establish the sincerity of each of the parties, and that both died in the firm conviction of the doctrines which they professed. 12. Now, the martyrdom of the first Christians stands dis- tinguished from all other examples by this circumstance, that it not merely proves the sincerity of the martyr’s belief, but it also proves that what he believed was true. In other cases of martyrdom, the sufferer, when he lays down his life, gives his tes- timony to the truth of an opinion. In the case of the Christians, when they laid down their lives, they gave their testimony to the truth of a fact, of which they affirmed themselves to be the eye and the ear witnesses. The sinceritv of both testimonies is un- questionable ; but it is only in the latter case that the truth of the testimony follows as a necessary consequence of its sincerity. An opinion comes under the cognizance of the understanding, ever liable, as we all know, to error and delusion. A fact comes under the cognizance of the senses, which have ever been esteemed as infallible, when they give their testimony to such ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 183 plain and obvious and palpable appearances, as those which make up the evangelical story. We are still at liberty to ques- tion the philosophy of Socrates, or the orthodoxy of Cranmer and Servetus ; but if we were told by a Christian teacher, in the solemnity of his dying hour, and with the dread apparatus of martyrdom before him, that he saw Jesus after he had risen from the dead ; that he conversed with him many days ; that he put his hand into the print of his sides, and, in the ardour of his joyful conviction, exclaimed — u My Lord and my God!” we should feel that there was no truth in the world, did this language and this testimony deceive us. 13. If Christianity be not true, then the first Christians must have been mistaken as to the subject of their testimony. This supposition is destroyed by the nature of the subject. It was not testimony to a doctrine which might deceive the understanding. It was something more than testimony to a dream or a trance or a midnight fancy which might deceive the imagination. It was testimony to a multitude and a succession of palpable facts, which could never have deceived the senses, and which preclude all possibility of mistake, even though it had been the testimony only of one individual. But when, in addition to this, we consider that it is the testimony not of one, but of many individuals : that it is a story repeated in a variety of forms, but substantially the same ; that it is the concurring testimony of different eye- witnesses or the companions of eye-witnesses — we may, after this, take refuge in the idea of falsehood and collusion ; but it is not to be admitted, that these eight different writers of the New Testament could have all blundered the matter with such method and such uniformity. 14. We know that, in spite of the magnitude of their suffer- ings, there are infidels, who, driven from the first part of the alternative, have recurred to the second, and have affirmed that the glory of establishing a new religion induced the first Chris- tians to assert, and to persist in asserting, what they knew to be a falsehood. But (though we should be anticipating the last branch of the argument) they forget that we have the concur- rence of two parties to the truth of Christianity, and that it is the conduct only of one of the parties which can be accounted for by the supposition in question. The two parties are the teachers and the taught. The former may aspire to the glory of founding a new faith ; but what glory did the latter propose to themselves from being the dupes of an imposition so ruinous to 134 TESTIMONY OF THE every earthly interest, and held in such low and disgraceful estimation by the world at large ? Abandon the teachers of Christianity to every imputation, which infidelity, on the rack for conjectures to give plausibility to its system, can devise ; how shall we explain the concurrence of its disciples ? There may be a glory in leading, but we see no glory in being led. If Christianity were false, and Paul had the effrontery to appeal to his five hundred living witnesses, whom he alleges to have seen Christ after His resurrection, the submissive acquiescence of his disciples remains a very inexplicable circumstance. The same Paul, in his Epistles to the Corinthians, tells them that some of them had the gift of healing and the power of working miracles ; and that the signs of an apostle had been wrought among them in wonders and mighty deeds. A man, aspiring to the glory of an accredited teacher, would never have committed himself on a subject where his falsehood could have been so readily exposed. And in the veneration with which we know his epistles to have been preserved by the Church of Corinth, we have not merely the testimony of their writer to the truth of the Christian miracles, but the testimony of a whole people, who had no inter- est in being deceived. 15. Had Christianity been false, the reputation of its first teachers lay at the mercy of every individual among the nume- rous proselytes whom they had gained to their system. It may not be competent for an unlettered peasant to detect the absur- dity of a doctrine ; but he can at all times lift his testimony against a fact, said to have happened in his presence, and under the observation of his senses. Now it so happens, that in a number of the epistles, there are allusions to, or express intima- tions of, the miracles that had been wrought in the different churches to which these Epistles are addressed. How comes it, if it be at all a fabrication, that it was never exposed ? We know that some of the disciples were driven by the terrors of persecuting violence to resign their profession. How should it happen, that none of them ever attempted to vindicate their apostasy, by laying open the artifice and insincerity of the Chris- tian teachers ? We may be sure that such a testimony would have been highly acceptable to the existing authorities of that period. The Jews would have made the most of it ; and the vigilant and discerning officers of the Roman government would not have failed to turn it to account. The mystery would have been exposed and laid open, and the curiosity of later ages would ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 135 have been satisfied as to the wonderful and unaccountable steps, by which a religion could make such head in the world, though it rested its whole authority on facts ; the falsehood of which was accessible to all who were at the trouble to inquire about them. But no ! We hear of no such testimony from the apostates of that period. We read of some, who, agonized at the reflection of their treachery, returned to their first profession, and expiated, by martyrdom, the guilt which they felt they bad incurred by their dereliction of the truth. This furnishes a strong example of the power of conviction ; and when we join with it, that it is con- viction in the integrity of those teachers who appealed to miracles which had been wrought among them, it appears to us a testi- mony in favour of our religion which is altogether irresistible. 16. But before taking leave of the original witnesses, let us state in what respect their testimony is so much stronger than that of any subsequent witness. The following as an example is the testimony of Quadratus, who flourished at the end of the first century : — u The works of our Saviour were always conspi- cuous, because they were real ; both they that were healed, and they that were raised from the dead : who were seen not only when they were healed or raised, but for a long time afterwards. Not only whilst he dwelt on this earth, but also after his de- parture and for a good while after it, insomuch that some of them have reached to our times.” This testimony of Quadratus ex- cites a peculiar sense of confidence and satisfaction in the mind of every honest inquirer. It is the testimony of one standing without the canon of Scripture, and deponing to his own know- ledge of some who had been raised from the dead by the apostles, and who w T ere still surviving at the time that he wrote. It is felt as if bringing a great accession of strength and evidence to the miraculous story of the gospel ; and we desiderate like testi- monies from those Fathers who were stationed sufficiently near to the apostolic times, for handing down the same sort either of contemporaneous or at least of closely succeeding testimony to the men of distant ages. 17. Now it were well that we made the application to this case of a very obvious principle, in questions of historic faith. That written evidence for the reality of any transactions which was most satisfying to the men of the age when they happened, should also, if transmitted downwards, be the most satisfying to us. The epistle of Barnabas the fellow-labourer of Paul is of a moral or hortatory rather than of a historical character ; but, 136 TESTIMONY OF THE in tbe judgment of these days, it was not thought worthy of a place in the canon. Suppose that his subject had led him, which it did not, to make several such historical allusions as the one we so highly prize by Quadratus — we should have felt a weight and an impression in the testimony, which we do not feel in the explicit and distinct testimony of Mark, who was altogether historical. Now by this feeling we reverse the principle which has just been announced. It was the distincter information, the weightier evidence and authority of Mark, which preferred him to the place he now occupies within the limits of the New Testament ; and it was the inferiority of Barnabas in these par- ticulars, which determined his station to be that not of a principal but of a subsequent and a subordinate witness. Had there been no Barnabas, and had Mark with his actual Gospel been standing in his place — the disappearance of one of the Evangelists from the Bible would have made no sensible abatement in the original evidence, but a mighty addition certainly to the subsequent evi- dence for the truth of the Christian story ; yet, whatever effect this altered state of things may have had on our impression of the credibility of the gospel, it is certain that the evidence as it stands is of greater substantive validity or force, than it would have been under the hypothesis that we are now making. We should have had no Barnabas ; and Mark, of inferior grade to what he now is, occupying a lower place than he does at present — just because held, in the age that was best qualified to esti- mate his pretensions, to be more unworthy of that credit and of that confidence which then raised him to the scriptural rank that he enjoys. 18. We may now see the reason why in the writings of the apostolic or succeeding Fathers we have no professed narrative of the miracles of the Gospels. We have abundant incidental attes- tations to their truth ; and throughout, all the symptoms that we could desire of a common understanding and a common faith upon this subject, between themselves and the Christian public whom they addressed. But for any of them to undertake a for- mal or express history of these miraculous transactions, was a thing quite uncalled for, and for that very reason not attempted. The truth is, that in the superior estimation of the histories already before the world, there would have been no demand for their less authoritative and authentic compositions. Readers would just have done then what readers do now — turned them to the fullest and the most accredited historians of the transac- ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 137 lions, wherewith they wanted to acquaint themselves, and in so doing, neglected the others. And the sure consequence in these days of laborious hook-making, the sure consequence of neglect was speedy oblivion. Copies would have ceased to be multiplied, when copies were little or not at all in request — so that, had a thing so unnecessary as a Gospel by Barnabas, or Clement, or Polycarp been actually produced, it would have been left to perish, just by the superior confidence of their age in the actual Gospels of our own unperishable record. Strange that we should feel less satisfied with documents which now stand alone, precisely be- cause they monopolized the -whole truth and satisfaction of con- temporaries, or that in comparison with them we should feel so longing an appetency for other narratives, which, if ever they existed, were so undervalued by these contemporaries as to pass into irrecoverable extinction and be forgotten. 19. Luke, in the introduction to his Gospel, refers to memoirs of the life and history of our Saviour. How delighted we should be, if, among the ruins of Pompeii, we should lay hold of an evi- dent and authentic copy of one of these memoirs ! And why is it that none of them have been transmitted to us ? For no other reason than that the best judges of their value thought them unworthy of the honour. The truth is, that they have all been superseded by the Gospels of the New Testament — even those wdnch, in the language of Luke, set the whole narrative with greater authority and distinctness before the Christian commu- nity — so that, in the documents we actually have, there is a ten- fold surpassing weight both of authority and evidence over all that we so insatiably aspire after. 20. The great number of scriptural manuscripts, compared with the small number of the manuscripts of all other books, is of itself a testimony in favour of the original witnesses for the truth of the gospel narratives. Not that the works which have disappeared were always of small value ; for they may have since been superseded by other works which answered the purpose so much better, that copies of the former ones were no more called for. For example, there seems to have been a number of small separate memoirs of our Saviour during the time of the apostles — perhaps taken by eye and ear witnesses on the spot ; or it may be immediately collected from the hearsay information of his com- panions and disciples. The accounts alluded to by Luke at the commencement of his Gospel seem to have been of this descrip- tion ; but after Luke took in hand, out of these and other ma- 138 TESTIMONY OF THE terials within his reach, to publish a more distinct and compre- hensive narrative — copies of these minor records would cease to be multiplied. The whole demand would be turned to the fuller and more authentic statements of the Evangelists ; and, without any reflection on the general accuracy of the prior documents, they would fall into desuetude, simply from their being inferior to those which succeeded them in authority and fulness, and so would ultimately disappear. 21. Now we all feel it would be an infinite gratification if some of these original memoirs had been transmitted to the pre- sent day. With what eagerness of curiosity should we peruse any relic of this sort, if discovered and demonstrated on satis- factory evidence to be one of the very pieces which Luke had adverted to ; and what is more, we should feel as if a distinct con- firmation had been given to the evangelical story by the addition of such a testimony to those which are already in our possession. Now the want of these supplementary testimonies arises from the very worth and sufficiency of those testimonies which have actu- ally been transmitted to us. That want of additional documents which we do not have, and which some might feel to be a symp- tom of defect, proceeds in fact from an altogether opposite cause, from the strength and ahun dance of those documents which we do have. It was a serious labour to multiply books in those days ; and, generally speaking, it would not have been done without a practical necessity ; and they who read for the practical object of informing themselves respecting the Saviour, would naturally prefer those narratives which were most esteemed for their worth and copiousness, and had the stamp of greatest authority affixed to them. Had they felt it desirable or useful, over and above the accounts of the four Evangelists, to read the lesser memoirs also ; this might have given rise to such a de- mand as would lead to a renewal of their copies, and so to their preservation. But the very reason why they were suffered to perish is, because of their felt insignificance and worthlessness at the time, when compared with the pieces which have come down to us. In the fact of their disappearance, we behold the testi- mony of that contemporaneous age to the superior value of those actual Scriptures which have been admitted in our canon ; or, in other words, the judgment to this effect of the men best qualified, by their opportunities of observation, and their nearness to the events of the gospel history. In the credit and completeness of the four Gospels, they felt themselves independent of these sup- ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 139 plementary memoirs ; and by what strange illusion, then, is it that we should not feel the same independence, or that we should desiderate, and for the purpose of gaining more evidence too, those additional memorials — when the very fact of their having been permitted to go into, oblivion, if viewed aright, would en- hance the splendour of that evidence which beams direct upon us from the canonical Scriptures themselves. It is true that they are lost ; but they have been lost in that blaze of light which shone upon the Church from the writings of apostles and apo- stolic men. 22. We have already put the case of Mark having had a station assigned to him, which he only could have had, because of the inferior estimation in which he was held by his contem- poraries — so that, in the state in which he has actually come down to us, his testimony is absolutely of greater value, however weaker the impression may be which it makes upon us. With- out insisting longer upon this case, we hold it of importance to remark while upon the subject, that, works may have disappeared which produced a great effect in their day, and have left behind them a permanent benefit which shall be felt to the latest ages of the Church. Take, for an example, the Hexapla of Origen, the first of our scriptural polyglots, consisting of the Hebrew Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek characters, along with four distinct versions of the same in Greek — that is, the Septuagint, and those of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. This stupen- dous work, consisting as it did of forty or fifty manuscript volumes, could not have been multiplied and transmitted but at a prodigi- ous expense ; and it is not therefore to be wondered at, that so few remains of it should have survived to the present day. Yet who can doubt the enduring benefit which the Church has re- ceived from this work, in restoring and purifying the sacred text, and so improving every subsequent edition that was framed by those who availed themselves of the labours of its author. 23. At all events it remains a sensible proof of the estimation in which the Scriptures in former ages have been held over all other books — the immense superiority in the number of its ex- isting manuscripts over those of all other works. It gives, as it were, the evidence of eye-sight to our cause. A work not pos- sessing authority, was simply left to disappear from the non- multiplication of its copies. Whereas, on the other hand, the indefinite number of ancient copies of the Sacred Scriptures ac- tually before our eyes, speaks most decisively for the concurrent 140 TESTIMONY OF reverence in which these records were held in earlier times. The force of this consideration will he unfelt by those who stop short at any century in the Middle Ages, and conceive of it as the fountainhead of this sort of testimony. But when, on the faith of undoubted documents, we can carry upwards the same ex- pression of a preference for the Scriptures over all other works, to those ages when Christianity was an oppressed and suffering religion — such an expression of general respect and confidence for the Scriptures at such periods, carries an evidence along with it that is quite irresistible. 24. On the whole, then, it may be concluded, that the evi- dence for the truth of Christianity does not commence with Barnabas, the first of the apostolic Fathers. It has an origin in the writers themselves of the Inspired Volume ; and, broad and brilliant as the flood of light is which descends along the historic pathway of the Christian Church, there is even a surpassing brilliancy in that primitive halo by which the fountainhead is irradiated. CHAPTER V. ON THE TESTIMONY OP SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 1. — IV. But this brings us to the last division of the argument, viz., that the leading facts in the history of the gospel are cor- roborated by the testimony of others. 2. The evidence we have already brought forward for the antiquity of the New Testament, and the veneration in which it was held from the earliest ages of the Church, is an implied testi- mony of all the Christians of that period to the truth of the gospel history. By proving the genuineness of St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, we do not merely establish his testimony to the truth of the Christian miracles — we establish the additional tes- timony of the whole church of Corinth, who would never have respected these epistles, if Paul had ventured upon a falsehood so open to detection, as the assertion, that miracles were wrought among them, which not a single individual ever witnessed. By proving the genuineness of the New Testament at large, we secure, not merely that argument which is founded on the testi- mony and concurrence of its different writers, but also the testi- mony of those immense multitudes, who, in distant countries, SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. HI submitted to the New Testament as the rule of their faith. The testimony of the teachers, whether we take into consideration the subject of that testimony, or the circumstances under which it was delivered, is of itself a stronger argument for the truth of the gospel history, than can be alleged for the truth of any other history which has been transmitted down to us from ancient times. The concurrence of the taught carries along with it a host of additional testimonies, which gives an evidence to the evangelical story, that is altogether unexampled. On a point of ordinary history, the testimony of Tacitus is held decisive, because it is not contradicted. The history of the New Testa- ment is not only not contradicted, but confirmed by the strongest possible expressions which men can give of their acquiescence in its truth ; by thousands, who were either agents or eye-witnesses of the transactions recorded ; who could not be deceived ; who had no interest, and no glory to gain by supporting a falsehood ; and who, by their sufferings in the cause of what they professed to be their belief, gave the highest evidence that human nature can give of sincerity. 3. In this circumstance it may be perceived how much the evidence for Christianity goes beyond all ordinary historical evi- dence. A profane historian relates a series of events which happen in a particular age ; and we count it well, if it be his own age, and if the history which he gives us be the testimony of a contemporary author. Another historian succeeds him at the distance of years, and by repeating the same story, gives the additional evidence of his testimony to its truth. A third his- torian perhaps goes over the same ground, and lends another confirmation to the history. And it is thus, by collecting all the lights which are thinly scattered over the tract of ages and of centuries, that we obtain all the evidence which can be got, and all the evidence that is generally wished for. 4. Now, there is room for a thousand presumptions, which, if admitted, would overturn the whole of this evidence. For any- thing we know, the first historians may have had some interest in disguising the truth, or substituting in its place a falsehood and a fabrication. True, it has not been contradicted ; but they form a very small number of men who feel strongly or particu- larly interested in a question of history. The literary and specu- lative men of that age may have perhaps been engaged in other pursuits, or their testimonies may have perished in the wreck of centuries. The second historian may have been so far removed, 142 TESTIMONY OF in point of time from the events of his narrative, that he can furnish us not with an independent but with a derived testimony. He may have copied his account from the original historian, and the falsehood have come down to us in the shape of an authentic and well-attested history. Presumptions may be multiplied without end ; yet in spite of them, there is a natural confidence in the veracity of man, which disposes us to as firm a belief in many of the facts of ancient history as in the occurrences of the present day. 5. The history of the gospel, however, stands distinguished from all other history, by the uninterrupted nature of its testi- mony, which carries down its evidence, without a chasm, from its earliest promulgation to the present day. We do not speak of the superior weight and splendour of its evidences, at the first publication of that history, as being supported not merely by the testimony of one, but by the concurrence of several independent witnesses. We do not speak of its subsequent writers, who follow one another in a far closer and more crowded train than there is any other example of in the history or literature of the world. We speak of the strong though unwritten testimony of its numerous proselytes, who, in the very fact of their proselytism, give the strongest possible confirmation to the gospel, and fill up every chasm in the recorded evidence of past times. 6. In the written testimonies for the truth of the Christian re- ligion, Barnabas comes next in order to the first promulgators of the evangelical story. He was a contemporary of the apostles, and writes a very few years after the publication of the pieces which make up the New Testament. Clement follows, who was a fellow-labourer of Paul, and writes an epistle in the name of the church of Rome, to the church of Corinth. The written testi- monies follow one another with a closeness and a rapidity of which there is no example ; but what we insist on at present is, the un- written and implied testimony of the people who composed these two churches. There can be no fact better established than that these two churches were planted in the days of the apostles, and that the Epistles which were respectively addressed to them, were held in the utmost authority and veneration. There is no doubt that the leading facts of the gospel history were familiar to them ; that it was in the power of many individuals amongst them to verify these facts, either by their own personal observation, or by an actual conversation with eye-witnesses ; and that, in particular, it was in the power of almost every individual in the church of SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 143 Corinth, either to verify the miracles which St. Paul alludes to in his Epistle to that church, or to detect and expose the imposi- tion, had there been no foundation for such an allusion. What do we see in all this but the strongest possible testimony of a whole people to the truth of the Christian miracles ? There is nothing like this in common history — the formation of a society which can only be explained by the history of the gospel, and where the conduct of every individual furnishes a distinct pledge and evidence of its truth. And to have a full view of the argu- ment, we must reflect that it is not one, but many societies scattered over the different countries of the world ; that the principle upon which each society was formed was the Divine authority of Christ and His apostles, resting upon the recorded miracles of the New Testament ; that these miracles were wrought with a publicity, and at a nearness of time, which rendered them accessible to the inquiries of all, for upwards of half a century ; that nothing but the power of conviction could have induced the people of that age to embrace a religion so disgraced and so persecuted; that every temptation was held out for its disciples to abandon it ; and that though some of them, overpowered by the terrors of punishment, were driven to apos- tasy, yet not one of them has left us a testimony which can impeach the miracles of Christianity, or the integrity of its first teachers. 7. It may be observed, that in pursuing the line of continuity from the days of the apostles, the written testimonies for the truth of the Christian miracles follow one another in closer suc- cession, than we have any otner example of in ancient history. But what gives such peculiar and unprecedented evidence to the history of the gospel is, that in the concurrence of the multitudes who embraced it, and in the existence of those numerous churches and societies of rr^n who espoused the profession of the Christian faith, we cannot but perceive that every small interval of time betwixt the written testimonies of authors is filled up by ma- terials so strong and so firmly cemented, as to present us with an unbroken chain of evidence, carrying as much authority along with it as if it had been a diurnal record, commencing from the days of the apostles, and authenticated through its whole progress by the testimony of thousands. 8. Every convert to the Christian faith in those days, gives one additional testimony to the truth of the gospel history. Is he a Gentile? The sincerity of his testimony is approved by 144 TESTIMONY OF the persecutions, the sufferings, the danger, and often the cer- tainty of martyrdom, which the profession of Christianity in- curred. Is he a Jew? The sincerity of his testimony is approved by all these evidences, and, in addition to them, by this well-known fact, that the faith and doctrine of Christianity were in the highest degree repugnant to the wishes and pre- judices of that people. It ought never to be forgotten that, in as far as Jews are concerned, Christianity does not owe a single proselyte to its doctrines, but to the power and credit of its evi- dences, and that Judea was the chief theatre on which these evidences were exhibited. It cannot be too often repeated, that these evidences rest not upon arguments but upon facts; and that the time, and the place, and the circumstances, rendered these facts accessible to the inquiries of all who chose to be at the trouble of this examination. And there can be no doubt that this trouble was taken, whether we reflect on the nature of the Christian faith, as being so offensive to the pride and bigotry of the Jewish people, or whether we reflect on the consequences of embracing it, which were derision, and hatred, and banishment, and death. We may be sure that a step which involved in it such painful sacrifices, would not be entered into upon light and insufficient grounds. In the sacrifices they made, the Jewish converts gave every evidence of having delivered an honest testimony in favour of the Christian miracles ; and when we reflect, that many of them must have been eye-witnesses, and all of them had it in their power to verify these miracles, by conversation and correspondence with bystanders, there can be no doubt that it was not merely an honest, but a competent tes- timony. There is no fact better established, than that many thou- sands among the Jews believed in Jesus and His apostles; and we have therefore to allege their conversion as a strong additional confirmation of the written testimony of the original historians. 9. One of the popular objections against the truth of the Christian miracles, is the general infidelity of the Jewish people. We are convinced, that at the moment of proposing this objec- tion, an actual delusion exists in the mind of the infidel. In his conception, the Jews and the Christians stand opposed to each other. In the belief of the latter, he sees nothing but a party, or an interested testimony ; and in the unbelief of the former, he sees a whole people persevering in their ancient faith, and resist- ing the new faith on the ground of its insufficient evidences. He forgets all the while that the testimony of a great many of SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 145 these Christians is in fact the testimony of Jews. He only at- tends to them in their present capacity. He contemplates them in the light of Christians, and annexes to them all that suspicion and incredulity which are generally annexed to the testimony of an interested party. He is aware of what they are at present — Christians, and defenders of Christianity ; hut he has lost sight of their original situation, and is totally unmindful of this cir- cumstance, that in their transition from Judaism to Christianity they have given him the very evidence he is in quest of. Had another thousand of these Jews renounced the faith of their an- cestors, and embraced the religion of Jesus, they would have been equivalent to a thousand additional testimonies in favour of Christianity ; and testimonies, too, of the strongest and most un- suspicious kind that can well be imagined. But this evidence would make no impression on the mind of an infidel, and the strength of it is disguised, even from the eyes of the Christian. These thousand, in the moment of their conversion, lose the ap- pellation of Jews, and merge into the name and distinction of Christians. The Jews, though diminished in number, retain the national appellation ; and the obstinacy with which they perse- vere in the belief of their ancestors, is still looked upon as the adverse testimony of an entire people. So long as one of that people continues a Jew, his testimony is looked upon as a serious impediment in the way of the Christian evidences. But the mo- ment he becomes a Christian, his motives are contemplated with distrust. He is one of the obnoxious and suspected party. The mind carries a reference only to what he is, and not to what he has been. It overlooks the change of sentiment ; and forgets that, in the renunciation of old habits and old prejudices ; in de- fiance to sufferings and disgrace ; in attachment to a religion so repugnant to the pride and bigotry of their nation ; and above all, in submission to a system of doctrines which rested its authority on the miracles of their own time, and their own remembrance; every Jewish convert gives the most decisive testimony which man can give for the truth and divinity of our religion. 10. But why then, says the infidel, did they not all believe ? Had the miracles of the gospel been true, we do not see how human nature could have held out against an evidence so strik- ing and so extraordinary ; nor can we at all enter into the ob- stinacy of that belief which is ascribed to the majority of the Jewish people, and which led them to shut their eyes against VOL. VI. K. 146 TESTIMONY OF a testimony, that no man of common sense, we think, couid have resisted. 11. Many Christian writers have attempted to resolve this difficulty ; and to prove that the infidelity of the Jews, in spite of the miracles which they saw, is perfectly consistent with the known principles of human nature. For this purpose, they have enlarged, with much force and plausibility, on the strength and inveteracy of the Jewish prejudices — on the bewildering influ- ence of religious bigotry upon the understanding of men — on the woful disappointment which Christianity offered to the pride and interests of the nation — on the selfishness of the priesthood — and on the facility with which they might turn a blind and fanatical multitude, who had been trained by their earliest habits to follow and to revere them. 12. In the gospel history itself, we have a very consistent account at least of the Jewish opposition to the claims of our Saviour. We see the deeply- wounded pride of a nation that felt itself disgraced by the loss of its independence. We see the arrogance of its peculiar and exclusive claims to the favour of the Almighty. We see the anticipation of a great prince, who was to deliver them from the power and subjection of their enemies. We see their insolent contempt for the people of other countries, and the foulest scorn that they should be ad- mitted to an equality with themselves in the honours and bene- fits of a revelation from heaven. We may easily conceive how much the doctrine of Christ and His apostles was calculated to gall and irritate and disappoint them ; how it must have morti- fied their national vanity ; how it must have alarmed the jealousy of an artful and interested priesthood ; and how it must have scandalized the great body of the people by the liberality with which it addressed itself to all men, and to all nations, and raised to an elevation with themselves, those whom the firmest habits and prejudices of their country had led them to con- template under all the disgrace and ignominy of outcasts. 13. Accordingly we know, in fact, that bitterness, and resent- ment, and wounded pride, lay at the bottom of a great deal of the opposition which Christianity experienced from the Jewish people. In the New Testament history itself, we see repeated examples of their outrageous violence ; and this is confirmed by the testimony of many other writers. In the history of the martyrdom of Polycarp, it is stated, that the Gentiles and Jews inhabiting Smyrna, in a furious rage, and with a loud voice. SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 14' cried out, u This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Chris- tians, the destroyer of our gods, who teacheth all men not to sacrifice nor to worship them !” They collected wood and the dried branches of trees for his pile ; and it is added, “ the Jews also, according to custom, assisting with the greatest forward- ness.” It is needless to multiply testimonies to a point so generally understood, as that it was not conviction alone which lay at the bottom of their opposition to the Christians ; that a great deal of passion entered into it ; and that their numerous acts of hostility against the worshippers of Jesus, carry in them all the marks of fury and resentment. 14. Now we know that the power of passion will often carry it very far over the power of conviction. We know that the strength of conviction is not in proportion to the quantity of evidence presented , but to the quantity of evidence attended to and perceived, in consequence of that attention. We also know that attention is, in a great measure, a voluntary act ; and that it is often in the power of the mind both to turn away its atten- tion from what would land it in any painful or humiliating con- clusion, and to deliver itself up exclusively to those arguments which flatter its taste and its prejudices. All this lies within the range of familiar and every-day experience. We all know how much it insures the success of an argument when it gets a favourable hearing. In by far the greater number of instances, the parties in a litigation are not merely each attached to their own side of the question ; but each confident and believing that theirs is the side on which the justice lies. In those contests of opinion, which take place every day between man and man, and particularly if passion and interest have any share in the con- troversy, it is evident to the slightest observation, that though it might have been selfishness in the first instance, which gave a peculiar direction to the understanding, yet each of the parties often comes at last to entertain a sincere conviction in the truth of his own argument. It is not that truth is not one and im- mutable ; the whole difference lies in the observers, each of them viewing the object through the medium of his own prejudices, or cherishing those peculiar habits of attention and understand- ing to which taste or inclination had disposed him. 15. In addition to all this we know, that though the evidence for a particular truth be so glaring, that it forces itself upon the understanding, and all the sophistry of passion and interest cannot withstand it; yet, if this truth be of a very painful and humili- 148 TESTIMONY OF ating kind, the obstinacy of man will often dispose him to resist its influence, and, in the bitterness of his malignant feelings, to carry a hostility against it, and that, too, in proportion to the weight of the argument which may be brought forward in its favour. 16. Now, if we take into account the inveteracy of the Jewish prejudices, and reflect how unpalatable and how mortifying to their pride must have been the doctrine of a crucified Saviour ; we believe that their conduct, in reference to Christianity and its miraculous evidences, presents us with nothing anomalous or inexplicable, and that it will appear a possible and a likely thing to every understanding, that has been much cultivated in the experience of human affairs, in the nature of mind, and in the science of its character and phenomena. 17. There is a difficulty, however, in the way of this investi- gation. From the nature of the case it bears no resemblance. to anything else that has either been recorded in history, or has come within the range of our own personal observation. There is no other example of a people called upon to renounce the darling faith and principles of their country, and that upon the authority of miracles exhibited before them. All the experience we have about the operation of prejudice, and the perverseness of the human temper and understanding, cannot afford a com- plete solution of the question. In many respects it is a case sui generis ; and the only creditable information which we can ob- tain, to enlighten us in this inquiry, is through the medium of that very testimony upon which the difficulty in question has thrown the suspicion that we want to get rid of. 18. Let us give all the weight to this argument of which it is susceptible, and the following is the precise degree in which it affects the merits of the controversy. When the religion of Jesus was promulgated in Judea, its first teachers appealed to miracles wrought by themselves, in the face of day, as the evi- dence of their being commissioned by God. Many adopted the . new religion upon this appeal, and many rejected it. An argu- ment in favour of Christianity is derived from the conduct of the first. An objection against Christianity is derived from the conduct of the second. Now, allowing that we are not in pos- session of experience enough for estimating, in absolute terms , the strength of the objection, we propose the following as a solid and unexceptionable principle, upon which to estimate a com- parison betwixt the strength of the objection, and the strength of the argument. We are sure that the first would not have SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 149 embraced Christianity had its miracles been false ; but we are not sure beforehand, whether the second would have rejected this religion on the supposition of the miracles being true. If experience does not enlighten us as to how far the exhibition of a real miracle would be effectual in inducing men to renounce their old and favourite opinions, we can infer nothing decisive from the conduct of those who still kept by the Jewish religion. This conduct was a matter of uncertainty, and any argument which may be extracted from it, cannot be depended upon. But the case is widely different with that party of their nation who were converted from Judaism to Christianity. We know that the alleged miracles of Christianity were perfectly open to examina- tion. We are sure, from our experience of human nature, that in a question so interesting, this examination would be given. We know, from the very nature of the miraculous facts, so re- mote from everything like what would be attempted by jugglery, or pretended to by enthusiasm, that, if this examination were given, it would fix the truth or falsehood of the miracles. The truth of these miracles, then, for anything we know, may be con- sistent with the conduct of the Jewish party ; but the falsehood of these miracles, from all that we do know of human nature, is not consistent with the conduct of the Christian party. Grant- ing that we are not sure whether a miracle would force the Jewish nation to renounce their opinions, all that we can say of the conduct of the Jewish party is, that we are not able to ex- plain it. But there is one thing that we are sure of. We are sure, that if the pretensions of Christianity be false, it never could have forced any part of the Jewish nation to renounce their opinions, with its alleged miracles so open to detection, and its doctrines so offensive to every individual. The conduct of the Christian party then is not only what we are able to explain, but we can say with certainty, that it admits of no other ex- planation, than the truth of that hypothesis which we contend for. We may not know in how far an attachment to existing opinions will prevail over an argument which is felt to be true ; but we are sure, that this attachment will never give way to an argument which is perceived to be false ; and particularly when danger, and hatred, and persecution, are the consequences of embracing it. The argument for Christianity, from the conduct of the first proselytes, rests upon the firm ground of experience. The objection against it, from the conduct of the unbelieving Jews, has no experience whatever to rest upon. 150 TESTIMONY OF 19. The conduct of the Jews may be considered as a solitary fact in the history of the world ; not from its being an excep- tion to the general principles of human nature, but from its being an exhibition of human nature in singular circumstances. We have no experience to guide us in our opinion as to the proba- bility of this conduct ; and nothing, therefore, that can impeach a testimony which all experience in human affairs leads us to repose in as unquestionable. But, after this testimony is ad- mitted, we may submit to be enlightened by it ; and in the his- tory which it gives us of the unbelieving Jews, it furnishes a curious fact as to the power of prejudice upon the human mind, and a valuable accession to what we before knew of the princi- ples of our nature. It lays before us an exhibition of the human mind in a situation altogether unexampled, and furnishes us with the result of a singular experiment, if we may so call it, in the history of the species. We offer it as an interesting fact to the moral and intellectual philosopher, that a previous attachment may sway the mind even against the impression of a miracle ; and those who believe not in the historical evidence which esta- blished the authority of Christ and of the apostles, would not believe, even though one rose from the dead. 20. We are inclined to think, that the argument has come down to us in the best possible form, and that it would have been enfeebled by that very circumstance, which the infidel de- mands as essential to its validity. Suppose, for a moment, that we could give him what he wants ; that all the priests and people of Judea were so borne down by the resistless evidence of miracles, as, by one universal consent, to become the disciples of the new religion. What interpretation might have been given to this unanimous movement in favour of Christianity ? A very un- favourable one, we apprehend, to the authenticity of its evidences. Will the infidel say, that he has a higher respect for the credi- bility of those miracles which ushered in the dispensation of Moses, because they were exhibited in the face of a whole people, and gained their unexcepted submission to the laws and the ritual of Judaism ? This new revolution would have received the same explanation. We would have heard of its being sanc- tioned by their prophecies ; of its being agreeable to their prejudices; of its being supported by the countenance and en- couragement of their priesthood ; and that the jugglery of its miracles imposed upon all, because all were willing to be de- ceived by them. The actual form in which the history has come SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 151 clown, presents ns with an argument free of all these exceptions. We, in the first instance, behold a number of proselytes, whose testimony to the facts of Christianity is approved of by what they lost and suffered in the maintenance of their faith ; and we, in the second instance, behold a number of enemies, eager, vigilant, and exasperated, at the progress of the new religion, who have not questioned the authenticity of our histories, and whose silence, as to the public and widely talked of miracles of Christ and His apostles, we have a right to interpret into the most triumphant of all testimonies. 21. The same process of reasoning is applicable to the case of the Gentiles. Many adopted the new religion, and many re- jected it. We may not be sure if we can give an adequate explanation of the conduct of the latter, on the supposition that the evidences are true ; but we are perfectly sure, that we can give no adequate explanation of the conduct of the former, on the sup- position that the evidences are false. For anything we know, it is possible that the one party may have adhered to their former prejudices, in opposition to all the force and urgency of argument, which even an authentic miracle carries along with it. But we know that it is not possible that the other party should renounce these prejudices, and that too in the face of danger and persecution, unless the miracles had been authentic. So great is the differ- ence betwixt the strength of the argument and the strength of the objection, that we count it fortunate for the merits of the cause, that the conversions to Christianity were partial. We in this way secure all the support which is derived from the inexplicable fact of the silence of its enemies ; inexplicable on every supposition, but the undeniable evidence and certainty of the miracles. Had the Roman empire made a unanimous movement to the new religion, and all the authorities of the state lent their concurrence to it, there would have been a suspicion annexed to the whole history of the gospel, which cannot at present apply to it ; and, from the collision of the opposite parties, the truth has come down to us in a far more unquestionable form than if no such collision had been excited. 22. The silence of heathen and Jewish writers of that period, about the miracles of Christianity, has been much insisted upon by the enemies of our religion ; and has even excited something like a painful suspicion in the breasts of those who are attached to its cause. Certain it is that no ancient facts have come down to us, supported by a greater quantity of historical evidence, 152 TESTIMONY OF and better accompanied with all the circumstances which can confer credibility on that evidence. When we demand the testi- mony of Tacitus to the Christian miracles, we forget all the while that we can allege a multitude of much more decisive testimonies ; — no less than eight contemporary authors, and a train of succeeding writers, who follow one another with a close- ness and a rapidity of which there is no example in any other department of ancient history. We forget that the authenticity of these different writers, and their pretensions to credit, are founded on considerations perfectly the same in kind, though much stronger in degree, than what have been employed to establish the testimony of the most esteemed historians of former ages. For the history of the gospel, we behold a series of testi- monies more continuous, and more firmly sustained, than there is any other example of in the whole compass of erudition. And to refuse this evidence, is a proof that, in this investigation, there is an aptitude in the human mind to abandon all ordinary principles, and to be carried away by the delusions which we have already insisted on. 23. But let us try the effect of that testimony which our antagonists demand. Tacitus has actually attested the existence of Jesus Christ ; the reality of such a personage ; His public execution under the administration of Pontius Pilate ; the tem- porary check which this gave to the progress of His religion ; its revival a short time after His death ; its progress over the land of Judea, and to Rome itself, the metropolis of the empire ; — ail this we have in a Roman historian ; and, in opposition to all established reasoning upon these subjects, it is by some more firmly confided in upon his testimony, than upon the numerous and concurring testimonies of nearer and contemporary writers. But be this as it may, let us suppose that Tacitus had thrown one particular more into his testimony, and that his sentence had run thus : “ They had their denomination from Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate, and who rose from the dead on the third day after his execution , and ascended into heaven Does it not strike everybody, that however true the last piece of information may be, and however well-established by its proper historians, this is not the place where we can expect to find it? If Tacitus did not believe the resurrection of our Saviour (which is probably the case, as he never in all likelihood paid any attention to the evidence of a faith which he was led to SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 153 regard, from the outset, as a pernicious superstition, and a mere modification of Judaism), it is not to be supposed that such an assertion could ever have been made by him. If Tacitus did believe the resurrection of our Saviour, he gives us an example of what appears not to have been uncommon in these ages — he gives us an example of a man adhering to that system which interest and education recommended in opposition to the evidence of a miracle which he admitted to be true. Still, even on this supposition, it is the most unlikely thing in the world, that he would have admitted the fact of our Saviour’s resurrection into his history. It is most improbable that a testimony of this kind would have been given, even though the resurrection of Jesus Christ had been admitted ; and, therefore, the want of this testimony carries in it no argument that the resurrection is a falsehood. If, however, in opposition to all probability, this testimony had been given, it would have been appealed to as a most striking confirmation of the main fact of the evangelical history. It would have figured away in all our elementary treatises, and been referred to as a master-argument in every ex- position of the evidences of Christianity. Infidels would have been challenged to believe in it on the strength of their own favourite evidence, the evidence of a classical historian; and must have been at a loss how to dispose of this fact, when they saw an unbiassed heathen giving his round and unqualified testimony in its favour. 24. Let us now carry this supposition a step further. Let us conceive that Tacitus not only believed the fact, and gave his testimony to it, but that he believed it so far as to become a Christian. Is his testimony to be refused, because he gives this evidence of its sincerity ? Tacitus asserting the fact, and re- maining a heathen, is not so strong an argument for the truth of our Saviour’s resurrection, as Tacitus asserting the fact and be- coming a Christian in consequence of it. Yet the moment that this transition is made — a transition by which, in point of fact, his testimony becomes stronger — in point of impression it becomes less ; and, by a delusion common to the infidel and the believer, the argument is held to be weakened by the very circumstance which imparts greater force to it. The elegant and accomplished scholar becomes a believer. The truth, the novelty, the import- ance of this new subject, withdraw him from every other pursuit . He shares in the common enthusiasm of the cause, and gives all his talents and eloquence to the support of it. Instead of the Roman historian, Tacitus comes down to posterity in the shape 154 TESTIMONY OF of a Christian Father, and the high authority of his name is lost in a crowd of similar testimonies. 25. A direct testimony to the miracles of the New Testament from the mouth of a heathen is not to be expected. We cannot satisfy this demand of the infidel ; but we can give him a host of much stronger testimonies than he is in quest of— the testi- monies of those men who were heathens, and who embraced a hazardous and a disgraceful profession, under a deep conviction of those facts to which they gave their testimony. “ Oh, but you now land us in the testimony of Christians !” This is very true ; but it is the very fact of their being Christians in which the strength of the argument lies : and in each of the numerous Fathers of the Christian Church, we see a stronger testimony than the required testimony of the heathen Tacitus. We see men who, if they had not been Christians, would have risen to as high an eminence as Tacitus in the literature of the times ; and whose direct testimonies to the gospel history would, in that case, have been most impressive, even to the mind of an infidel. And are these testimonies to be less impressive, because they were preceded by conviction, and sealed by martyrdom ? 26. This is a matter of so much importance that it is worthy of still further illustration. It were well that it could be made quite palpable, why it is that a Christian is so much more valu- able than a heathen testimony. We have already adverted to a certain subtle delusion on this subject, in virtue of which it is not felt to be so valuable — insomuch that there is not only a greater feeling of curiosity, but even a greater feeling of convic- tion associated w T ith the remotest allusion of a classic author to Christianity than there is with the broad, distinct, authentic, and uncontradicted testimony of a Christian Father. It is thus that a deep and subtle disguise is thrown over the real strength of the Christian argument ; and in opposition to all the principles of sound criticism or of historical evidence, the faintest scintillations of a notice or an allusion from writers at a distance and uninformed, are most eagerly caught at — while a broad effulgence of testimony in the scene of the gospel transactions, of testimony sealed by the martyrdom of those who gave it, of testimony accredited by the silence of enemies as well as by a countless multitude of proselytes to the cause — all is overlooked and forgotten as a thing of nought. With how much greater interest, for example, do we read Lard- ner’s Collection of Jewish and Heathen Testimonies in favour of the gospel narrative, than Lardner’s Credibility — the latter work SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 155 exhibiting a succession of Christian authors, following each other at an average interval of not more than ten years, and compos- ing altogether a hundred-fold more firm and continuous pathway than any other by which the facts or the informations of ancient times have descended to the men of the present day. Let us feel assured that, in this preference of the weak to the strong, of the dim and dying testimony to the daylight effulgence which sits on the origin of our Church, and sends down a stream of direct historic light through its successive generations — that, in this, there is some mental perversity in subtle operation within us, which nothing will extinguish but a careful attention to the relative condition of heathen and Christian writers at that period. 27. It is well for this purpose to consider what that is which would have brightened and improved the actual testimony of Tacitus, and made it still more available to the defence of our cause. He evidently writes of the Christians as any cultivated Roman might be naturally expected to do, who felt no great interest and possessed no great information upon the subject. We fancy it would have been better if he had taken a more decided interest, and bequeathed to us by some more satisfying ex- pression, his sense of the importance of the cause ; and that it would have been better still had he made himself more fully and distinctly informed, and embodied in his classic pages some more particulars of the gospel history ; and best of all, if, attracted by the worth and magnitude of the theme, he had actually journeyed, as other chroniclers have done, among the places and the people where the most authentic records could have been consulted, and the most authentic traditions could have been gathered and ap- preciated. Let us stop then for a moment at the idea of this last supposition being realized. Let us figure Tacitus on his travels of inquiry ; and, conceiving of the result variously, let us try to estimate the influence thereof upon the cause, in what- ever way the supposition may be made. First, we may imagine him to have collected in great abundance and strength disproofs of the Christian story, and to have published his refutation of it to the world. This has not been done by Tacitus or any other ; and the utter non-existence of any such document in refutation of a re- ligion which provoked so much of resistance — of a document that would have been hailed by thousands who were interested in the overthrow of the gospel, and that would have been transmitted with so much care both by Jews and heathens to succeeding times — the utter non-existence, we say, of any such document is ] 56 TESTIMONY OF of itself an incalculable triumph and confirmation to our faith. But secondly, we might imagine that, instead of disproof, he had met with nothing but valid and satisfying credentials on the side of Christianity ; and that he had, in an additional book of his annals, incorporated a statistical account of the affairs of Judea, and presented us with the facts of the New Testament, along with all the other facts of his general narrative, as the matters of his historic faith. This, we are apt to imagine, is the best supposable state in which the testimony of a classic and pagan author could come down to us with advantage ; and yet we are strongly persuaded that such a phenomenon as this in ancient literature would have engendered a host of surmises and suspi- cions, that nothing could have allayed. It would have been the testimony, no doubt, of an able and eloquent and now much trusted historian ; but it would have been testimony, powerless and paralyzed, by the flagrant evidence which it gave of the in- sincerity of him who uttered it. How is it possible, it would have been asked, that the pagan Tacitus could, as the result of his close and upright and serious investigation, have verified the truth of all these Christians miracles — yet remained a pagan still ? How could he have come into contact with the earnest demands of Christianity for the surrender of the whole man to its high re- quisitions, and have seen these demands so accompanied and enforced by the hand of Omnipotence — yet refused to be a Chris- tian ? There must, it might have been said, there must be a blemish somewhere, that attaches discredit to the whole testi- mony. How can such testimony help to convince us of the high claims of this religion — when it does not seem to have convinced himself? Why lay so much stress on the record of an historian, who has given no consistent marks whatever of his own faith in his own narrative ? Why should we be impressed by a state- ment which seems no more to have impressed the author of it than would any light or floating rumours that he might have caught, respecting the signs and the prodigies of his own pagan- ism, and which enter, too, into the materials of his history — for the amusement at least, if not the solid information of his readers? After all, can we believe the account he has given to have been the result of grave inquiries terminating in conviction — when not one other evidence of conviction has been rendered by him, than simply the room he has allowed in his record for the miracles of the gospel ? What faith can we place in the man who makes so unblushing an exhibition of himself as to pass for authentic SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 157 the credentials of this new religion ; and yet, from cowardice, or want of consistency and honour, or something which marks at all events a glaring moral perversity of character, declines to he one of its votaries ? This last question explains why it is that no document of the sort which is so much desiderated could pos- sibly have been transmitted to us. A heathen indisposed to Christianity would not have been at the pains, we may be as- sured, to collect the proofs of this religion, and then hold them forth in exhibition to the world or to posterity. They could never have been expected to give the sanction of their express testi- mony to the miracles of the gospel ; and yet, ready as they must have been to gainsay them if they could, and discredit them if they could, they have virtually given to the main circumstances of the evangelical story the most conclusive of all sanctions — the sanction, we mean, of their expressive silence. 28. There only remains then, one conceivable result more from the enterprise that we have imagined for Tacitus. The fruit of his inquiries into the miracles of the gospel might have been, that he was overpowered into the conviction of their truth ; and that, in virtue of the same integrity and moral earnestness by which he was prompted to the inquiry, he was persuaded to be- come a Christian. Where is the shadow of an argument, why, in consequence of this, his testimony should become less valuable than before ? Is not this the very act or the very transition, at which he makes most emphatic demonstration of the strength and reality of his belief? Whether, in the name of all reason and common sense, should the testimony of Tacitus continuing in the profession of infidelity, or the testimony of Tacitus em- bracing the faith and braving martyrdom in the avowal of it, have afforded most conclusive evidence to the truth of the gos- pel ? Surely that historian only is to be depended on, who tells us as true, that which himself believes to be true ; and by what magical influence then is it that, on the moment he gives the most intense proof of this belief which man can do, by putting life and all its interests to hazard in the attestation of it — at that moment our confidence should fall away from him ? But for this delusion, we must instantly recognise the fact of Tacitus becoming a Christian on inquiry, as that which stamps a hundred- fold worth upon his testimony : and we ought to recollect that it is just this evidence, this enhanced and perfected evidence, mul- tiplied by the number of Christian Fathers in the first century after the death of Christ, that we actually possess. In their 158 TESTIMONY OF persons, we have twenty Tacituses — whose evidence, thougli unaccountably weaker in point of impression, were substantially stronger in point of reality — on the supposition of an exchange having been made, from the character of a Eoman historian to that of a Christian Father. To an eye of clear and sound intelli- gence, his testimony were all the brighter by his conversion — yet it would have made no sensible accession to the Christian argument, because lost in the kindred effulgence of a mass of similar testimonies. The light of the purest and highest testi- mony which Tacitus could have given would have faded away, even from the eye of the Christian, because overborne by the accumulated splendour that already sat on the origin of Christi- anity : on the eye of the infidel it would have made no impres- sion, who would still have turned him away from the splendour as he does at present, because he hates its beams. 29. Yet though, from the nature of the case, no direct testi- mony to the Christian miracles from a heathen can be looked for, there are heathen testimonies which form an important ac- cession to the Christian argument. Such are the testimonies to the state of Judea ; the testimonies to those numerous particulars in government and customs, which are so often alluded to in the New Testament, and give it the air of an authentic history ; and above all, the testimonies to the sufferings of the primitive Chris- tians, from which we learn, through a channel clear of every suspicion, that Christianity, a religion of facts, was the object of persecution at a time when eye-witnesses taught, and eye- witnesses must have bled for it. 30. The silence of Jewish and heathen writers, when the true interpretation is given to it, is all on the side of the Christian argument. Even though the miracles of the gospel had been believed to be true, it is most unlikely that the enemies of the Christian religion would have given their testimony to them ; and the absence of this testimony is no impeachment therefore upon the reality of these miracles. But if the miracles of the gospel had been believed to be false, it is most likely that this falsehood would have been asserted by the Jews and heathens of that period ; and the circumstance of no such assertion having been given, is a strong argument for the reality of these miracles. Their silence in not asserting the miracles, is perfectly consistent with their truth ; but their silence in not denying them, is not at all consistent with their falsehood. The entire silence of Josephus upon the subject of Christianity, though he wrote after SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 159 the destruction of Jerusalem, and gives us the history of that period in which Christ and His apostles lived, is certainly a very striking circumstance. The sudden progress of Christianity at that time, and the fame of its miracles (if not the miracles them- selves), form an important part of the Jewish history. How came Josephus to abstain from every particular respecting it ? Shall we reverse every principle of criticism, and make the silence of Josephus carry it over the positive testimony of the many historical documents which have come down to us ? If we should refuse every Christian testimony upon the subject, we surely will not refuse the testimony of Tacitus, who asserts, that this religion spread over Judea, and reached the city of Borne, and was looked upon as an evil of such importance, that it be- came the object of an authorized persecution by the Boman government ; and all this several years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and before Josephus composed his history. Whatever opinion may be formed as to the truth of Christianity, certain it is, that its progress constituted an object of sufficient magnitude to compel the attention of any historian who undertook the affairs of that period. How then shall we account for the scrupulous and determined exclusion of it from the history of Josephus ? Had its miracles been false, this Jewish historian would gladly have exposed them. But its miracles were true ; and silence was the only refuge of an antagonist, and his wisest policy. 31. But though we gather no direct testimony from Josephus, yet his history furnishes us with many satisfying additions to the Christian argument. In the details of policy and manners, he coincides in the main with the writers of the Hew Testament ; and these coincidences are so numerous, and have so undesigned an appearance, as to impress on every person, who is at the trouble of making the comparison, the truth of the evangelical story. 32. If we are to look for direct testimonies to the miracles of the New Testament, we must look to that quarter where alone it would be reasonable to expect them, — to the writings of the Christian Fathers, men who were not Jews or heathens at the moment of recording their testimony ; but who had been Jews or heathens ; and who, in their transition to the ultimate state of Christians, give a stronger evidence of integrity, than if they had believed these miracles, and persisted in a cowardly adherence to the safest profession. 33. We do not undertake to satisfy every demand of the in- fidel. We think we do enough, if we prove that the thing de- 160 TESTIMONY OF manded is most unlikely, even though the miracles should be true ; and therefore, that the want of it carries no argument against the truth of the miracles. But we do still more than this, if we prove that the testimonies which we actually possess are much stronger than the testimonies he is in quest of. And who can doubt this, when he reflects, that the true way of pat- ting the case betwixt the testimony of the Christian Father, which we do have, and the testimony of Tacitus, which we do not have, is, that the latter would be an assertion not followed up by that conduct which would have been the best evidence of its sincerity ; whereas, the former is an assertion substantiated by the whole life, and by the decisive fact of the old profession having been renounced, and the new profession entered into — a change where disgrace, and danger, and martyrdom, were the consequences? 34. Let us, therefore, enter into an examination of these testimonies. 35. This subject has been in part anticipated, when we treated of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament. We have quotations and references to these books from five apostolic Fathers, the companions of the original writers. We have their testimonies sustained and extended by their immediate succes- sors ; and, as we pursue this crowded series of testimonies down- wards, they become so numerous and so explicit, as to leave no doubt on the mind of the inquirers that the different books of the New Testament are the publication of the authors whose names they bear ; and were received by the Christian world as books of authority, from the first period of their appearance. 36. Now, every sentence in a Christian Father, expressive oi respect for a book in the New Testament, is also expressive, of his faith in its contents. It is equivalent to his testimony for the miracles recorded in it. In the language of the law, it is an act by which he homologates the record, and superinduces his own testimony to that of the original writers. It would be vain to attempt speaking of all these testimonies. It cost the assidu- ous Lardner many years to collect them. They are exhibited in his “ Credibility of the New Testament and in the multitude of them, we see a power and a variety of evidence for the Chris- tian miracles which is quite unequalled in the whole compass of ancient history. 37. The characteristic of Lardner is an extreme moderation in argument — that is, he refrains from laying greater stress on SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 161 his materials than they will fully and sufficiently bear. His is almost the manner of one who inclines against his own side ; so that should there be anything doubtful in the testimony, instead of taking the advantage to himself, he willingly gives up the whole advantage to his adversary. He thus reduces the bulk of his testimonies ; but, in very proportion to this, does he secure the metallic weight and value of those which remain. He blows away the chaff, as it were, from his argument; and so brings it within a narrower compass — but all that he preserves is sterling ; and, though he sacrifices much that many of the friends of Christianity would fondly have retained, we feel assured that by this very sacrifice he has not injured but strengthened the cause. His very modesty has made him a more effective advocate than he would otherwise have been ; and any reduction in the multifariousness of the evidence is amply compensated by the well-earned confidence of his readers in the quality, in the thoroughly sifted and ascertained quality, of that which has passed through the ordeal of his searching criticism. 38. He thus stands divested of that which always gives sus- piciousness to a cause — the aspect of a special leader, determined to make the most of all that he finds, and set everything off to the greatest advantage. Lardner’s way is quite the reverse of this — and he has been blamed by many scholars for an excess of scrupulosity, when he met with evidence which, though of con- siderable validity in their estimation, he would not admit into his reckoning. The truth is, that he gave to the infidels full advantage of every flaw, wherewith any testimony on the side of the gospel might appear to be vitiated. His in this way is a smaller and shorter summation — but it is all in gold pieces ; and it is done with the air and feeling of a man who can afford to give up the columns of the inferior denominations. There is something very impressive in this consciousness of strength ; and it gives a sense of security in his hands, w 7 hich we should not feel in listening to the demonstrations of a more strenuous parti- san. It is the best possible tactics ; and really, there is no such scarcity of evidence for our faith, as to render it necessary to adopt any other mode of warfare. Whether it be on the gene- ral question of Christianity against infidels, or the special ques- tion of orthodoxy against heretics, we often find a few valid testimonies in the one case, and a few unquestionable texts in the other, to be decisive of the contest. Instead of extending VOL. VI. L 162 TESTIMONY OF our line of defence, we generally do far better to concentrate, and to keep by the impregnable positions of the church militant. For example, though, on perusing the evidence for the miracu- lous prevention of the attempt by the Emperor Julian to rebuild Jerusalem, we agree in the affirmative sentence of Bishop War- burton — yet we acquiesce in the negative laid upon it by Dr. Lardner.* We can afford to give it up — even as we can afford to give up the text, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one ; ” for from other texts of undoubted integrity and unquestionable meaning, we feel ourselves completely warranted to address the Saviour of the world as my Lord and my God. 39. But, in addition to testimonies in the gross, for the truth of the evangelical history, have we no distinct testimonies to the individual facts which compose it? We have no doubt of the fact, that Barnabas was acquainted with the Gospel by Matthew, * See Warburton’s Julian. In comparing Lardner on the one hand with Warburton on the other upon this question, it will be found that the preponderance of argumentative force is with the latter. His Julian is one of the ablest and most characteristic of his spe- cimens. For himself, he belongs to a genus nowhere more abundantly exemplified than in the Church of England. We might conceive of erudition apart from strength, as in Lard- ner — or of strength apart from erudition, as perhaps in Isaac Barrow and Butler, though it was not so much strength as sagacity that formed the characteristic of Butler’s mind. But it is the union of both, the native and original vigour along with stores of massive learning — the inherent power conjoined with the extensive scholarship— the momentum and the firm staple of their own independent authorship, along with the achievement of unpar- alleled reading and research into the authorship of other men — the creative literary power that yielded standard books from themselves, and yet the prodigious industry that enabled them to grapple with whole libraries and to master the books innumerable of the prede- cessors who had gone before them — it is this combination of vast strength with vast acqui- sition and labour, that invests, and rightfully invests, with such might and authority, the divines of our sister Establishment. We can imagine learning in feeble and impotent hands to be very inefficient ; but when learning is wielded by an arm of strength, then we have a mighty instrument in the hold of a mighty agent ; and the execution is irresistible. To en- counter a man of great personal and original vis is sufficiently formidable ; but when to this are superadded the lore and the languages of antiquity, and a vast and various information — the product of the converse of many years with the tomes of other days — then can we per- ceive an adequate meaning for the epithets bestowed on the most celebrated heroes of the church militant — the irrefragable doctor — the redoubted champion of the faith — the great Goliath of sacred literature — capax, profundus, eximius homo et venerabundvs. The first name that occurs to us of one who conjoined this original strength with this acquired scholarship is Grotius. But we are speaking now of the Church of England. Cudworth had both. Chillingworth had both. Bryan Walton had both. Stillingfleet had both. Samuel Clarke had both. Warburton had pre-eminently both. The most recent example perhaps is Horsley, who had both. And Samuel Johnson, had he been an ecclesiastic, with the urgent stimulus of a preferment to which he had no other avenue but his works, would, if fairly aroused from his constitutional lethargy, and resolutely set on the road of persever- ance, have been a perfect exemplar of both. SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 163 and that he subscribed to all the information contained in that history. This is a most valuable testimony from a contemporary writer ; and a testimony which embraces all the miracles nar- rated by the Evangelist. But, in addition to this, we should like if Barnabas, upon his own personal conviction, could assert the reality of any of these miracles. It would be multiplying the original testimonies ; for he was a companion and a fellow- labourer of the apostles. We should have been delighted, if, in the course of our researches into the literature of past times, we had met with an authentic record, written by one of the five hundred that are said to have seen our Saviour after His resur- rection, and adding his own narrative of this event to the narra- tives that have already come down to us. Now 7 , is anything of this kind to be met with in ecclesiastical antiquity ? How much of this sort of evidence are we in actual possession of? and if we have not enough to satisfy our keen appetite for evidence on a question of such magnitude, how is the want of it to be ac- counted for ? 40. Let it be observed, then, that of the twenty-seven books which make up the New Testament, five are narrative or his- torical — viz., the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, which relate to the life and miracles of our Saviour, and the progress of His religion through the world for a good many years after His ascension into heaven. All the rest, with the exception of the Revelation of St. John, are doctrinal or admoni- tory ; and their main object is to explain the principles of the new religion, or to impress its duties upon the numerous pro- selytes who had, even at that early period, been gained over to the profession of Christianity. 41. Besides what we have in the New Testament, no other professed narrative of the miracles of Christianity has come down to us, bearing the marks of an authentic composition by any apostle, or any contemporary of the apostles. Now, to those who regret this circumstance, we beg leave to submit the following observations. Suppose that one other narrative of the life and miracles of our Saviour had been composed ; and, to give all the value to this additional testimony of which it is susceptible, let us suppose it to be the work of an apostle. By this last circumstance, we secure to its uttermost extent the advantage of an original testimony, the testimony of another eye-witness, and constant companion of our Saviour. Now, we ask, what would have been the fate of this performance ? It would have been incorporated 164 TESTIMONY OF into the New Testament along with the other Gospels. It may have been the Gospel according to Philip. It may have been the Gospel according to Bartholomew. At all events, the whole amount of the advantage would have been the substitution of five Gospels instead of four ; and this addition, the want of which is so much complained of, would scarcely have been felt by the Christian, or acknowledged by the infidel, to strengthen the evidence of which we are already in possession. 42. But, to vary the supposition, let us suppose that the narra- tive wanted, instead of being the work of an apostle, had been the work of some other contemporary, who writes upon his own original knowledge of the subject, but was not so closely asso- ciated with Christ, or His immediate disciples, as to have his history admitted into the canonical Scriptures. Had this his- tory been preserved, it would have been transmitted to us in a separate state. It would have stood out from among that col- lection of writings which passes under the general name of the New Testament ; and the additional evidence thus afforded would have come down in the form most satisfactory to those with whom we are maintaining our present argument. Yet though, in point of form, the testimony might be more satisfac- tory ; in point of fact, it would be less so. It is the testimony of a less competent witness — a witness who, in the judgment of his contemporaries, wanted those accomplishments which entitled him to a place in the New Testament. There must be some delusion operating upon the understanding, if we think that a circumstance, which renders an historian less accredited in the eyes of his own age, should render him more accredited in the eyes of posterity. Had Mark been kept out of the New Testa- ment, he would have come down to us in that form, which would have made his testimony more impressive to a superficial in- quirer ; yet there would be no good reason for keeping him out, but precisely that reason which should render his testimony less impressive. We do not complain of this anxiety for more evi- dence, and as much of it as possible ; but it is right to be told that the evidence we have is of far more value than the evidence demanded, and that, in the concurrence of four canonical narra- tives, we see a far more effectual argument for the miracles of the New Testament, than in any number of those separate and extraneous narratives, the want of which is so much felt, and so much complained of. 43. That the New Testament is not one, but a collection SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 165 of many testimonies, is what has been often said, and often acquiesced in. Yet, even after the argument is formally acceded to, its impression is unfelt ; and on this subject there is a great and an obstinate delusion, which not only confirms the infidel in his disregard to Christianity, but even veils the strength of the evidence from its warmest admirers. 44. There is a difference betwixt a mere narrative and a work of speculation or morality. The latter subjects embrace a wider range, admit a great variety of illustration, and are quite endless in their application to the new cases that occur in the ever-changing history of human affairs. The subject of a narrative again admits of being exhausted. It is limited by the number of actual events. True, we may expatiate upon the character or importance of these events ; but in so doing, we drop the office of the pure historian, for that of the politician, or the moralist, or the divine. The Evangelists give us a very chaste and perfect example of the pure narrative. They never appear in their own persons, or arrest the progress of the history for a single moment, by interposing their own wisdom, or their own piety. A Gospel is a bare relation of what has been said or done ; and it is evident that, after a few good compositions of this kind, any future attempts would be superfluous and uncalled for. 45. But, in point of fact, these attempts were made. It is to be supposed that, after the singular events of our Saviour's history, the curiosity of the public would be awakened, and there would be a demand for written accounts of such wonderful transactions. These written accounts were accordingly brought forward. Even in the interval of time betwixt the ascension of our Saviour, and the publication of the earliest Gospel, such written histories seem to have been frequent. “ Many," says St. Luke (and in this he is supported by the testimony of subse- quent writers), “ have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of these things." Now what has been the fate of all these performances? Such as might have been anticipated. They fell into disuse and oblivion. There is no evil design ascribed to the authors of them. They may have been written with perfect integrity, and been useful for a short time, and within a limited circle ; but, as was natural, they all 'gave way to the superior authority and more complete information of our present narratives. The demand of the Christian world was withdrawn from the less esteemed to the more esteemed histories of our Saviour. The former ceased to be read, and copies of 106 TESTIMONY OF them would be no longer transcribed or multiplied. We cannot find the testimony we are in quest of ; not because it was never given, but because the early Christians, who were the most competent judges of that testimony, did not think it worthy of being transmitted to us. 40. But though the number of narratives be necessarily limited by the nature of the subject, there is no such limitation upon works of a moral, didactic, or explanatory kind. Many such pieces have come down to us, both from the apostles them- selves, and from the earlier Fathers of the church. Now, though the object of these compositions is not to deliver any narrative of the Christian miracles, they may perhaps give us some occa- sional intimation of them. They may proceed upon their reality. We may gather either from incidental passages, or from the general scope of the performance, that the miracles of Christ and His apostles were recognised, and the divinity of our religion acknowledged, as founded upon these miracles. 47. The first piece of the kind which we meet with, besides the writings of the New Testament, is an epistle ascribed to Barnabas, and, at all events, the production of a man who lived in the days of the apostles. It consists of an exhortation to con- stancy in the Christian profession, a dissuasive from Judaism, and other moral instructions. We shall only give a quotation of a single clause from this work : — u And he ( i.e . our Saviour), making great signs and prodigies to the people of the Jews, they neither believed nor loved him.” 48. The next piece in the succession of Christian writers, is the undoubted epistle of Clement, the Bishop of Borne, to the church of Corinth ; and who, by the concurrent voice of all antiquity, is the same Clement who is mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians, as the fellow-labourer of Paul. It is written in the name of the church of Borne ; and the object of it is to compose certain dissensions which had arisen in the church of Corinth. It was out of his way to enter into anything like a formal narrative of the miraculous facts which are to be found in the evangelical history. The subject of his epistle did not lead him to this; and besides, the number and authority of the narra- tives already published, rendered an attempt of this kind alto- gether superfluous. Still, however, though a miracle may not be formally announced, it may be brought in incidentally, or it may be proceeded upon, or assumed as the basis of an argument. We give one or two examples of this. In one part of his epistle, SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 167 he illustrates the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead, by the change and progression of natural appearances, and he ushers in this illustration with the following sentence : — “ Let us con- sider, my beloved, how the Lord shows us our future resurrection perpetually, of which he made the Lord Jesus Christ the first- fruits, by raising him from the dead.” This incidental way of bringing in the fact of our Lord’s resurrection, appears to us the strongest possible form in which the testimony of Clement could have come down to us. It is brought forward in the most con- fident and unembarrassed manner. He does not stop to confirm this fact by any strong asseveration ; nor does he carry, in his manner of announcing it, the most remote suspicion of its being resisted by the incredulity of those to whom he is addressing himself. It wears the air of an acknowledged truth ; a thing understood and acquiesced in by all the parties in this corres- pondence. The direct narrative of the Evangelists gives us their original testimony to the miracles of the gospel. The artless and indirect allusions of the apostolic Fathers, give us not merely their faith in this testimony, but the faith of the whole societies to which they write. They let us see, not merely that such a testimony was given, but that such a testimony was generally believed, and that, too, at a time when the facts in question lay within the memory of living witnesses. 49. In another part, speaking of the apostles, Clement says, that u receiving the commandments, and being filled with full certainty by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and confirmed by the word of God, with the assurance of the Holy Spirit, they went out announcing the advent of the kingdom of God.” 50. It was no object, in those days, for a Christian writer to come over the miracles of the New Testament, with the view of lending his formal and explicit testimony to them. This testi- mony had already been completed to the satisfaction of the whole Christian world. If much additional testimony has not been given, it is because it was not called for. But we ought to see that every Christian writer, in the fact of his being a Chris- tian, in his expressed reverence for the books of the New Testa- ment, and in his numerous allusions to the leading points of the gospel history, has given as satisfying evidence to the truth of the Christian miracles, as if he had left behind him a copious and distinct narrative. 51. Of all the miracles of the gospel, it was to be supposed that the resurrection of our Saviour would be oftenest appealed 168 TESTIMONY OF to ; not as an evidence of his being a Divine teacher — for that was a point so settled in the mind of every Christian, that a written exposition of the argument was no longer necessary — but as a motive to constancy in the Christian profession, and as the great pillar of hope in our own immortality. We accordingly meet with the most free and confident allusions to this fact in the early Fathers. We meet with five intimations of this fact in the undoubted epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians : a Father who had been educated by the apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ. 52. It is quite unnecessary to exhibit passages from the epistles of Ignatius to the same effect, or to pursue the examination downwards through the series of written testimonies. It is enough to announce it as a general fact that, in the very first age of the Christian Church, the teachers of this religion pro- ceeded as confidently upon the reality of Christ's miracles and resurrection, in their addresses to the people, as the teachers of the present day : or, in other words, that they were as little afraid of being resisted by the incredulity of the people, at a time when the evidence of the facts was accessible to all, and habit and prejudice were against them, as we are of being re- sisted by the incredulity of an unlettered multitude, who listen to us with all the veneration of a hereditary faith. 53. There are five apostolic Fathers, and a series of Christian writers who follow after them in rapid succession. To give an idea to those who are not conversant in the study of ecclesiastical antiquities, how well sustained the chain of testimony is from the first age of Christianity, we shall give a passage from a letter of Irenaeus, preserved by Eusebius. We have no less than nine compositions, from different authors, which fill up the interval betwixt him and Polycarp ; and yet this is the way in which he speaks, in his old age, of the venerable Polycarp, in a letter to Florinus : 11 1 saw you, when I was very young, in the Lower Asia, with Polycarp. For I better remember the affairs of that time than those which have lately happened : the things which we learn in our childhood growing up in the soul, and uniting themselves to it. Insomuch, that I can tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and his going out and com- ing in, and the manner of his life, and the form of his person, and his discourses to the people ; and how he related his conver- sation with John, and others who had seen the Lord ; and how he related their sayings, and what he had heard from them con- SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 169 cerning the Lord, both concerning His miracles and His doc- trines, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life ; all which Polvcarp related agreeably to the Scriptures. These things I then, through the mercy of God to- ward me, diligently heard and attended to, recording them not on paper, but upon my heart.” 54. We shall pursue this descending series of testimonies no further at present ; but it is of importance to remark that the number of actually written testimonies, and of a highly authentic and authoritative character too, by which the facts of the gospel narrative have been handed onward from one generation to an- other in the history of the Christian Church, greatly exceeds the number of those testimonies which have been preserved to the present day. We are not to infer, from the loss and disappear- ance of many old works, that they were either useless in point of matter, or were devoid of literary worth in point of genius and execution. They may have been in great esteem and great request — both immediately after the time of their appearance, and for some succeeding generations. They may have served a most important purpose by their publication ; and, instead of perishing because of their slender or inferior merit, they may have suffered this fate for the very reason why in the present day some of the best and highest works of the land are now per- ishing from the memory of the existent generation. How few, for example, are there now-a-days, who read the best English writers of two centuries ago ! To come further down, how little the most distinguished British classics at the beginning of the last century are now inquired after ! We are not sure if new edi- tions of the Spectator or the Tatler or the Guardian would prove very safe speculations — and this, not because their beauties would not still be relished if only read, but because they are really thrown back, as it were, from the very eyesight of the present age by the prodigious mass of more recent and interme- diate authorship which now screens them from our own view, and which have really placed in the background those who were the great masters of taste and criticism in the days of our grand- fathers. Such is the perishable nature of literary fame ; and that, from the absolute impossibility of reading our way through those authors of more pungent interest who have but recently poured their effusions on the world — to those models of a former age who sat on thrones of literature in the eye of their contem- poraries ; and still deserve, if there was time for it, to be as no TESTIMONY OF much studied and admired as ever. It is thus that the great poets of a hundred or a hundred and fifty years back are fast vanishing from public observation. The world is wearing out of acquaintance with them. They are falling, not into dises- teem ; but they are falling into desuetude. Pope, for example, is almost never heard of. We fear that Milton’s Paradise Lost is not nearly so much read as it deserves to be. Thomson’s Seasons, every paragraph of which is so replete with descriptive power, and who is ever faithful to the truth and the likeness of nature, even when he throws the richest flush of poetry over it — seems to be almost as much forgotten as those buckram pas- torals where Corydon and Amaryllis hold converse in cold, though classic phrase ; and whose imitations of Greece and Rome are as unlike to anything that is animated by the freshness of living sentiment, as the mummies of Egypt are unlike to the men and women of our existing society. These great writers are going into rapid oblivion, not because they have been outdone by their successors, but because their successors have taken up the room which themselves occupied, and so have shut them out from the stage of public observation. They are occasionally read of in the writings of their successors ; but they are not read. We know them to have been of first-rate eminence ; but we scarcely know this at first-hand. We catch it by a second or third echo from later authors — in whose pages, however, we ob- serve them mentioned and referred to as the colossal men of their day. 55. Now this principle admits of the strongest application to the case before us. Quadratus, the first apologist we know of for Christianity, was shut out by the writers who succeeded him — by Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, and Origen, and Eusebius, and Chrysostom, and Jerome, and Augustine. He still lives, it is true ; but he lives only in the collections or extracts of one of his followers. He may have been illustrious in his day ; and yet in a century or two may have fallen into disuse, not in conse- quence of any discredit that he had incurred, but simply by an act of dispossession. The authors who came after stood between him and the readers of a future age ; and they multiplied beyond the demand and even the power of many to peruse them — so as to accumulate a literature that became too much for the means of any student to overtake. In these circumstances, many authors, and valuable ones too, were unavoidably superseded. For the cause now referred to bears a far more emphatic application to SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 171 the authors of that period than to those of the present day — when, on the one hand, books were expensive and would not be purchased beyond the more urgent needs of those who made use of them ; and on the other hand, the operose manufacture, not of printing but of copying by the pen, would not be undertaken for the production of an article that after all was found to be unsale- able. In such a state of things, there is no saying what lumi- naries may have been extinguished along the track of ages — wfiiat men of power and of achievement in their day may have now been utterly lost sight of — what proud literary honours may now be lying prostrate in forgetfulness — what authors who have enjoyed their little hour, not of meretricious but of solid and well- earned celebrity, whose works and even whose names have long perished from the memory of the world. It is affecting to view such a termination for that highest of all human greatness — the greatness of mind, and of the mind’s performances. When we see how precarious that immortality is which is the boasted re- ward of genius, the ambition of a name in literature might well die within the breast. It should give place to that higher am- bition which prompts man to seek after a real and not a fancied immortality. But we cannot afford at present to expatiate on the moral of this contemplation. Our immediate object is to illustrate a principle which has not been much adverted to, though it serves to explain a phenomenon in the history of books and the history of literature — exemplified among writers of all sorts, and among none more than those who have signalized themselves in their day in the defence or illustration of the Christian faith. It is a principle which will serve to account for the destruction of much that is precious, as well as of much that is worthless, in authorship.* * The following extract from the “Edinburgh Review” for March 1819, is, we believe, the production of the masterly pen of Francis Jeffrey : — “Next to the impression of the vast fertility, compass, and beauty of our English poetry, the reflection that recurs most frequently and forcibly to us in accompanying Mr. C. through his wide survey, is that of the perishable nature of poetical fame, and the speedy oblivion that has overtaken so many of the promised heirs of immortality. Of near two hundred and fifty authors, whose works are cited in these volumes, by far the greatest part of whom were celebrated in their generation, there are not thirty who now enjoy anything that can be called popularity — whose works are to be found in the hands of ordinary readers — in the shops of ordinary booksellers — or in the press for publication. About fifty more may be tolerably familiar to men of taste or literature ; — the rest slumber on the shelves of collec- tors, and are partially known to a few antiquaries and scholars. Now, the fame of a poet is popular, or nothing. He does not address himself, like the man of science, to the learned, or those who desire to learn, but to all mankind ; and his purpose being to delight and be 172 TESTIMONY OF 56. Now is the time to exhibit to full advantage the argument which the different epistles of the New Testament afford. They are, in fact, so many distinct and additional testimonies. If the testimonies drawn from the writings of the Christian Fathers are calculated to make any impression, then the testimonies of these epistles, where there is no delusion and no prejudice in the mind of the inquirer, must make a greater impression. They are more ancient, and were held to be of greater authority by competent judges. They were held sufficient by the men of those days, who were nearer to the sources of evidence ; and they ought, therefore, to be held sufficient by us. The ear]y persecuted Christians had too great an interest in the grounds of their faith to make a light and superficial examination. We may safely commit the decision to them ; and the decision they have made is, that the authors of the different epistles in the New Testa- ment, were worthier of their confidence, as witnesses of the truth, than the authors of those compositions which were left out of the collection, and maintain, in our eye, the form of a separate testi- praised, necessarily extends to all who can receive pleasure, or join in applause. It is strange, and somewhat humiliating, to see how great a proportion of those who had once fought their way successfully to distinction, and surmounted the rivalry of contemporary envy, have again sunk into neglect. We have great deference for public opinion ; and readily ad- mit, that nothing but what is good can be permanently popular. But though its vivat be generally oracular, its pereat appears to us to be often sufficiently capricious ; and while we would foster all that it bids to live, we would willingly revive much that it leaves to die. The very multiplication of works of amusement necessarily withdraws many from notice that deserve to be kept in remembrance ; for we should soon find it labour, and not amuse- ment, if we were obliged to make use of them all, or even to take all upon trial. As the materials of enjoyment and instruction accumulate around us, more and more must thus be daily rejected, and left to waste ; for while our tasks lengthen, our lives remain as short as ever ; and the calls on our time multiply, while our time itself is flying swiftly away. This superfluity and abundance of our treasures, therefore, necessarily renders much of them worthless ; and the veriest accidents may, in such a case, determine what part shall be pre- served, and what thrown away and neglected. When an army is decimated, the very bra- vest may fall ; and many poets, worthy of eternal remembrance, have been forgotten, merely because there was not room in our memories for all. “ By such a work as the present, however, this injustice of fortune maybe partly redressed — some small fragments of an immortal strain may still be rescued from oblivion — and a wreck of a name preserved, which time appeared to have swallowed up for ever. There is something pious, we think, and endearing, in the office of thus gathering up the ashes of renown that has passed away : or rather, of calling back the departed life for a transitory glow, and enabling those great spirits which seemed to be laid for ever, still to draw a tear of pity, or a throb of admiration, from the hearts of a forgetful generation. The body of their poetry, probably, can never be revived ; but some sparks of its spirit may yet be pre- served in a narrower and feebler frame. “ When we look back upon the havoc which two hundred years have thus made in the ranks of our immortals — and, above all, when we refer their rapid appearance to the quick SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 173 mony. By wbat unaccountable tendency is it, that we feel dis- posed to reverse this decision, and to repose more faith in the testimony of subsequent and less esteemed writers ? Is there anything in the confidence given to Peter and Paul by their contemporaries, which renders them unworthy of ours ? or, is the testimony of their writings less valuable and less impressive, because the Christians of old have received them as the best vouchers of their faith ? 57. It gives us a far more satisfying impression than ever of the truth of our religion, when, in addition to several distinct and independent narratives of its history, we meet with a number of contemporaneous productions addressed to different societies, and all proceeding upon the truth of that history, as an agreed and unquestionable point amongst the different parties in the correspondence. Had that history been a fabrication, in what manner, we ask, would it have been followed up by the subse- quent compositions of those numerous agents in the work of deception ? How comes it that they have betrayed no symptom succession of new competitors, and the accumulation of more good works than there is time to peruse — we cannot help being dismayed at the prospect which lies before the writers of the present day. There never was an age so prolific of popular poetry as that in which we now live; and as wealth, population, and education extend, the produce is likely to go on increasing. The last ten years have produced, we think, an annual supply of about ten thousand lines of good staple poetry — poetry from the very first hands that we can boast of— that runs quickly to three or four large editions — and is as likely to be permanent as present success can make it. Now, if this goes on for a hundred years longer, what a task will await the poetical readers of 1919 ! Our living poets will then be nearly as old as Pope and Swift are at present — but there will stand between them and that generation nearly ten times as much fresh and fashionable poetry as is now interposed between us and those writers; — and if Scott, and Byron, and Campbell have already cast Pope and Swift a good deal into the shade, in what form and dimensions are they themselves likely to be presented to the eyes of their great-grandchildren ? The thought, we own, is a little appalling ; and we confess we see nothing better to imagine than that they may find a comfortable place in some new collec- tion of specimens — the centenary of the present publication. There — if the future editor have anything like the indulgence and veneration for antiquity of his predecessor — there shall posterity still hang with rapture on the half of Campbell — and the fourth part of Byron — and the sixth of Scott — and the scattered tithes of Crabbe — and the three per cent, of Southey, — while some good-natured critic shall sit in our mouldering chair, and more than half prefer them to those by whom they have been superseded ! It is a hyperbole of good- nature, however, we fear, to ascribe to them even these dimensions of the end of a century. After a lapse of two hundred and fifty years, we are afraid to think of the space they may have shrunk into. We have no Shakspere, alas ! to shed a never-setting light on his con- temporaries ; and if we continue to write and to rhyme at the present rate for two hundred years ionger, there must be some new art of short-hand reading invented, or all reading will be given up in despair. We need not distress ourselves, however, with these afflictions of our posterity ; and it is quite time that the reader should know a little of the work before us.” 174 TESTIMONY OF of that insecurity which it would have been so natural to feel in their circumstances ? Through the whole of these epistles, we see nothing like the awkward or embarrassed air of impostors. We see no anxiety, either to mend or to confirm the history that had already been given. We see no contest which they might have been called upon to maintain with the incredulity of their converts, as to the miracles of the gospel. We see the most in- trepid remonstrance against errors of conduct, or discipline, or doctrine. This savours strongly of upright and independent teachers. But is it not a most striking circumstance, that, amongst the severe reckonings which St. Paul had with some of his churches, he was never once called upon to school their doubts, or their suspicions, as to the reality of the Christian miracles ? This is a point universally acquiesced in ; and, from the general strain of these epistles, we collect, not merely the testimony of their authors, but the unsuspected testimony of all to whom they addressed themselves. 58. And let it never be forgotten, that the Christians who composed these churches, were in every way well qualified to be arbiters in this question. They had the first authorities within their reach. The five hundred who, Paul says to them, had seen our Saviour aftfr His resurrection, could be sought after ; and, if not to be found, Paul would have had his assertion to answer for. In some cases, they were the first authorities themselves, and had therefore no confirmation to go in search of. He appeals to the miracles which had been wrought among them, and in this way he commits the question to their own experience. He asserts this to the Galatians ; and at the very time, too, that he is de- livering against them a most severe and irritating invective. He intimates the same thing repeatedly to the Corinthians ; and after he had put his honesty to so severe a trial, does he betray any insecurity as to his character and reputation amongst them ? So far from this, in arguing the general doctrine of the resurrection from the dead as the most effectual method of securing assent to it, he rests the main part of the argument upon their confidence in his fidelity as a witness. u But if there be no resurrection from the dead, then is Christ not risen — yea, and w T e are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God, that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.” Where, we ask, would have been the mighty charm of this argument, if Paul's fidelity had been questioned ? and how shall we account for the free and intrepid SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 175 manner in which he advances it, if the miracles which he refers to, as wrought among them, had been nullities of his own invention ? 59. For the truth of the gospel history, we can appeal to one strong and unbroken series of testimonies from the days of the apostles. But the great strength of the evidence lies in that effulgence of testimony, which enlightens this history at its commencement — in the number of its original witnesses — in the distinct and independent records which they left behind them — and in the undoubted faith they bore among the numerous so- cieties w T hich they instituted. The concurrence of the apostolic Fathers, and their immediate successors, forms a very strong and a very satisfying argument ; but let it be further remem- bered, that out ’of the materials which compose, if we may be allowed the expression, the original charter of our faith, we can select a stronger body of evidence than it is possible to form out of the whole mass of subsequent testimonies. 60. Before closing our account of the testimony of subsequent witnesses, we would advert shortly to the strong virtual though unwritten testimony that is implied in the consent of the many thousands of converts to the faith of the gospel, and the unques- tioned oral tradition by which the history of its origin was handed forward from one generation to another. This evidence afforded by the ancient people of the Church, is altogether distinct and additional to that which we gather from the Fathers of the Church. When one ancient author witnesses for another ; and is himself nearly as remote from the age in which we live, he too is gene- rally propped or supported by succeeding testimonies, even as his predecessor — and thus it is, that each, in the train of some one that went before him, is also himself followed by a train of those who came after him. There is in this way a broad and magni- ficent stream of light from the New Testament Scriptures to the present age — made up of all those separate lines of light which issue from each of the individual witnesses — a chain of evidence, in which each writer adds, as it were, a fibre of his own, and contributes a portion to the bulk and strength of the whole — a crowd of reporters along the pathway of descending ages, who stand in such close and continuous succession, that each is in full hearing of his neighbour's voice and can transmit in turn his own credible testimony to those who occupy the place beneath him in the ladder of history. There is no other instance of such a sustained and solid conveyance, as that by which the facts of 176 TESTIMONY OF the Christian story have travelled downwards to the present hour — nor can any profane author be named who hath come to us along the track of centuries, by such numerous and such firm stepping-stones. It were interesting to be presented with com- parative tabellated views upon this subject — to have a series of all the notices which can be collected from all authors before the age of printing, to the writings of Caesar or Cicero, and reckon them along with a similar series of notices to the writings of the Evangelists or of St. Paul. On every principle of what is deemed to be sound criticism, when estimating the genuineness of ancient compositions in ordinary literature, would it be found that the sacred outweigh the profane authors a hundred-fold ; and when one thinks of the unhesitating faith that is reposed, both in the existence of those Roman personages whom we have just named, and in the general authenticity of their writings — one cannot but wonder at the lingering incredulity, and at length the slow assent, even of the friends of Christianity, in the veracity of the New Testament, and the trustworthiness of the innumerable depositions, bearing every mark of honesty, which can be alleged in its favour. 61. But this written testimony is very far from being all which can be appealed to for the truth of the gospel narrative. We speak not of the very peculiar circumstances, under which the written testimony of apostolic men and of Christian Fathers was given ; and how they sealed their integrity by their suffer- ings in the cause : but, apart from all written evidence what- ever, we should think on the evidence of that uncontrolled oral tradition which is nearly all that can be alleged for some of the most esteemed authors of antiquity. When Cicero wrote, there could be no mistake either as to the works or as to their author at the time of the publication ; and, apart from any other taking up the pen and transmitting a written voucher in their behalf, we can easily imagine that they would be handed to the im- mediately succeeding generation, as the undoubted compositions of the man whose name was prefixed to them, and whom every one knew to have been great in talent, and great in the public and political history of his times. That generation might have received them as they got them, and handed them onward on the same terms to their immediate posterity. And thus, inde- pendently of other authors, they might have been carried for- ward on a stream of unquestioned tradition, never contradicted and never doubted — and so coming down to us in the undisturbed SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 177 possession of a hereditary esteem which of itself, and more especially when accompanied by the internal marks of credi- bility in the subject-matter of the volumes, would perpetuate the credit of them, and so as that we should never think of inquiring about the testimony either of contemporary or intermediate writers. Independently of all written documents, there is a vast deal of information carried forward on the vehicle of an uninterrupted hearsay ; and who can doubt that the various pieces of the New Testament had this sort of tradition to help on their conveyance from generation to generation ? That is a remarkable testimony of Irenseus, when he says, u That the tra- dition of the apostles hath spread itself over the whole universe ; and all they who search after the sources of truth will find this tradition to be held sacred in every church. We might enumer- ate all those who have been appointed bishops to these churches by the apostles, and all their successors up to our days. It is by this uninterrupted succession that we have received the tra- dition which actually exists in the church, as also the doctrines of truth as it was preached by the apostles.” Superadded, then, to the copious written testimony which has been collected by Lardner, there is a virtual and most effective testimony in the oral conveyance of historical truth from one age to another ; and for the integrity of which, we have the best guarantees in the tradition of the early Christians. This tradition, in fact, is tan- tamount to the testimony of whole multitudes who had no pos- sible interest either in deceiving or in being deceived ; and with whom the authority of those Scriptures, on the faith of which they embarked all their hopes in eternity, and braved the most fearful hazards in time, was a prime concern. Never, we may rest assured, did the stream of tradition flow purer than through those ages of a suffering and persecuted church, which lay be- tween the commencement of our religion and its establishment in the days of Constantine. In support of the Scriptures, there is a continuous and increasing light of written testimony, far surpassing all that can be adduced in behalf of any ancient authors ; but a reflecting mind will acknowledge that in the oral tradition of a sincere, and suffering, and vigilant people, there is a chain of still closer and firmer continuity. And when one thinks of so many separate and diverging chains, throughout the various churches of the world — yet all landing in the harmonious result of the same Scriptures as the rule of our faith and practice — it affords a multiplicity of evidence, not only for the age and VOL. VI. M 178 TESTIMONY OF authority of these books, but for the certainty of their informa- tions, which is altogether unexampled. 62. Nor should we here omit another species of testimony which, though also unwritten and inarticulate, affords a powerful evidence on the side of revelation. We refer to the credibility which the institutions of the Jewish and Christian religions im- part to the origin of both. This has been well unfolded in that admirable little tract, in titled Leslie’s “ Short and Easy Method with the Deists” — in which, by means of a plain yet most effec- tive argument that is exceedingly will put, he embodies as it were the faith of past history in certain observances that are acted before our eyes. He in the first place exhibits with great force, how impossible it is that the faith of contemporaries could be carried, in any miraculous if pretended facts said to have been performed in the midst of them, and if of such a nature as that many must have seen and all must have heard of them. And in the second place, he demonstrates with 'equal force, how im- possible it were to carry the faith of their descendants in any age after them, in the genuineness of any memorials said to have been instituted in the celebration of these miraculous events im- mediately after they happened — but in fact newly instituted, with the view to palm a false history on the credulity of the public. The Jewish passover, for example, is said to have been instituted in commemoration of that awful miracle, the death in one night of all the first-born in the land of Egypt ; and at a time when the event, if true, must have been fresh in the recollection of all the children of Israel. The argument of Leslie goes most satis- factorily to show, that if the miracle was not true, and the pass- over was not instituted at the time of its having taken place — then it was just as impossible to introduce it at any future age in connexion with the story, as to make the story itself be be- lieved in the age when it was alleged to have happened. So that this established rite, this great annual solemnity, trans- mitted from generation to generation, becomes a permanent witness for the truth of the circumstances in which it is said to have originated. And, tracing the history of this observation upwards, we can stop at no point later than the miraculous story which it authenticates, at which it would have been possible to have gained for it the credit and consent of the Jewish people : and, when we do attain this summit, when we thus carry back the institution close to the greats event which it professes to commemorate — we then meet with the equal impossibility of SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 179 forcing their acceptance of the institution, without their previous belief cind acceptance of the story ; or lastly, of forcing that be- lief, without a story, of so palpable and public a nature, being actually true.* 63. He applies this argument with great effect to Christianity, which has its Sabbath, and its standing ministry and its Baptism and its Sacrament of the Supper — all of them coeval with itself ; and the last of them especially commemorative, not merely of the death of our Saviour, but, in the words by which we are enjoined to “ do this till he come again/ 7 commemorative also of his re- surrection. The annual celebrations of this solemnity may be regarded, then, as the stepping-stones by which the tradition of this great miracle has descended on sure footing from the first age of the gospel to the time in which we live. It has moved downward for nearly two thousand years on a solid pathway* — handed from one to another, in a progression that could not pos- sibly have commenced later than the age of the apostles ; and could not possibly have commenced then, without the general faith of a persecuted and therefore a pure and an upright church, in an event about which it was impossible to deceive them. * The rules applied by Leslie to this investigation are the four following: — “1st, That the matter of fact be such that men’s outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it. 2d, That it be done publicly in the face of the world. 3d, That not only public monu- ments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed. 4th, That such monuments, or such actions and observances as be instituted, do commeuce from the time that the matter of fact was done. “ The two first rules make it impossible for any such matter of fact to be imposed upon men at the time when such matter of fact was said to be done ; because every man’s eyes and senses would contradict it. “ Therefore it only remains that such matter of fact might be invented some time after, when the men of that generation wherein the thing was said to be done are all past and gone, and the credulity of after ages might be imposed upon to believe that things were done in former ages which were not. “And for this the two last rules secure us as much as the two first rules in the former case.” He applies these rules with great good effect to the histories both of Moses and Christ. The chief Jewish memorials which he notices are the Feast of the Passover — Aaron’s Rod — the Pot of Manna — the Brazen Serpent — the Fea^t of Pentecost — the Sabbath — the Sacrifices —the Feasts and Fasts in general — the tribe of Levi — the stones at Gilgal. His treatment of the last of these memorials may be given as a fair specimen of his whole argument. “ Now to frame our argument, let us suppose, that there never was any such thing as that passage over Jordan — that these things at Gilgal were set up upon some other occasion in some after age — and then that some designing man invented this book of Joshua, and said that it was writ by Joshua at that time, and gave this stoneage at Gilgal f>>r a testimony of the truth of it— would not everybody say to him, We know this stoneage at Gilgal, but we never heard before of this reason for it, nor of this book of Joshua. Where has it been all 180 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE CHAPTER VI. ON THE SECURE AND IMPREGNABLE CHARACTER OF THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. If there be one thing more distinctive of all that is sound in our modern philosophy than another, it is the respect which it maintains throughout for the evidence of observation. Now the original witnesses of the gospel had the evidence of observation for the truth of its recorded miracles. And to us of the present day, it comes in the shape of observation at second-hand — coming as it does through the medium of a testimony altogether unexampled in strength and sureness. The office of history is to inform us, not of that which has fallen under the observation of our own senses, but of that which has fallen under the observa- tion of the senses of other men — and, if only transmitted to us by a sure pathway, then, though it may be termed derivative rather than direct or primary observation, yet may it claim the same rightful authority over all that is of a conjectural charac- ter, which is now allowed at all hands to the evidence of facts over the gratuitous fancies of theory or speculation. And it does give a more entire character of purely observational evi- dence to the evidence of testimony, that beside reporting to* us the observation of others, it is upon observation of our own, upon the experience we have had of the characters of truth and this while ? And where and how came you after so many ages to find it ? Besides, this book tells us that this passage over Jordan was ordained to be taught our children from age to age ; and therefore that they were always to be instructed in the meaning of that stoneage at Gilgal as a memorial of it. But we were never taught it when we were children, nor did we ever teach our children any such thing; and it is not likely that thing could have been forgotten, while so remarkable a stoneage did continue which was set up for that and no other end. “ The matters of fact of Mahomet, or what is fabled of the heathen deities, do all want some of the aforesaid rules, whereby the certainty of matters of fact is demonstrated. “ I do not say that everything which wants these four marks is false ; but that nothing can be false which has them all.” The Essay altogether is terse and powerful, and one of the happiest specimens in existence of good wholesome English argument. There are certain other material vestiges of the truth of Revelation, by the investigation of which we should break up a new and a rich mine of evidence in its favour. We refer to coins and medals, and architectural monuments, confirmatory of the Jewish and Christian histories, and more especially of the facts connected with the origin of the latter dis- pensation. FOB THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 181 falsehood in other men, that we immediately pass our judgment on the credibility of any narrative which may happen to be submitted to us. This is one good effect of proving the faith of testimony to be resolvable into the faith of experience. It gives, out and out, to the evidence for the miracles of the gospel, the character of a solid experimental and Baconian evidence — and as much superior to the hypothetical imaginations which have been opposed to it, as are the certainties of that terra firma which is within the circle of observation, to the plausibilities however ingenious of that terra incognita which is around it. 2. After having attained this secure vantage-ground, we have only to make a right use of its capabilities in order to disperse certain phantoms which infidelity has conjured up from a dim and inaccessible region. Perhaps the two most notable examples of this are — first, the presumption on which the enemies of reve- lation have attempted to discredit it, because of its imagined incongruity with their geological speculations ; second, the pre- sumption on which a similar attempt has been made, because of the imagined incongruity between the Theology of the Bible and the Theology of Nature. The one presumption is fetched from a distant antiquity, and supposes an acquaintance with the secrets of a physical history that no human spectator witnessed, and of which no human record has been transmitted to us. The other presumption is fetched from an obscurity profounder still, and supposes an acquaintance with the mysteries of the spiritual world of which the duration reaches from eternity to eternity ; and which besides, as much surpasses the audacity of the former presumption, as the dimensions of our single earth are surpassed by the dimensions of the universe. Meanwhile we have a stable historical, or, which is really tantamount to this, a stable obser- vational evidence for the miracles of the New Testament ; and it only remains to be shown, how this enables us to stand our ground against sceptical geologists on the one hand, and scepti- cal theists on the other. 3. — I. There are certain late speculations in geology which give the example of a distant and unconnected circumstance, being suffered to cast an unmerited disgrace over the whole of our argument. They give a higher antiquity to the world than most of those who read the Bible had any conception of. Admit this antiquity ; and in what possible way does it touch upon the historical evidence for the New Testament? The credibility of the gorspel miracles stands upon its own appropriate foundation, 182 STABILITY OF THE HISTOUICAL EVIDENCE the recorded testimony of numerous and unexceptionable wit- nesses. The only way in which we can overthrow that credi- bility is by attacking the testimony or disproving the authenticity of the record. Every other science is tried upon its own peculiar evidences : and all we contend for is, that the same justice be done to theology. When a mathematician offers to apply bis reasoning to the phenomena of mind, the votaries of moral science resent it as an invasion, and make their appeal to the evidence of consciousness. When an amateur of botany, upon some vague analogies, offers his confident affirmations as to the structure and parts of the human body, there would be an in- stantaneous appeal to* the knife and demonstrations of the anato- mist. Should a mineralogist, upon the exhibition of an ingenious or well-supported theory, pronounce upon the history of our Saviour and His miracles, we should call it another example of an arbitrary and unphilosophical extension of principles beyond the field of their legitimate application. We should appeal to the kind and the quantity of testimony upon which that history is supported. We might suffer ourselves to be delighted by the brilliancy, or even convinced by the evidence of his speculations ; but we should feel, that the history of those facts which form the groundwork of our faith, is as little affected by them as the his- tory of any storm or battle or warrior which has come down to us in the most genuine and approved records of past ages. 4. But whatever be the external evidence of testimony, or however strong may be its visible characters of truth and honesty, is not the falsehood or the contradiction which we may detect in the subject of that testimony sufficient to discredit it ? Had we been original spectators of our Saviour’s miracles, we must have had as strong a conviction of their reality as it is in the power of testimony to give us. Had we been the eye- witnesses of his character and history, and caught from actual observation the impression of his worth — the internal proofs, that no jugglery or falsehood could have been intended, would have been certainly as strong as the internal proofs which are now exhibited to us, and which consist in the simplicity of the narrative, and that tone of perfect honesty which pervades, in a mariner so distinct and intelligible, every composition of the apostles. Yet, with all these advantages, if Jesus Christ had asserted as a truth, what we confidently knew to be a falsehood ; had he, for example, upon the strength of his prophetical endow- ments, pronounced upon the secret of a person’s age, and told FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 183 us that he was thirty when we knew him to be forty, would not this have made us stumble at all his pretensions, and, in spite of every other argument and appearance, would we not have with- drawn our confidence from him as a teacher from God ? This, we allow, would have been a most serious dilemma. It would have been that state of neutrality which admits of nothing posi- tive or satisfying on either side of the question ; or rather what is still more distressing, which gives us the most positive and satisfactory appearances on both sides. We could not abandon the truth of the miracles, because we saw them. Could we give them up, we should determine on a positive rejection, and our minds would feel repose in absolute infidelity. But as the case stands, it is scepticism. There is nothing like it in any other department of inquiry. We can appeal to no actual example ; but a student of natural science may be made to understand the puzzle, when we ask him how he would act, if the experiments which he conducts under the most perfect sameness of circum- stances, were to land him in opposite results? He would vary and repeat his experiments; he would try to detect the incon- sistency ; and would rejoice, if he at last found that the diffi- culty lay in the errrors of his own observation, and not in the inexplicable nature of the subject. All this he would do in anxious and repeated endeavours, before he inferred that nature persevered in no law, and that that constancy, which is the foun- dation of all science, was perpetually broken in upon by the most capricious and unlooked-for appearances — before he would aban- don himself to scepticism, and pronounce philosophy to be an impossible attainment. 5 . It is otir part to imitate this example. If Jesus Christ has, on the one hand, performed miracles, and sustained in the whole tenor of His history the character of a prophet, and, on the other hand, asserted to be true, what we undeniably know to be a falsehood, this is a dilemma which we are called upon to resolve by every principle, that can urge the human mind in the pursuit of liberal inquiry. It is not enough to say that the phe- nomena in question do not fall within the dominion of philosophy ; and we therefore leave them as a fair exercise and amusement to commentators. The mathematician may say, and has said, the same thing of the moralist; yet there are moralists in the world, who will prosecute their speculations in spite of him : and, what is more, there are men who take a wider survey than either ; who rise above these professional prejudices; arid will allow that, 184 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE in each department of inquiry, the subjects which offer are en- titled to a candid and respectful consideration. The naturalist may pronounce the same rapid judgment upon the difficulties of the theologian ; yet there ever will be theologians who feel a peculiar interest in their subject ; and, we trust, that there ever will be men, with a higher grasp of mind than either the mere theologian, or the mere naturalist, who are ready to acknowledge the claims of truth in every quarter — who are superior to that narrow contempt, which has made such an unhappy and malig- nant separation among the different orders of scientific men — who will examine the evidences of the gospel history, and, if they are found to be sufficient, will view the miracles of our Savi- our with the same liberal and philosophic curiosity with which they would contemplate any grand phenomenon in the moral history of the species. If there really appear, on the face of this investigation, to be such a difficulty as the one in question, a philosopher of the order we are now describing will make many an anxious effort to extricate himself ; he will not soon acquiesce in a scepticism, of which there is no other example in the wide field of human speculation ; he will either make out the insuffi- ciency of the historical evidence, or prove that the falsehood ascribed to Jesus Christ has no existence. He will try to dis- pose of one of the terms of the alleged contradiction, before he can prevail upon himself to admit both, and deliver his mind to a state of uncertainty, most painful to those who respect truth in all her departments. 6. We offer the above observations, not so much for the pur- pose of doing away the difficulty which we conscientiously believe to have no existence, as for the purpose of exposing the rapid, careless, and unphilosophical procedure of some enemies to the Christian argument. They, in the first instance, take up the rapid assumption, that Jesus Christ has, either through Himself, or His immediate disciples, made an assertion as to the antiquity of the globe, which, upon the faith of their geological specula- tions, they know to be a falsehood. After having fastened this stain upon the subject of the testimony, they, by one summary act of the understanding, lay aside all the external evidence for the miracles and general character of our Saviour. They will not wait to be told that this evidence is a distinct subject of ex- amination ; and that, if actually attended to, it will be found much stronger than the evidence of any other fact or history which has come down to us in the written memorials of past ages. If FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 185 this evidence is to be rejected, it must be rejected on its own proper grounds ; but if all positive testimony, and all sound rea- soning upon human affairs, go to establish it, then the existence of such proof is a phenomenon which remains to be accounted for, and must ever stand in the way of positive infidelity. Until we dispose of it, we can carry our opposition to the claims of our religion, no farther than to the length of an ambiguous and mid- way scepticism. By adopting a decisive infidelity, we reject a testimony, which, of all others, has come down to us in the most perfect and unsuspicious form. We lock up a source of evidence, which is often repaired to in other questions of science and his- tory. We cut off the authority of principles, which, if once ex- ploded, will not terminate in the solitary mischief of darkening and destroying our theology, but will shed a baleful uncertainty over many of the most interesting speculations on which the human mind can expatiate. 7. Even admitting, then, this single objection in the subject of our Saviour's testimony, the whole length to which we can legitimately carry the objection, is scepticism, or that dilemma of the mind into which it is thrown by two contradictory appear- ances. This is the unavoidable result of admitting both terms in the alleged contradiction. Upon the strength of all the rea- soning which has hitherto occupied us, we challenge the infidel to dispose of the one term, which lies in the strength of the his- torical evidence. But in different ways we may dispose of the other, which lies in the alleged falsehood of our Saviour's testi- mony. We may deny the truth of the geological speculation ; nor is it necessary to be an accomplished geologist, that we may be warranted to deny it. We appeal to the speculations of the geologists themselves. They neutralize one another, and leave us in possession of free ground for the informations of the Old Testament. Our imaginations have been much regaled by the brilliancy of their speculations ; but they are so opposite to each other, that we now cease to be impressed by their evidence. But there are other ways of disposing of the supposed falsehood of our Saviour's testimony. Does He really assert what has been called the Mosaical antiquity of the world ? It is true that He gives His distinct testimony to the Divine legation of Moses ; but does Moses ever say, that when God created the heavens and the earth, He did more at the time alluded to than trans- form them out of previously existing materials? Or does he ever say, that there was not an interval of many ages betwixt 186 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE the first act of creation, described in the first verse of the book of Genesis, and said to have been performed at the beginning ; and those more detailed operations, the account of which com- mences at the second verse, and which are described to us as having been performed in so many days ? Or, finally, does he ever make us to understand, that the genealogies of man went any farther than to fix the antiquity of the species, and, of con- sequence, that they left the antiquity of the globe a free subject for the speculations of philosophers ? — We do not pledge our- selves for the truth of one or all of these suppositions. Nor is it necessary that we should. It is enough that any of them is infinitely more rational than the rejection of Christianity in the face of its historical evidence. This historical evidence remains in all the obstinacy of experimental and well-attested facts ; and as there are so many ways of expunging the other term, ; in the alleged contradiction, we appeal to every enlightened reader, if it is at all candid or philosophical to suffer it to stand.* 8. Respecting the infidelity which has been raised on this particular ground, it may well be remarked, that the danger which a country runs from an incursion of its enemies is not always in proportion to the number of the invaders. There is another element, besides the mere number of them, which must enter into the calculation ; and that is, the unity of their move- ments. If it be found that the operations of the different armies counteract and neutralize one another ; or that when one of the commanders resolves upon a particular method of attack, another of them not only withdraws his concurrence, but puts forth his strength to resist it — then the country may remain untouched and unhurt amid all this parade of hostility ; and, in addition to the consciousness of her own strength, she derives a fresh security from the mutual jealousies of those who are opposed to her. 9. The strength of the Christian argument has never been brought fairly into contest with the speculations of geology. These speculations are almost entirely constructed upon pre- sently existing appearances ; for they are but very slightly modified by the very slender materials which have come down to us in the records of past times. Let us suppose that a very ancient record of geological facts were discovered, with the most conclusive marks of authenticity upon it, and that it gave the lie to the most popular and accepted theory of the present day. The circumstance of that theory being the most probable * On this subject see further, in Bock IT. chap. ii. of our Natural Theology. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 187 of all those which had been started upon the facts within our reach, would not be suffered for a moment to exclude the new information which had broken in upon us. It were a sad trans- gression upon the inductive philosophy to refuse this informa- tion with not another reason to set it aside, than that it is incon- sistent with our theory. The information must be received, if it have enough of its own appropriate evidence to make it credible — even the evidence of history. A man of true philosophical habits would be thankful for it, and if a theory must be got up, •he would accommodate it to the wider field of induction which lay before him. 10. Now, it is not necessary that the author of the record in question be a naturalist by profession. Julius Caesar may have chosen to give us the height of the cliffs at Dover, and have gratified our present geologists by giving them to .understand that the actual degradation of these precipices is as rapid or as slow as they have conceived it ; or he may have puzzled them with a piece of information totally unlooked-for upon this sub- ject, and sent them a-seeking after consistency to their specula- tions about the alteration of level in the sea, or the inequalities of that expansive and elevating power which they fancy to be at work under the surface of the globe. 11. Moses is not a naturalist by profession ; but, in the course of his narrative, he brings forward facts which may confirm or may falsify the speculations of naturalists. Strange mixture of credulity and scepticism ! that the slender plausibilities of theory should have such influence upon the one, while the competency of Moses as an historian, should make no impression upon the other. If these two principles existed in different minds, it would fail to astonish us. But that there should be room in the same mind for so much facility of conviction on the one hand, and such an obstinate resistance to evidence on the other, is just one of those perversities of infidelity, which serve both to illus- trate the history and to lay open the principle of its melancholy delusions. 12. Nor is it necessary to assert in positive terms the compet- ency of Moses as an historian. It is a enough to bring it for- ward as a point which must be disposed of, before geologists can have free room to expatiate upon that field of inquiry on which they have ventured themselves. If, by the labour of a sound and patient criticism, they can succeed in deposing the Jewish legislator from a place among the accredited historians of other 188 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE days, every lover of truth will thank them for the new light they have thrown on this very interesting question. But till this be accomplished, the testimony of Moses remains a drawback to all their theories ; and it is just as unphilosophical to withhold their attention from his narrative, as it would be for theorists in chemis- try to refuse a hearing to him who offers to arrest the progress of their speculations by the narrative of his actual experiments. 13. The credibility of Moses as an historian is the right weapon for defending the integrity of our faith against the in- roads of geological speculation. The tone of truth, and the consistency which pervade his narrative ; the solemn reverence for the God of truth which animates the whole of it ; its uncon- trolled credit with the Jewish people in spite of all its severities against them ; the likely origin which it assigns to institutions kept up by the nation to the latest period of their history, and which no artifice could have introduced at an age subsequent to that of the historian himself ; the united testimony of Jews and Christians, that best guarantee for the integrity of the copies since the days of our Saviour ; and, above all, the express testi- mony of our Saviour himself, bringing the whole authority of His religion, with the full weight of its wonderful and unex- ampled evidences to the support of the Mosaic narrative — these are the mighty bulwarks which stand in secure defiance against the visions of geology, and out of which we may cast a fearless eye over the mustering hostility of its aerial and ever-shifting speculations. 14. But we must not forget that the geologists are nearly unanimous on one point — the far superior antiquity of this globe to the commonly received date of it, as taken from the writings of Moses. What shall we make of this ? We may feel a security as to those points in which they differ, and, confronting them with one another, may remain safe and untouched between them. But when they agree, this security fails. There is scarcely any neutralization of authority among them as to the age of the world ; and Cuvier, with his catastrophes and his epochs, leaves the popular opinion nearly as far behind him, as they who trace our present continent upwards through an indefinite series o* 1 ' ancestors, and assign many millions of years to the existence ot each generation. In a chapter of our Natural Theology to which we have already referred, we have conceded this antiquity of the globe, and explained the grounds on which we hold it to be re- concilable with the literalities of the book of Genesis. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 1S9 15. — II. The second objection, or class of objections, to Chris- tianity which we think the Historical Evidence fully able to overbear, is grounded on the conceived incongruities between the theology of the Bible and the theology of nature. Now whatever light the theology of nature may cast, and we think it casts a great deal, on the perfections of the Divine character, and more especially His moral perfections — we hold it to be altogether incompetent for judging on the procedure of the Divine administration. We may estimate aright the principles of His government, without being able to judge of its policy ; or of the particular measures by which these principles are carried out into their best possible manifestation and effect. Our con- science may tell us of the one, and fully warrant us in saying — u Just and true art thou, 0 God !” But the vastness and variety of His superintendence, whether as respects the eternity of its duration or the immensity of its sphere, may utterly dis- qualify us from pronouncing on the other. So that when a pro- fessed revelation announces certain counsels or certain forthgoings of the Divinity, we are altogether unable, on any cognizance that we may take of their character or tendency, to say, that “ Just and true are all these ways.”* It is true they might be com- mended to our acceptance on the strength of those credentials by which the revelation is accompanied. But they do not on that account commend themselves — nor are we entitled, on any per- ception by us of their intrinsic character, to found either an evi- dence for the pretensions of that system which makes them known to us, or an objection against it. The truth is, that most precarious internal evidence has been grounded on the presump- tion that we know a great deal more and can judge a great deal better of the unsearchable God, and of His unsearchable processes than is at all consistent with the mediocrity of our powers ; and on the other hand, in the very same presumption, have the enemies of the faith advanced objections, in every way as incom- petent and irrelevant as is the evidence adduced by its defenders. There is much both of hostile and friendly argument, and more especially when the combatants adventure themselves on the subject-matter of revelation, that ought to be cancelled, whether * “ Just and true are thy ways,” Rev. xv. 3. This might well be said by those to whom the day of the revelation of hidden things has come, and to whom the mystery of Cod is finished — or who have witnessed its fulfilment. Previous to that great and final manifesta- tion, it is our part to wait in humble expectancy, and to acquiesce in the mysteriousness of many things which at present we do not comprehend. 190 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE oil the Christian or infidel side of the deistical controversy. It would relieve the whole question of a most unnecessary incum- brance. 16. We have experience of man, but we have no experience of God. We can reason upon the procedure of man in given circumstances, because this is an accessible subject, and comes under the cognizance of observation ; but we cannot reason on the procedure of the Almighty in given circumstances. This is an inaccessible subject, and comes not within the limits of direct and personal observation. The one, like the scale and compass, and measurements of Sir Isaac Newton, will lead us on safe and firm footing to the true economy of the heavens ; the other, like the ether and whirlpools, and unfounded imaginations of Des Cartes, will not only lead us to misconceive that economy, but to maintain a stubborn opposition to the only competent evidence that can be offered upon the subject. 17. We feel, that in thus disclaiming support from much of what is commonly understood by the external evidence, we do not follow the general example of those who have written on the deistical controversy. Take up Leland’s performance, and it will be found that one-half of his discussion is expended upon the reasonableness of the doctrines, and in asserting the validity of the argument which is founded upon that reasonableness. It would save a vast deal of controversy, if it could be proved that much of this is superfluous and uncalled for; that, upon the authority of the proofs already insisted on, the New Testament must be received as a revelation from heaven ; and that, instead of sitting in judgment over it, nothing remains on our part but an act of unreserved submission to all the doctrine and informa- tion which it offers to us. It is conceived that in this way the general argument might be made to assume a more powerful and impressive aspect ; and the defence of Christianity be more ac- commodated to the spirit and philosophy of the times. 18. Since the spirit of Lord Bacon’s philosophy began to be rightly understood, the science of external nature has advanced with a rapidity unexampled in the history of all former ages. The great axiom of his philosophy is so simple in its nature, and so undeniable in its evidence, that it is astonishing how philosophers were so late in acknowledging it, or in being di- rected by its authority. It is more than two thousand years since the phenomena of external nature were objects of liberal curiosity to speculative and intelligent men. Yet tw r o centuries FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 191 have scarcely elapsed since the true path of investigation has been rightly pursued, and steadily persevered in ; since the evi- dence of experience has been received as paramount to every other evidence, or in other words, since philosophers have agreed, that the only way to learn the magnitude of an object, is to mea- sure it ; the only way to learn its tangible properties, is to touch it ; and the only way to learn its visible properties, is to look at it. 19. Nothing can be more safe or more infallible than the pro- cedure of the inductive philosophy as applied to the phenomena of external nature. It is the eye or the ear witness of every- thing which it records. It is at liberty to classify appearances ; but then, in the work of classifying, it must be directed only by observation. It may group phenomena according to their re- semblances. It may express these resemblances in words, and announce them to the world in the form of general laws. Yet such is the hardihood of the inductive philosophy, that though a single well-attested fact should overturn a whole system, that fact must be admitted. A single experiment is often made to cut short the finest process of generalization, however painful and humiliating the sacrifice ; and though a theory, the most simple and magnificent that ever charmed the eye of an enthu- siast, was on the eve of emerging from it. 20. In submitting, then, to the rules of the inductive philo- sophy, we do not deny that certain sacrifices must be made, and some of the most urgent propensities of the mind put under severe restraint and regulation. The human mind feels restless and dissatisfied under the anxieties of ignorance. It longs for the repose of conviction ; and, to gain this repose, it will often rather precipitate its conclusions, than wait for the tardy lights of observation and experiment. There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system — a prejudice of the understand- ing, which disposes it to include all the phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities — an indolence which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory, rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences — a painful reluctance to the ad- mission of facts, which, however true, break in upon the majestic simplicity that we would fain ascribe to the laws and operations of the- universe. 21. Now, it is the glory of Lord Bacon’s philosophy, to have achieved a victory over all these delusions ; to have disciplined the minds of its votaries into an entire submission to evidence ; to have trained them up in a kind of steady coldness to all the 192 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE splendour and magnificence of theory ; and taught them to follow, with an unfaltering step, wherever the sure, though humbler path of experiment may lead them. 22. To justify the cautious procedure of the inductive philo- sophy, nothing more is necessary than to take a view of the actual powers and circumstances of humanity; of the entire ignorance of man when he comes into the world, and of the steps by which that ignorance is enlightened ; of the numerous errors into which he is misled, the moment he ceases to observe, and begins to presume or to excogitate ; of the actual history of science ; its miserable progress, so long as categories and prin- ciples retained their ascendency in the schools ; and the splendour and rapidity of its triumphs, so soon as man understood that he was nothing more than the disciple of nature, and must take his lesson as nature offers it to him. 23. What is true of the science of external nature, holds equally true of the science and phenomena of mind. On this sub- ject, too, the presumptuous ambition of man carried him far from the sober path of experimental inquiry. He conceived that his business was not to observe, but to speculate ; to construct systems rather than consult his own experience and the experience of others ; to collect the materials of his theory, not from the history of observed facts, but from a set of assumed and excogitated principles. Now the same observations apply to this department of inquiry. We must admit to be true, not what we presume, but what we find to be so. We must restrain the enterprises of fancy. A law of the human mind must be only a series of well -authenticated facts, reduced to one general description, or grouped together under some general points of resemblance. The business of the moral as well as of the natural philosopher is not to assert what he ex- cogitates, but to record what he observes ; not to amuse himself with the speculations of fancy, but to describe phenomena as he sees, or as he feels them. This is the business of the moral as well as of the natural inquirer. We must extend the application of Lord Bacon’s principles to moral and metaphysical subjects. It was long before this application was recognised, or acted upon by philosophers. Many of the continental speculations are still infected with the presumptuous a priori spirit of the old schools ; though the writings of Reid and Stewart have contributed much to chase away this spirit from the metaphysics of our own coun- try, and to bring the science of mind, as well as matter, under the entire dominion of the inductive philosophy. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 193 24. These general observations we conceive to be a most direct and applicable introduction to that part of the subject which is before us. In discussing the evidence of Christianity, all that we ask of our reader is to bring along with him the same sober and inductive spirit that is now deemed so necessary in the pro- secution of the other sciences ; to abandon every system of theo^ logy that is not supported by evidence, however much it may gratify his taste or regale his imagination ; and to admit any system of theology that is supported by evidence, however re- pugnant to his feelings or his prejudices ; to make conviction, in fact, paramount to inclination or to fancy ; and to maintain, through the whole process of the investigation, that strength and intrepidity of character, which will follow wherever the light of argument may conduct him, though it should land him in con- clusions the most nauseous and unpalatable. 25. We have no time to enter into causes ; but the fact is un- deniable. Many philosophers of the present day are disposed to nauseate everything connected with theology. They associate something low and ignoble with the prosecution of it. They re- gard it as not a fit subject for liberal inquiry. They turn away from it with disgust as one of the humblest departments of liter- ary exertion . We do not say that they reject its evidences, but they evade the investigation of them. They feel no conviction ; not because they have established the fallacy of a single argu- ment, but because they entertain a general dislike to the subject, and will not attend to it. They love to expatiate in the more kindred fields of science or elegant literature ; and while the most respectful caution and humility and steadiness are seen to preside over every department of moral and physical investiga- tion, theology is the only subject that is suffered to remain the victim of prejudice, and of a contempt the most unjust and the most unphilosophical. 26. We do not speak of this feeling as an impiety ; we speak of it as an offence against the principles of just speculation. We do not speak of it as it allures the heart from the influence of religion ; we speak of it as it allures the understanding from the influence of evidence and truth. In a word, we are not preaching against it ; we reason against it. We contend, that it is a transgression against the rules of the inductive philosophy. All that we want is, the application of Lord Bacon’s principles to the investigation before us ; and as the influence of prejudice and disgust is banished from every other department of inquiry, VOL. VI. N 194 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE we conceive it fair that it should be banished from theology also, and that our subject should have the common advantage of a hearing — where no partiality of the heart or fancy is admitted, and no other influence acknowledged than the influence of evi- dence over the conviction of the understanding. 27. Let us, therefore, endeavour to evince the success and felicity with which Lord Bacon's principles may be applied to the investigation before us. 28. According to Bacon, man is ignorant of everything ante- cedent to observation ; and there is not a single department of inquiry in which he does not err the moment that he abandons it. It is true, that the greater part of every individual's know- ledge is derived immediately from testimony ; but still it is from testimony that brings home to his conviction the observation of others. Still it is observation which lies at the bottom of his knowledge. Still it is man taking his lesson from the actual condition of the thing which he contemplates — a condition that is altogether independent of his will, and which no speculation of his can modify or destroy. There is an obstinacy in the pro- cesses of nature which he cannot control. He must follow it. The construction of a system should not be a creative but an imitative process, which admits nothing but what evidence assures us to be true, and is founded only on the lessons of ex- perience. It is not by the exercise of a sublime and speculative ingenuity that man arrives at truth. It is by letting himself down to the drudgery of observation. It is by descending to the sober work of seeing and feeling and experimenting. Wherever, in short, he has not had the benefit of his own observation, or the observation of others brought home to his conviction by credible testimony, there he is ignorant. 29. This is found to hold true, even in those sciences where the objects of inquiry are the most familiar and the most acces- sible. Before the right method of philosophizing was acted upon, how grossly did philosophers misinterpret the phenomena of external nature, when a steady perseverance in the path of observation could have led them to infallible certainty ! How misled in their conception of everything around them ; when, instead of making use of their senses, they delivered themselves up to the exercises of a solitary abstraction, and thought to explain everything by the fantastic play of unmeaning terms and imaginary principles ! And when at last set on the right path of discovery, how totally different were the results of actual FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 195 observation, from those systems which antiquity had rendered venerable, and the authority of great names bad recommended to the acquiescence of many centuries ! This proves that, even in the most familiar subjects, man knows everything by observa- tion, and is ignorant of everything without it ; and that he cannot advance a single footstep in the acquirement of truth, till he bid adieu to the delusions of theory, and sternly refuse indul- gence to its fondest anticipations. 30. Thus, there is both a humility and a hardihood in the philosophical temper. They are the same in principle though different in display. The first is founded on a sense of ignorance, and disposes the mind of the philosopher to pay the most respect- ful attention to everything that is offered in the shape of evi- dence. The second consists in a determined purpose to reject and to sacrifice everything that offers to oppose the influence of evidence, or to set itself up against its legitimate and well-esta- blished conclusions. In the ethereal whirlpools of Des Cartes, we see a transgression against the humility of the philosophical character. It is the presumption of knowledge on a subject where the total want of observation should have confined him to the modesty of ignorance. In the Newtonian system of the world we see both humility and hardihood. Sir Isaac commences his investigation with all the modesty of a respectful inquirer. His is the docility of a scholar who is sensible that he has all to learn. He takes his lesson as experience offers it to him, and yields a passive obedience to the authority of this great school- master. It is in his obstinate adherence to the truth which his master has given him, that the hardihood of the philosophical character begins to appear. We see him announce with entire confidence both the fact and its legitimate consequences. We see him not deterred by the singularity of his conclusions, and quite unmindful of that host of antipathies which the reigning taste and philosophy of the times mustered up to oppose him. We see him resisting the influence of every authority, but the autho- rity of experience. We see that the beauty of the old system had no power to charm him from that process of investigation by which he destroyed it. We see him sitting upon its merits with the severity of a judge, unmoved by all those graces of simplicity and magnificence which the sublime genius of its in- ventor had thrown around it. 31. We look upon these two constituents of the philosophical temper, as forming the best preparation for finally terminating in 196 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE the decided Christian. In appreciating the pretensions of Chris- tianity, there is a call both upon the humility and the hardihood of every inquirer ; the humility, which feels its own ignorance, and submits without reserve to whatever comes before it in the shape of authentic and well-established evidence ; and the hardi- hood, which sacrifices every taste and every prejudice at the shrine of conviction, w T hich defies the scorn of a pretended philo- sophy, which is not ashamed of a profession that some conceive to be degraded by the homage of the superstitious vulgar, which can bring down its mind to the homeliness of the gospel, and re- nounce, without a sigh, all that is elegant, and splendid, and fascinating, in the speculations of moralists. In attending to the complexion of the Christian argument, we are widely mistaken if it is not precisely that kind of argument which will be most readily admitted by those whose minds have been trained to the soundest habits of philosophical investigation ; and if that spirit of cautious and sober-minded inquiry, to which modern science stands indebted for all her triumphs, is not the very identical spirit which leads us to “ cast down all our lofty imaginations, and to bring every thought into the captivity of the obedience of Christ/’ 32. On entering into any department of inquiry, the best pre- paration is that docility of mind which is founded on a sense of our total ignorance of the subject ; and nothing is looked upon as more unphilosophical than the temerity of that a 'priori spirit, which disposes many to presume before they investigate. But if we admit the total ignorance of man antecedent to observation, even in those sciences where the objects of inquiry are the nearest and the most familiar, we will be more ready to admit his total ignorance of those subjects which are more remote and more inaccessible. If caution and modesty be esteemed so philo- sophical, even when employed in that little field of investigation which comes within the range of our senses ; why should they not be esteemed philosophical when employed on a subject so vast, so awful, so remote from direct and personal observation, as the government of God ? There can be nothing so completely above us and beyond us, as the plans of the Infinite Mind, which extend to all time and embrace all worlds. There is no subject to which the cautious and humble spirit of Lord Bacon’s philo- sophy is more applicable ; nor can we conceive a more glaring rebellion against the authority of his maxims, than for the beings of a day to sit in judgment upon the Eternal, and apply their FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 197 paltry experience to the counsels of His high and unfathomable wisdom. We do not speak of it as impious ; we speak of it as unphilosophical. We are not bringing the decrees of the ortho- dox to bear against it ; we are bringing the principles of our modern and enlightened schools. We are applying the very same principles to a system of theism, that we would do to a system of geology. Both may regale the fancy with the gran- deur of their contemplations; both may receive embellishment from the genius and imagination of their inventors ; both may carry us along with the powers of a captivating eloquence : but all this is not enough to satisfy the severe and scrupulous spirit of the modern philosophy. Give us facts. Give us appearances. Show us how, from the experience of a life or a century, you can draw a legitimate conclusion so boundless in its extent, and by which you propose to fix down, both the processes of a remote antiquity, and the endless progression either of nature or of Pro- vidence in future ages? Are there any historical documents? Any memorials of the experience of past times? On a question of such magnitude, we would esteem the recorded observations of some remote age to be peculiarly valuable, and worth all the ingenuity and eloquence which a philosopher could bestow on the limited experience of one or two generations. A process of geology may take millions of years before it reaches its accom- plishment. It is impossible that we can collect the law or the character of this process from the experience of a single century, which does not furnish us one single step in this vast and im- measurable progression. We look as far as we can into a distant antiquity, and take hold with avidity of any authentic document, by which we can ascertain a single fact to guide and to enlighten us in this interesting speculation. The same caution is necessary in the subject before us. The administration of the Supreme Being is coeval with the first purposes of His uncreated mind, and it points fo eternity. The life of man is but a point in that progress, to which we see no end, and can assign no beginning. We are not able to collect the law or the character of this admin- istration from an experience so momentary. We therefore cast an eye on the history of past times. We examine every docu- ment which comes before us. We compare all the moral pheno- mena which can *he collected from the narratives of antiquity. We seize with avidity every record of the manifestations of Pro- vidence ; every fact which can enlighten the ways of God to man ; and we would esteem it a deviation from the right spirit 198 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE and temper of philosophical investigation, were we to suffer the crude or fanciful speculations of our own limited experience to take a precedency over the authentic informations of history. 33. But this is not all. Our experience is not only limited in point of time ; it is also limited in point of extent. To assign the character of the Divine administration from the little that offers itself to the notice of our own personal experience, would be far more absurd than to infer the history and character of the kingdom from the history and character of our own family. Vain is the attempt to convey in language what the most powerful imagination sinks under. How small the globe, and “ all which it inherits,” is in the immensity of creation ! How humble a corner in the immeasurable fields of nature and of Providence ! If the whole visible creation were to be swept away, we think of the dark and awful solitude which it would leave behind it in the unpeopled regions of space. But, to a mind that could take in the whole, and throw a wide survey over the innumerable worlds which roil beyond the ken of the human eye, there would be no blank ; and the universe of God w'ould appear a scene as goodly and majestic as ever. Now* it is the administration of this God that we sit in judgment upon ; the counsels of Him whose wisdom and energy are of a kind so inexplicable ; whom no magnitude can overpower, whom no littleness can escape, whom no variety can bewilder ; who gives vegetation to every blade of grass, and moves every particle of blood which circulates through 1 the veins of the minutest animal ; and all this by the same omnipotent arm that is abroad upon the universe, and pre- sides in high authority over the destiny of all worlds. 34. It is impossible not to mingle the moral impressions of piety with such a contemplation. But suppose these impressions to be excluded, that the whole may be reduced to a matter of abstract and unfeeling intelligence. The question under con- sideration is, How far the experience of man can lead him to any certain conclusions as to the processes of the Divine administra- tion ? If it does lead him to some certain conclusions, then, in the spirit of the Baconian philosophy, he will apply these con- clusions to the information derived from other sources ; and thev will of course affect, or destroy, or confirm the credibility of that information. If, on the other hand, it appears that experience gives no light, no direction on the subject ; then, in the very same spirit, he will submit his mind as a blank surface to all the positive information which comes to it from any other quarter. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 We take our lesson as it comes to us, provided we are satisfied beforehand that it comes from a source which is authentic. We set up no presumptions of our own against the authority of the unquestionable evidence that we have met with, and reject all the suggestions which our defective experience can furnish, as the follies of a rash and fanciful speculation. 35. Now, let it be observed, that the great strength of the Christian argument, as far as we have yet expounded it, lies in the historical evidence for the truth of the gospel narrative. In discussing the light of this evidence, we walk by the light of experience. We assign the degree of weight that is due to the testimony of the first Christians upon the observed principles of human nature. We do not step beyond the cautious procedure of Lord Bacon’s philosophy. We keep within the safe and certain limits of experimental truth. We believe the testimony of the apostles ; because, from what we know of the human cha- racter, it is impossible that men in their circumstances could have persevered as they did in the assertion of a falsehood ; it is impossible that they could have imposed this falsehood upon such a multitude of followers ; it is impossible that they could have escaped detection, surrounded as they were by a host of enemies so eager and so determined in their resentments. On this kind of argument we are quite at home. There is no theory, no assumption. We feel every inch of the ground we are treading upon. The degree of credit that should be annexed to the tes- timony of the apostles is altogether a question of experience. Every principle which we apply towards the decision of this question, is founded upon materials which lie before us, and are every day within the reach of observation. Our belief in the testimony of the apostles is founded upon our experience of human nature and human affairs. In the whole process of the inquiry, we never wander from that sure though humble path which has been pointed out to us by the great master of philoso- phizing. We never cast off the authority of those maxims, which have been found in every other department of knowledge to be sound and infallible. We never suffer assumption to take the precedency of observation, or abandon that safe and certain mode of investigation, which is the only one suited to the real medio- crity of our powers. 36. It appears to us that the disciples of the infidel philosophy have reversed this process. They take a loftier flight. We seldom find them upon the ground of the historical evidence. 200 Stability of the historical evidence It is not, in general, upon the weight, or the nature of human testimony, that they venture to pronounce on the crebibility of the Christian revelation. It is on the subject-matter of that revelation itself. It on what they conceive to be the absurdity of its doctrines. It is because they see something in the nature or dispensation of Christianity, which they think not agreeable to that line of proceeding which the Almighty should observe in the government of His creatures. Rousseau expresses his aston- ishment at the strength of the historical testimony ; so strong, that the inventor of the narrative appeared to him to be more miraculous than the hero. But the absurdities of this said reve- lation are sufficient, in his mind, to bear down the whole weight of its direct and external evidences. There was something in the doctrines of the New Testament repulsive to the taste, and the imagination, and perhaps even to the convictions, of this interesting enthusiast. He could not reconcile them with his pre-established conceptions of the Divine character and mode of operation. To submit to these doctrines, he behoved to surrender that theism, which the powers of his ardent mind had wrought up into a most beautiful and delicious speculation. Such a sacrifice was not to be made. It was too painful. It would have taken away from him what every mind of genius and sen- sibility esteems to be the highest of all luxuries. It would destroy a system, which had all that is fair and magnificent to recommend it, and mar the gracefulness of that fine intellectual picture on which this wonderful man had bestowed all the em- bellishments of feeling, and fancy, and eloquence. 37. In as far, then, as we can judge of the conduct of man in given circumstances, we would pass a favourable sentence upon the testimony of the apostles. a But,” says the deist, “ I judge of the conduct of God ; and what the apostles tell me of him is so opposite to that judgment, that I discredit their testimony.” The question at issue between us is, Shall we admit the testi- mony of the apostles, upon the application of principles founded on observation, and as certain as is our experience of human affairs? Or, shall we reject that testimony upon the application of principles that are altogether beyond the range of observation, and as doubtful and imperfect in their nature, as is our expe- rience of the counsels of Heaven ? In the first argument there is no assumption. We are competent to judge of the behaviour of man in given circumstances. This is a subject completely accessible to observation. The second argument is founded FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 201 upon assumption entirely. We are not competent to judge of the conduct of the Almighty in given circumstances. Here we are precluded, by the nature of the subject, from the benefit of observation. There is no antecedent experience to guide or to enlighten us. It is not for man to assume what is right, or proper, or natural for the Almighty to do. It is not in the mere spirit of piety that we say so ; it is in the spirit of the soundest experimental philosophy. The argument of the Christian is precisely what the maxims of Lord Bacon would dispose us to acquiesce in. The argument of the infidel is precisely that argument which the same maxims would dispose us to reject ; and when put by the side of the Christian argument, it appears as crude and as unphilosophical as do the ingenious speculations of the schoolmen, when set in opposition to the rigour, and evi- dence, and precision, which reign in every department of modern science. 38. The application of Lord Bacon's philosophy to the study of external nature was a happy epoch in the history of physical science. It is not long since this application has been extended to the study of moral and intellectual phenomena. All that we contend for is, that our subject should have the benefit of the same application ; and we count it hard, while in every other department of inquiry a respect for truth is found sufficient to repress the appetite for system-building, that theology, the loftiest and most inaccessible of all the sciences, should still re- main infected with a spirit so exploded and so unphilosophical ; and that the fancy and theory and unsupported speculation so current among the deists and demi-infidels of the day, should be held paramount to the authority of facts which have come down to us with a weight of evidence and testimony that is quite un- exampled in the history of ancient times. 39. What is science but a record of observed phenomena, grouped together according to certain points of resemblance, which have been suggested by an actual attention to the pheno- mena themselves ? We never think of questioning the existence of the phenomena, after we have demonstrated the genuineness and authenticity of the record. After this is demonstrated, the singular or unexpected nature of the phenomena is not suffered to weaken their credibility — a credibility wdiich can only be destroyed by the authority of our own personal observation or some other record possessed of equal or superior pretensions. But in none of the inductive sciences is it in the power of a student to verify every- 202 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE thing by his own personal observation. He must put up with the observations of others, brought home to the convictions of his own mind by creditable testimony. In the science of geo- logy this is eminently the case. In a science of such extent our principles must be in part founded upon the observations of others, transmitted to us from a distant country. And in a science, the processes of which are so lengthened in point of time, our principles should also in part be founded on the ob- servations of others, transmitted to us from a remote antiquity. Any observations of our own are so limited, both in point of space and of time, that we never think of opposing their autho- rity to the evidence which is laid before us. Our whole atten- tion is directed to the validity of the record ; and the moment that this validity is established, we hold it incumbent upon us to submit our minds to the entire and unmodified impression of the testimony contained in it. Now, all that we ask is, that the same process of investigation be observed in theology, which is held to be so sound and so legitimate in other sciences. In a science of such extent, as to embrace the wide domain of moral and intelligent nature, we feel the littleness of that range to which our own personal observations are confined. We should be glad, not merely of the information transmitted to us from a distant country, but of the authentic information transmitted to us by any other order of beings, in some distant and unknown part of the creation. In a science, too, which has for its object the lengthened processes of the Divine administration, we should like if any record of past times could enable us to extend our observations beyond the limits of our own ephemeral experience ; and if there are any events of a former age possessed of such a peculiar and decisive character as would help us to some satis- factory conclusion in this greatest and most interesting of the sciences. 40. On a subject so much above us and beyond us we should never think of opposing any preconceptions to the evidence of history. We should maintain the humility of the inductive spirit. We should cast about for facts and events and appear- ances. We should offer our minds as a blank surface to every- thing that came to them, supported by unexceptionable evidence. It is not upon the nature of the facts themselves, that we should pronounce upon their credibility, but upon the nature of that testimony by which they were supported. Our whole attention should be directed to the authority of the record. After this FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 203 was established, we should surrender our whole understanding to its contents. We should school down every antipathy within us, and disown it as a childish affection, unworthy of a philosopher who professes to follow truth through all the disgusts and dis- couragements which surround it. There are men of splendid reputation in our enlightened circles who never attended to this speculation, and who annex to the gospel of Christ nothing else than ideas of superstition and vulgarity. In braving their contempt, we should feel ourselves in the best element for the display and exercise of the philosophical temper. We should rejoice in the omnipotence of truth ; and anticipate in triumph the victory which it must accomplish over the pride of science, and the fastidiousness of literature. It should not be the enthu- siasm of a visionary which would support us, but the inward working of the very same principle which sustained Galileo, when he adhered to the result of his experiments, and Newton, when he opposed his measurements and observations to the tide of prejudice he had to encounter from the prevailing taste and philosophy of the times. 41. We conceive that inattention to the above principles has led many of the most popular and respected writers in the deistical controversy, to introduce a great deal of discussion that is foreign to the merits of the question altogether ; and in this way, the attention is often turned away from the point in which the main strength of the argument lies. An infidel, for example, objects against some process or other in the economy of the gospel. To repel the objection, the Christian conceives it neces- sary to vindicate the process, and to show how consistent it is with all our antecedent conceptions of God and of His ways. All this we count superfluous. It is imposing an unnecessary task upon ourselves. Enough for us to have established the authority of the Christian revelation upon the ground of its his- torical evidence. All that remains is to submit our minds to the fair interpretation of Scripture. Yes ; but how do you dispose of the objection drawn from the independent and a priori im- agination of our adversary? In precisely the same way that we would dispose of an objection drawn from some speculative system, against the truth of any physical fact that has been well established by observation or testimony. We would disown the system, and oppose the obstinacy of the fact to all the elegance and ingenuity of the speculation. 42. We are sensible that this is not enough to satisfy a 204 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE numerous class of very sincere and well-disposed Christians. There are many of this description who, antecedent to the study of the Christian revelation altogether, repose a very strong con- fidence in the light of nature, and think that, upon the mere strength of it, they can often pronounce with a considerable degree of assurance on the plans of the Divine administration. To such as these, something more is necessary than the external evidences on which Christianity rests. You must reconcile the doctrines of Christianity with those previous conceptions which the light of nature has given them ; and a great deal of elaborate argument is often expended in bringing about this accommoda- tion. It is, of course, a work of greater difficulty to convince this description of people, though, in point of fact, this difficulty has been overcome in a way the most masterly and decisive, by one of the soundest and most philosophical of our theologians. 43. To another description of Christians, this attempt to re- concile the doctrines of Christianity with the light of nature is superfluous. Give them evidence for Christianity, and unless its doctrines stand clearly opposed to moral, or logical, or mathe- matical, or historical truth, all preconceptions of their own will fly like so many visionary phantoms before the light of its over- bearing authority. With them the argument is reduced to a narrower compass. Is the testimony of the apostles and first Christians sufficient to establish the credibilitv of the facts which V are recorded in the New Testament ? The question is made to rest exclusively on the character of this testimony, and the circumstances attending it ; and no antecedent theory of their own is suffered to mingle with the investigation. If the his- torical evidence of Christianity is found to be conclusive, they conceive the investigation to be at an end ; and that nothing remains, on their part, but an act of unconditional submission to all its doctrines. 44. Though it might be proper, in the present state of opinion, to accommodate to both these cases, yet we profess ourselves to belong to the latter description of Christians. We hold by the insufficiency of nature to pronounce upon the intrinsic merits of any revelation, and think that the authority of every revelation rests mainly upon its historical and experimental evidences, and upon such marks of honesty in the composition itself as would apply to any human performance. We rest this opinion, not upon any fanatical impression of the ignorance of man, or how sinful it is for a weak and guilty mortal to pronounce upon the FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 205 counsels of Heaven, and the laws of the Divine administration. We disown this presumption, not merely because it is sinful, but because we conceive it to be un philosophical ; and precisely analogous to that theorizing a priori spirit, which the wisdom of Bacon has banished from all the schools of philosophy. 45. For the satisfaction of the first class, we refer them to that argument which has been prosecuted with so much ability and success by Bishop Butler, in his Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion. It is not so much the object of this author to found any positive argument on the accordancy which subsists between the processes of the Divine administration in nature, and the processes ascribed to God by revelation, as to repel the argument founded upon their supposed discordancy. To one of the second class, the- argument of Bishop Butler is less called for ; but as to one of the first class, we can conceive nothing more calculated to quiet his difficulties. He believes a God ; and he must therefore believe the character and existence of God to be reconcilable with all that he observes in the events and phenomena around him. He questions the claims of the New Testament to be a revelation from heaven ; because he conceives that it ascribes a plan and an economy to the Supreme Being which are unworthy of His character. We offer no posi- tive solution of this difficulty. We profess ourselves to be too little acquainted with the dispensations of God ; and that, in this little corner of His works, we see not far enough to offer any decision on the merits of a government which embraces worlds, and reaches eternity. We think we do enough if we give a sufficiency of experimental proof for the New Testament being a true and authentic message from heaven ; and that therefore nothing remains for us but to attend and to submit to it. But the argument of Bishop Butler enables us to do still more than this. It enables us to say, that the very thing objected against in Christianity exists in nature ; and that therefore the same God who is the author of nature, may be the author of Chris- tianity. We do not say that any positive evidence can be founded upon this analogy. But, in as far as it goes to repel the objection, it is triumphant. A man has no right to retain his theism if he reject Christianity upon difficulties to which natural religion is equally liable. If Christianity tell us that the guilt of a father has brought suffering and vice upon his posterity, it is what we see exemplified in a thousand instances amongst the families around us. If it tell us that the innocent 20G STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE have suffered for the guilty, it is nothing more than what all history and all observation have made perfectly familiar to us. If it tell us of one portion of the human race being distinguished by the sovereign will of the Almighty, for superior knowledge, or superior privileges ; it only adds one inequality more to the many inequalities which we perceive every day in the gifts of nature, of fortune, and of providence. In short, without enter- ing into all the details of that argument, which Butler has brought forward in a way so masterly and decisive, there is not a single impeachment which can be offered against the God of Christianity, that may not, if consistently proceeded upon, be offered against the God of nature itself. If the one be unworthy of God, the other is equally so ; and if, in spite of these difficul- ties, we still retain the conviction that there is a God of nature, it is not fair or rational to suffer them to outweigh all that posi- tive evidence and festimonv, which have been adduced for prov- ing that the same God is the God of Christianity also. 46. If Christianity be still resisted, it appears to us that the only consistent refuge is atheism. The very same peculiarities in the dispensation of the gospel, which lead the infidel to reject it as unworthy of God, go to prove that nature is unworthy of Him ; and land us in the melancholy conclusion, that whatever theory can be offered as to the mysterious origin and existence of the things which be, they are not under the dominion of a supreme and intelligent mind. Nor do we look upon atheism as an altogether hopeless species of infidelity, unless in so far as it proves a stubborn disposition of the heart to resist every reli- gious conviction. Viewed purely as an intellectual subject, we look upon the mind of an atheist as not an entirely unfit recipient for the proofs of Christianity. It is a blank surface, on which evidence may make a fair impression, and where the finger of history may inscribe its credible and well-attested information ; the mind of a presumptuous and prejudiced deist, on the other hand, is occupied with preconceptions. It will not take what history offers to it. It puts itself into the same unphilosophical posture, in which the mind of a prejudiced Cartesian opposed its theory of the heavens to the demonstration and measurements of Newton. The theory of the deist upon a subject, where truth is still more inaccessible, and speculation still more presumptuous, sets him to resist the most safe and competent evidence that can be appealed to. What was originally the evidence of observa- tion, and is now transformed into the evidence of testimony, FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 207 comes down to us in a series of historical documents, the closest and most consistent that all antiquity can furnish. It is the un- fortunate theory which forms the grand obstacle to the admission of the Christian miracles, and which leads the deist to an ex- hibition of himself so un philosophical, as that of trampling on the soundest laws of evidence, by bringing an historical fact under the tribunal of a theoretical principle. The deistical speculation of Rousseau, by which he neutralized the testimony of the first Christians, is as complete a transgression against the temper and principles of true science, as a category of Aristotle when em- ployed to overrule an experiment in chemistry. But however this be, it is evident that Rousseau would have given a readier reception to the gospel history, had his mind not been pre- occupied with the speculation ; and the negative state of atheism would in him have been more favourable to the admission of those facts, which are connected with the origin and establish- ment of our religion in the world. 47. This suggests the way in which the evidence for Chris- tianity might be carried home to the mind of an atheist. He sees nothing in the phenomena around him, that can warrant him to believe in the existence of a living and intelligent prin- ciple, which gave birth and movement to all things. He does not say that he would refuse credit to the existence of God upon sufficient evidence ; but he says that there are not such appear- ances of design in nature, as to supply him with that evidence. He does not deny the existence of God to be a possible truth ; but he affirms, that while there is nothing before him but the consciousness of what passes within, and the observation of what passes without, it remains an assertion destitute of proof, and can have no more effect upon his conviction than any other nonentity of the imagination. There is a mighty difference between not proven and disproven. We see nothing in the argument of the atheists which goes further, than to establish the former sentence upon the question of God’s existence. It is altogether an argu- ment ab ignorantia ; and the same ignorance which restrains them from asserting in positive terms that God exists, equally restrains them from asserting in positive terms that God does not exist. The assertion may be offered, that, in some distant regions of the creation, there are tracts of space which, instead of being occupied like the tracts around us with suns and planetary sys- tems, teem only with animated beings, who, without being sup- ported like us on the firm surface of a world, have the power of 208 STABILITY OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE spontaneous movement in free spaces. We cannot say that the assertion is not true, but we can say that it is not proven. It carries in it no positive character either of truth or falsehood, and may therefore be admitted on appropriate and satisfying evidence. But till that evidence comes, the mind is in a state entirely neutral ; and such we conceive to be the neutral state of the atheist, as to what he holds to be the unproved assertion of the existence of God. 48. To the neutral mind of the atheist, then, unfurnished as it is with any previous conception, we offer the historical evi- dence of Christianity. We do not ask him to presume the ex- istence of God. We ask him to examine the miracles of the New Testament merely as recorded events, and to admit no other principle into the investigation than those which are held to be satisfying and decisive on any other subject of written testimony. The sweeping principle upon which Bousseau, filled with his own assumptions, condemned the historical evidence for the truth of the gospel narrative, can have no influence oil the blank and unoccupied mind of an atheist. He has no presumptions upon the subject ; for to his eye the phenomena of nature sit so loose and unconnected with that intelligent Being to whom they have been referred as their origin, that he does not feel himself en- titled, from these phenomena, to ascribe any existence, any character, any attributes, or any method of administration to such a Being. He is therefore in a condition of perfect freedom for submitting his understanding to the entire impression of the historical evidence. Those difficulties which perplex the deists, who cannot recognise in the God of the New Testament the same features and the same principles in which they have in- vested the God of nature, are no difficulties to him. He has no God of nature to confront with that real, though invisible power, which lay at the bottom of those astonishing miracles, on which history has stamped her most authentic characters. Though the power which presided there should be an arbitrary, an unjust, or a malignant being, all this may startle a deist, but it will not prevent a consistent atheist from acquiescing in any legitimate inference to which the miracles of the gospel, viewed in the simple light of historical facts, may chance to carry him. He cannot bring his antecedent information into play upon this question. He professes to have no antecedent information on the subject ; and this sense of his entire ignorance, which lies at the bottom of his atheism, would expunge from his mind all that FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 209 is theoretical, and make it the passive recipient of everything which observation offers to its notice, or which credible testi- mony has brought down to it of the history of past ages. 49. What then, we ask, does the atheist make of the miracles of the New Testament? If he questions their truth, he must do it upon grounds that are purely historical. He is precluded from every other ground by the very principle on which he has rested his atheism ; and we, therefore, upon the strength of that testi- mony which has been already exhibited, press the admission of these miracles as facts. If there be nothing in the ordinary phenomena of nature, to infer a God, do these extraordinary phenomena supply him with no argument? Does a voice from heaven make no impression upon him ? And we have the best evidence which history can furnish, that such a voice was uttered — “ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We have the evidence of a fact, for the existence of that very Being from whom the voice proceeded ; and the evidence of a thousand facts, for a power superior to nature : because, on the im- pulse of a volition, it counteracted her laws and processes ; it allayed the wind ; it gave sight to the blind ; health to the dis- eased ; and, at the utterance of a voice, it gave life to the dead. The ostensible agent in all these wonderful proceedings gave not only credentials of his power, but he gave such credentials of his honesty, as dispose our understanding to receive his ex- planation of them. We do not at present avail ourselves of any other principle than what an atheist will acknowledge. He understands, as well as we do, the natural signs of veracity, which lie in the tone, the manner, the countenance, the high moral expression of worth and benevolence, and, above all, in that firm and undaunted constancy, which neither contempt, nor poverty, nor death, could shift from any of its positions. All these claims upon our belief were accumulated, to an unexampled degree, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth ; and when we couple with them His undoubted miracles, and the manner in which His own personal appearance was followed up by a host of witnesses, who, after a catastrophe which would have proved a death-blow to any cause of imposture, offered themselves to the eye of the public, with the same'powers, the same evidence, and the same testimony — it seems impossible to resist His account of the in- visible principle, which gave birth and movement to the whole of this wonderful transaction. Whatever atheism we may have founded on the common phenomena around us, here is a new VOL. vi. o 210 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. phenomenon which demands our attention — the testimony of a man who, in addition to evidences of honesty, more varied and more satisfying than were ever offered by a brother of the species, had a voice from the clouds, and the power of working miracles, to vouch for Him. We do not think that the account which this man gives of Himself can be viewed either with indifference or distrust, and the account is most satisfying. u I proceeded forth and came from God.” — u He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God.” — u Even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.” He had elsewhere said, that God was His Father. The existence of God is here laid before us, by an evidence altogether distinct from the natural argument of the schools ; and it may therefore be admitted in spite of any felt deficiency in that argument. From the same pure and unquestionable source we gather our information of His attributes. “ God is true.” — “ God is a spirit.” He is omnipotent, u for with God all things are possible.” He is intelligent, u for he knoweth what things we have need of.” He sees all things, and He directs all things ; “ for the very hairs of our head are numbered,” and “ a sparrow falleth not to the ground without his permission.” 50. The evidences of the Christian religion are suited to every species of infidelity. Even let the atheist, unfurnished with any previous conception, come as he is ; and upon the strength of his own favourite principle, viewing it as a pure intellectual question, and abstracting from the more unmanageable ten- dencies of the heart and temper, he ought to take in Christianity, and that too in a far purer and more scriptural form, than can be expected from those whose minds are tainted and preoccupied with their former speculations. CHAPTER VII. REMARKS ON THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 1. Prophecy is another species of evidence to which Chris- tianity professes an abundant claim. The prediction of what is future may not be delivered in terms so clear and intelligible as the history of what is past; and yet, in its actual fulfilment, it may leave no doubt on the mind of the inquirer, that it was a prediction, and that the event in question was in the contempla- ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 211 tion of him who uttered it. It may be easy to dispose of one isolated prophecy, by ascribing it to accident ; but when we ob- serve a number of these prophecies, delivered in different ages, and all bearing an application to the same events, or the same individual, it is difficult to resist the impression that they were actuated by a knowledge superior to human. They form part, therefore, of the miraculous evidence for Christianity — a miracle of knowledge being an indication of the supernatural, no less decisive than a miracle of power. 2. The obscurity of the prophetical language has been often complained of; but it is not so often attended to, that if the pro- phecy which foretells an event were as clear as the narrative which describes it, it would in many cases annihilate the argu- ment. Were the history of any individual foretold in terms as explicit as it is in the power of narrative to make them, it might be competent for any usurper to set himself forward, and, in as far as it depended upon his own agency, he might realize that historv. He has no more to do than to take his lesson from the prophecy before him ; but could it be said that fulfilment like this carried in it the evidence of anything Divine or miraculous? If the prophecy of a Prince and a Saviour, in the Old Testament, were different from what they are, and delivered in the precise and intelligible terms of an actual history, then every accomplish- ment which could be brought about by the agency of those who understood the prophecy, and were anxious for its verification, is lost to the argument. It would be instantly said, that the agents in the transaction took their clue from the prophecy before them. It is the way, in fact, in which infidels have attempted to evade the argument as it actually stands. In the New Testament, an event is sometimes said to happen, that it might he fulfilled which was spoken by some of the old prophets. If every event which enters into the gospel had been under the control of agents merely human, and friends to Christianity, then we might have had reason to pronounce the whole history to be one continued process of artful and designed accommodation to the Old Testa- ment prophecies. But the truth is, that many of the events pointed at in the Old Testament, so far from being brought about by the agency of Christians, were brought about in opposition to their most anxious wishes. Some of them were brought about by the agency of their most decided enemies ; and some of them, such as the dissolution of the Jewish state, and the dispersion of its people amongst all countries, were quite beyond the control 212 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. of the apostles and their followers, and were effected by the in- tervention of a neutral party, which at the time took no interest in the question, and w T hich was a stranger to the prophecy, though the unconscious instrument of its fulfilment. 3. Lord Bolingbroke has carried the objection so far, that he asserts Jesus Christ to have brought on His own death, by a series of wilful and preconcerted measures, merely to give the disciples who came after Him the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies. This is ridiculous enough ; but it serves to show with what facility an infidel might have evaded the whole argu- ment, had these prophecies been free of all that obscurity which is now so loudly complained of. 4. The best form for the purposes of argument, in which a prophecy can be delivered, is to be so obscure, as to leave the event, or rather its main circumstances, unintelligible before the fulfilment, and so clear as to be intelligible after it. It is easy to conceive that this may be an attainable object ; and it is say- ing much for the argument as it stands, that the happiest illus- trations of this clearness on the one hand, and this obscurity on the other, are to be gathered from the actual prophecies of the Old Testament. 5. It is not, however, by this part of the argument, that we expect to reclaim the enemy of our religion from his infidelity ; not that the examination would not satisfy him, but that the examination will not be given. What a violence it would be offering to all his antipathies, were we to land him, at the out- set of our discussions, among the chapters of Daniel or Isaiah ! He has too inveterate a contempt for the Bible. He nauseates the whole subject too strongly to be prevailed upon to accom- pany us to such an exercise. On such a subject as this, there is no contact, no approximation betwixt us ; and we therefore leave him with the assertion — an assertion which he has no title to pronounce upon, till after he has finished the very examination in which we are most anxious to engage him — that in the nume- rous prophecies of the Old Testament, there is such a multitude of allusions to the events of the New, as will give a strong im- pression to the mind of every inquirer, that the whole forms one magnificent series of communications betwixt the visible and the invisible world ; a great plan over which the unseen God pre- sides in wisdom, and which, beginning with the first ages of the world, is still receiving new developments from every great step in the history of the species. ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 213 6. It is impossible to give a complete exposition of this argu- ment without an actual reference to the prophecies themselves ; and this we at present abstain from. But it can be conceived, that a prophecy, when first announced, may be so obscure, as to be unintelligible in many of its circumstances ; and yet may so far explain itself by its accomplishment, as to carry along with it the most decisive evidence of its being a prophecy. And the argument may be so far strengthened by the number, and dis- tance, and independence, of the different prophecies, all bearing an application to the same individual and the same history, as to leave no doubt on the mind of the observer, that the events in question were in the actual comtemplation of those who uttered the prediction. If the terms of the prophecy were not compre- hended, it at least takes off the suspicion of the event being brought about by the control or agency of men who were inter- ested in the accomplishment. If the prophecies of the Old Testa- ment are just invested in such a degree of obscurity, as is enough to disguise many of the leading circumstances from those who lived before the fulfilment — while they derive from the event an explanation satisfying to all who live after it, then, we say, the argument for the divinity of the whole is stronger than if no such obscurity had existed. In the history of the New Testa- ment, we see a natural and consistent account of the delusion respecting the Messiah, in which this obscurity had left the Jewish people — of the strong prejudices even of the first dis- ciples — of the manner in which these prejudices were dissipated, only by the accomplishment — and of their final conviction in the import of these prophecies being at last so strong, that it often forms their main argument for the divinity of that new religion which they were commissioned to publish to the world. Now, assuming, what we still persist in asserting, and ask to be tried upon, that an actual comparison of the prophecies in the Old Testament with their alleged fulfilment in the New, will leave a conviction behind it, that there is a real correspondence be- twixt them ; we see, in the great events of the new dispensation, brought about by the blind instrumentality of prejudice and op- position, far more unambiguous characters of the finger of God, than if everything had happened with the full concurrence and anticipation of the different actors in this history. 7. There is another essential part of the argument which is much strengthened by this obscurity. It is necessary to fix the date of the prophecies, or to establish at least that the time of 214 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. their publication was antecedent to the events to which they refer. Now, had these prophecies been delivered in terms so explicit, as to force the concurrence of the whole Jewish nation, the argument for their antiquity would not have come down in a form as satisfying as that in which it is actually exhibited. The testimony of the Jew's, to the date of their sacred writings, would have been refused as an interested testimony. Whereas to evade the argument as it stands, we must admit a principle, which, in no question of ordinary criticism, would be suffered for a single moment to influence our understanding. We must con- ceive that tw T o parties, at the very time that they were influenced by the strongest mutual hostility, combined to support a fabri- cation ; that they have not violated this combination ; that the numerous writers on both sides of the question have not suffered the slightest hint of this mysterious compact to escape them ; and that, though the Jews are galled incessantly by the triumphant tone of the Christian appeals to their own prophe- cies, they have never been tempted to let out a secret which would have brought the argument of the Christians into dis- grace, and shown the world how falsehood and forgery mingled with their pretensions. 8. In the rivalry which, from the very commencement of our religion, has always obtained betwixt Jews and Christians ; in the mutual animosities of Christian sects ; in the vast multipli- cation of copies of the Scriptures ; in the distant and independ- ent societies which were scattered over so many countries ; we see the most satisfying pledges, both for the integrity of the Sacred Writings, and for the date which all parties agree in ascribing to them. We hear of the many securities which have been provided in the various forms of registrations, and dupli- cates, and depositaries ; but neither the wisdom nor the interest of men ever provided more effectual checks against forgery and corruption than we have in the instance before us. And the argument, in particular, for the antecedence of the prophecies to the events in the New Testament is so well established bv the concurrence of the two rival parties, that we do not see how it is in the power of additional testimony to strengthen it. 9. But neither is it true, that the prophecies are delivered in terms so obscure, as to require a painful examination before we can obtain a full perception of the argument. Those prophecies which relate to the fate of particular cities, such as Nineveh, and Tyre, and Babylon ; those which relate to the issue of par- ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 215 ticular wars, in which the kings of Israel and Judah were engaged ; and some of those which relate to the future history of the adjoining countries, are not so much veiled by symbolical language, as to elude the understanding even of the most negli- gent observers. It is true, that in these instances, both the prophecy and the fulfilment appear to us in the light of a distant antiquity. They have accomplished their end. They kept alive the faith and worship of successive generations. They multiplied the evidences of the true religion ; and ac- count for a phenomenon in ancient history that is otherwise inexplicable — the existence and preservation of one solitary monument of pure theism in the midst of a corrupt and idola- trous world. 10. But to descend a little further. We gather, from the state of opinions at the time of our Saviour, so many testimonies to the clearness of the old prophecies. The time and the place of our Saviour’s appearance in the world, and the triumphant progress, if not the nature of His kingdom, were perfectly under- stood by the priests and chief men of Judea. We have it from the testimony of profane authors, that there was at that time a general expectation of a prince and a prophet all over the East. The destruction of Jerusalem was another example of the fulfil- ment of a clear prophecy ; and this, added to other predictions uttered by our Saviour, and which received their accomplish- ment in the first generation of the Christian Church, would have its use in sustaining the faith of the disciples amidst the per- plexities of that anxious and distressing period. 11. We can even come down to the present day, and point to the accomplishment of clear prophecies in the actual history of the world. The present state of Egypt, and the present state of the Jews, are the examples which we fix upon. The one is an actual fulfilment of a clear prophecy. The other is also an actual fulfilment, and forms in itself the likeliest preparation for another accomplishment that is yet to come. Nor do we con- ceive that these clear and literal fulfilments exhaust the whole of the argument from prophecy. They only form one part of the argument ; but a part so obvious and irresistible, as should invite every lover of truth to the examination of the remainder. They should secure such a degree of respect for the subject, as to engage the attention, and awaken even in the mind, of the most rapid and superficial observer, a suspicion that there may be something in it. They should soften that contempt which 216 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. repels so many from investigating the argument at all, or at all events they render that contempt inexcusable. 12. The whole history of the Jews is calculated to allure the curiosity ; and, had it not been leagued with the defence and illustration of our faith, would have drawn the attention of many a philosopher, as the most singular exhibition of human nature that ever was recorded in the annals of the world. The most satisfying cause of this phenomenon is to be looked for in the history which describes its origin and progress ; and by denying the truth of that history, we abandon the only explanation which can be given of this wonderful people. It is quite in vain to talk of the immutability of Eastern habits, as exemplified in the nations of Asia. What other people ever survived the same annihilating processes? We do not talk of conquest, where the whole amount of the effect is in general a change of dynasty or of government ; but where the language, the habits, the de- nomination, and, above all, the geographical position, still remain to keep up the identity of the people. But in the history of the Jews, we see a strong indestructible principle which maintained them in a separate form of existence amid changes that no other nation ever survived. We confine ourselves to the overthrow of their nation in the first century of our epoch, and appeal to the disinterested testimonies of Tacitus and Josephus, if ever the cruelty of war devised a process of more terrible energy for the utter extirpation of a name and a remembrance from the world. They have been dispersed among all countries. They have no common tie of locality or government to keep them together. All the ordinary principles of assimilation, which make law, and religion, and manners, so much a matter of geo- graphy, are in their instance suspended. Even the smallest particles of this broken mass have resisted an affinity of almost universal operation, and remained undiluted by the strong and overwhelming admixture of foreign ingredients. And, in excep- tion to everything which history has recorded of the revolutions of the species, we see in this wonderful race a vigorous principle of identity, which has remained in undiminished force for nearly two thousand years, and still pervades every shred and fragment of their widely* scattered population. Now, if the infidel insist upon it, we shall not rest on this as an argument. We can af- ford to give it up ; for in the abundance of our resources, we feel independent of it. We shall say that it is enough, if it can re- claim him from his levity, and compel his attention to the other ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 217 evidences which we have to offer him. All we ask of him is to allow that the undeniable singularity which is before his eyes gives him a sanction, at least, to examine the other singularities to which we make pretension. If he go back to the past history of the Jews, he will see in their wars the same unexampled preservation of their name and their nation. He will see them surviving the process of an actual transportation into another country. In short, he will see them to be unlike all other people in what observation offers, and authentic history records of them ; and the only concession that we demand of him, from all this, is, that their pretension to be unlike other people in their extraordinary revelations from heaven, is at least possible, and deserves to be inquired into. 13. It may not be out of place to expose a species of injustice which has often been done to the Christian argument. The defence of Christianity consists of several distinct arguments, wdiich have sometimes been multiplied beyond what is necessary, and even sometimes beyond what is tenable. In addition to the main evidence which lies in the testimony given to the miracles of the gospel, there is the evidence of prophecy ; there is the evidence of collateral testimony ; there is the internal evidence. The argument under each of these heads is often made to un- dergo a further subdivision ; and it is not to be wondered at, that, in the multitude of observations, the defence of Christianity may often be made to rest upon ground, which, to say the least of it, is precarious or vulnerable. How, the injustice which we complain of is, that when the friends of our religion are dislodged from some feeble outwork, raised by an unskilful officer in the cause, its enemies raise the cry of a decisive victory. But, for our own part, w r e could see her driven from all her defences, and surrender them without a sigh, so long as the phalanx of her historical and experimental evidence remains impenetrable. Be- hind this unsealed barrier, w r e could entrench ourselves, and eye the light skirmishing before us with no other sentiment than of regret, that our friends should, by the ignorance of their mis- placed zeal, have given our enemies the appearance of a triumph. 14. Whatever opinion may be held as to the twofold inter- pretation of prophecy, though it were refuted by argument, and disgraced by ridicule, all that portion of evidence which lies in the numerous examples of literal and unambiguous fulfilment remains unaffected by it. Many there are, who deny the in- spiration of the Song of Solomon. But in what possible w T ay 218 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. does this affect the records of the evangelical history ? Just as much as it affects the Lives of Plutarch, or the Annals of Taci- tus. There are a thousand subjects on which infidels may idly push the triumph, and Christians be as idly galled by the seve- rity, or even the truth of their observations. We point to the historical evidence for the New Testament, and ask them to dispose of it. It is there that we call them to the onset ; for there lies one great strength of the Christian argument. It is true, that in the evidence of prophecy, we see a rising barrier, which, in the progress of centuries, may receive from time to time a new accumulation to the materials which form it. In this way, the evidence of prophecy may come in time to surpass the evidence of miracles. The restoration of the Jews will be the fulfilment of a clear prophecy, and form a proud and anima- ting period in the history of our religion. “ Now, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness ! ” 15. One singularly enamoured of the study of prophecy would find the topic unexhausted, even at the end of a life devoted to the intense prosecution of it. It were therefore well that with at least a few inquirers this were a selected and a favourite pursuit, and it is incumbent upon all to obtain a general ac- quaintance with the facts and principles of the subject. Horne, in his Introduction to the Scriptures, presents a good general outline of the study, and more especially of the authorship that would introduce us more at large into the details of it. Alto- gether it is a very rich and interesting field of contemplation, insomuch that some are to be met with who, unwilling to aban- don it for any other, persist in cleaving to it as the most delight- ful of their literary employments. 16. There are certain theological studies which, if we are exclusively given up to them, might leave us unfurnished in all that is most valuable and most vital among the truths of Chris- tianity. A skilful emendator of doubtful texts and readings of Scripture, for example, might after all but penetrate the shell, without ever once entering upon the substance of Divine know- ledge. There are certain, too, of the outward credentials for the gospel, which might be mastered and explored by one who remains in profoundest ignorance as well as unconcern about the contents of the gospel. This is very possible in the study of the evidence from miracles ; but it cannot well be with the evidence from prophecy — for this evidence we cannot in all its ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 219 fulness overtake without extensively ranging through the subject- matter of revelation, and so without coming into contact with all that is most important in Theology. In the Bible, doctrine and prophecy are so intermingled that, when in quest of the one, the other is unavoidably obtruded upon us. Instead of losing sight of the Saviour by this study, if rightly conducted, it will lead us to recognise Iiim in a thousand passages of the record where He had before escaped our observation. It con- nects and harmonizes the two dispensations — impressing on the Judaism of the Old the evangelical character of the New Testa- ment ; nor need we fear that, in this investigation, if but soundly prosecuted, we shall miss the great and essential principles of our faith — seeing that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. 17. We should therefore fearlessly urge upon all inquirers the application of a considerable portion of their time and strength to the study of prophecy. It will bring perhaps more imme- diately to view, more perhaps than most other theological studies, the evident tokens of a God in the construction of that won- drous scheme whose remoter parts are found so well to corre- spond. It identifies in the mind the God of revelation with the God of nature and of history ; and, apart altogether from the literary importance of the subject, we feel persuaded that, if investigated in a right spirit of seriousness, it may be mightily instrumental to the establishment of a strong and practical sense of religion in the heart of the inquirer. 18. At the commencement of this study, the best thing that can be done, is first to read all the actual prophecies of Scrip- ture, to which, in Scripture or in common history, we have also corresponding fulfilments. Let each prophecy and its fulfilment be read together. We have a list of passages in Horne, con- taining the predictions of the Bible, and over against them a list of passages either from the Bible or other books which are supposed to narrate the counterpart accomplishment. We do not know that the study of prophecy is usually begun in this way. We fear not. But the advantage of it is incalculable. We should not only obtain a more correct and powerful impres- sion of the evidence, as receiving it at first hand ; but we should become habituated to the prophetic style and manner, and then could not fail to perceive that it has certain characteristics by which it may be described or by which it may be recognised. Like every other subject which has truth and consistency for its foundation, 220 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. it will be found to have a habit of its own, and a nomenclature of its own. Before we read so much as one explanation of its peculiar and symbolic language from any author, it were well to be familiar- ized to this and all the other peculiarities by actual converse with the prophecies themselves. However unpractised, this is quite the right and the commanding outset for these investigations ; and it would place us on high vantage-ground, not merely for understanding the expositions of theologians, but also for sitting in the exercise of an independent judgment over them. In the mere work of comparing each prophecy with its recorded fulfil- ment, and one prophecy with another, we should receive a de- cided taste for the subject, and a strong impulse to the further prosecution of it ; and then how much purer the taste, how much better directed must be the impulse, which is given by the ipsissima verba of Scripture, than if given by the plausibilities of some human speculation, by the fondness and the fascination of any theory. In short, it is better to enter on the analytic treat- ment of the subject, by reading this department of the Bible for ourselves, before we follow the synthetic treatment which any interpreter of the Bible might happen to have bestowed upon it. A previous acquaintance with the prophetic diction, gathered from the clearer prophecies, would give us mighty advantage, when we enter upon the investigation of the obscurer prophecies. We should be put thereby in possession of a cipher, not for un- locking all the secrets, but certainly for guiding us a certain way among the arcana of a labyrinth that, to an unpractised eye, looks utterly hopeless and inextricable. It is thus that the anterior study of Daniel serves at least to alleviate, to a certain extent, that aspect of impalpable mysteriousness which otherwise sits on the Book of Revelation. 19. Thus prepared, we should be in the best possible circum- stances for perusing the books recommended by Horne on the figurative and symbolic language of prophecy, of which it has been well said by Van Mildert, late Bishop of Durham — “that it is almost a science in itself. None,” says he, “ can fully comprehend the depth, sublimity, and force of their writings, who are not thoroughly acquainted with the peculiar and appro- priate imagery they were accustomed to use. This is the main key to many of the prophecies ; and, without knowing how to apply it, the interpreter will often in vain essay to discover their hidden treasures.” What makes it the more necessary to make a study of this, is that the symbol is not always, like the type, ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 221 founded upon resemblance — but, like sounds and written char- acters, may have a good deal in it of the merely conventional or arbitrary. Symbolical language is more a system of natural characters than ordinary language is, certainly; but the likeness between the sign and the thing signified is far from being so accurate as that between the type and the antitype — as, for example, when water, the effusion of which upon the Church is prophesied of by Isaiah, is made to denote the Holy Spirit ; and the Temple, the human body ; and a beast, as in Daniel and the Book of Revelation, an empire ; and briers, the wicked, or the enemies of God ; and Bridegroom, our Saviour as the Head of the mystical body ; and candlestick, the Christian Church ; and day, a year ; and Dragon, an enemy who is invested with kingly power, hence, by pre-eminence, Satan ; and heat, a per- secution ; and heaven, the political status of the rulers and grandees in society ; and horn, the regal power ; and Jerusalem, the city of the living God in paradise ; and Jezebel, a seducer ; and keys, the power of imprisonment or custody ; and Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of apostasy and wickedness ; and star, a potentate ; and sun and moon, the civil and ecclesiastical state of Judea ; and vine or vineyard, the Church of Israel ; and woman, the body politic. In most of these instances, of which many more could be given, the natural resemblance is more or less obscured — so that, in the language of Dr. Hurd, they form representative marks rather than express pictures ; and, instead of offering those complex and entire similarities which are held out to us in types, they are employed rather as characters ap- proaching to the arbitrary, and suggesting, each of them, but one general idea to the mind. 20. We can understand a certain natural suspicion of some- thing gratuitous and fanciful in all this. There is really no way either of confirming or of refuting this imagination, but by mak- ing the trial. Were a cipher to the old hieroglyphics of Egypt put into our hand, we can conceive the abstract and previous explanation of it to be met with the utmost incredulity. But all this would speedily be dissipated, if we found, on the actual application, that we could draw a consistent meaning out of the various inscriptions which we met with — and so of the cipher to prophecy, should we be enabled thereby, not only to read each prediction in an intelligible way, but in that way to make out a harmony between them and their respective fulfilments. Thus fortified, we should address ourselves with all the greater 222 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. confidence to the task of unravelling the obscure and yet un- accomplished prophecies ; and, on the other hand, it is undeni- able that should these at length evolve into histories, accordant with the principles of an interpretation applicable to them all T light must at length break out of this apparent darkness and mystery ; arid thus, enveloped in yet unopened enigmas, an immense mass of evidence may still be awaiting us. 21. There is one use which may be made of the symbolical language of prophecy. It might be employed as an argument by some for the purpose of doing away the doctrine of its having a double sense or a twofold accomplishment. Certain it is that this symbolic language does of itself give an air of exaggeration to the prophecy, even though it should have but one fulfilment ; and so might lead the mind to look upon something ulterior, and something higher than the historical event, which viewed in its literalities seems to fall short of the magnificent diction wherein the prophecy which foretold it is invested. The fall of Jerusalem preceded by earthquakes and commotions, accompanied by signs from heaven, the obscuration of the sun and moon, and the precipitation of stars from their place in the firmament, and marked by the coming of the Son of Man in power and great glory — even this single event, it may be argued, exhausts the prophecy, when the reduction is made from the symbolic to the ordinary language. The only way of meeting this argument effectually is to invite an actual and detailed examination of the actual prophecies. And we shall make a good begin- ning by reading the prophecies which are instanced by Horne as prophecies of a double sense. We shall find it difficult to escape from the impression, first, of many anterior events in Scripture being typical of posterior ones ; and so, secondly, when both the typical and antitypical event are predicted by one who lived prior to them both, of there being in that case a prophecy with a double sense. The most effectual method of deciding this controversy is, not by employing any gene- ralities of illustration or argument, but simply by telling all the doubters or inquirers to come and see. We are quite aware that the doctrine of double prophecy is, in the first in- stance, often an offensive one to minds of strong rationality — shrewdly and suspiciously on their guard, against all the vagaries of wild imagination. Such a mind we conceive to have been that of Samuel Horsley ; and accordingly, he set out in his prophetic studies with a strong inclination or rather antipathy ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 223 against a style of interpretation which, he conceived, would open the door to a caprice and a latitude that would be quite interminable. But he at length gave way to the evidence which met him on his path ; and became one of the most powerful advocates for the doctrine of a double sense, not of course in all, but in many of the prophecies of Scripture. His four sermons on prophecy not only enlarge our conceptions of the whole scheme, but afford a substantial intellectual repast, distinguished as they are by all the characteristics of that independent and manly understanding which the author of them possessed. As well as Davison after him, he was made clearly to perceive that the double fulfilment, instead of facilitating the verification of the prophecy, multiplied the chances against it, and so brought out a more unequivocal indication of the Divine prescience and wisdom, both in the twofold harmony of the prediction with the two events, and in the harmony of these events with each other. 22. But while we make this stand for the double meaning and application of certain of these prophecies, let us again repeat that we do not rest upon these the main evidence which prophecy contributes for the vindication of the faith in the controversv •/ with infidels. There are prophecies free of all the ambiguity which either a double interpretation or a symbolical language may be conceived to attach to them — literal and direct announce- ments followed up at the interval of centuries, by plainest pos- sible history — pronunciations of the state of various people, as the Jews, and the Arabians, and the Egyptians, delivered thou- sands of years ago, and which, down to the present moment, offer the most striking graphic delineation of these people as they actually are — picturesque representations of the fate of cities which are named, but that give with all the accuracy of a Flem- ish picture, the vivid realities of their present situation, the fishermen that dry their nets on the rocks and rubbish of Tyre, the doleful creatures that nestle in the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh — all these couched in the terms of a literal description : and even when the prophecy assumes its own characteristic lan- guage, and becomes symbolical or figurative, it still is invested in a medium of sufficient transparency for our perceiving the marked accordancy between the general strain of prophecy in the book of revelation and the general progress of history in the book of experience. Who, for example, can resist the im- pression that the actual structure of the great European com- monwealth is prefigured, and that at the distance of twenty-five 224 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. centuries, by the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image ; or, in the sublime visions of the Apocalypse, by the ten horns sur- mounted with crowns which, transferred, as they are represented to have been, from the seven heads, mark in beautiful and im- pressive emblem the transference of power from imperial Rome to the separate monarchies that emerged into political being after its overthrow'. These and such as these afford the strong points of the argument with infidelity ; and it is not for the purpose of strengthening our defensive armour against the enemies of the faith, that we call for attention either to the double prophecies or the peculiarities of the prophetic style. 23. But though the study of these be of little use in the argu- ment with infidels, it may be of the utmost use for guiding the deeper inquisition of Christians into the meaning of the unex- plained or the unfulfilled prophecies. But from what has been said it must be obvious, that an immense preparation is necessary to warrant the adventurer who shall try to explore the secrets of futurity. The temerity of the unskilled novice is to be de- precated, w 7 ho, seduced by the plausibility of some one concep- tion of his own, would erect it into a principle of universal interpretation. There is an admirable maxim of Horsley upon this subject, which, whether well made out or not, from that passage on which he has bestowed a most original treatment, that u no prophecy is of private interpretation” — has in itself a great deal of soundness to recommend it. He tells us that no prophecy should be looked to singly, but that each should be regarded as the part of a mighty and comprehensive scheme — which scheme one would need to make the object of a wide and studious survey, ere he committed himself, unfurnished with the requisite lights, and the requisite charts or compass, to the ocean of unfulfilled prophecy. To lay an interdict on the search were to contravene the solemn words of Scripture itself — “ Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keepeth those things which are w 7 ritten therein, for the time is at hand.” But the same authority which warrants the at- tempt hath issued also a most impressive warning on the danger of adding our own rash imaginations to the realities of Scripture — u If any man shall add to these things, God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book” — a denunciation, we conceive, not merely against those who would annex to the book, words which are not in it, but who would graft confident inter- pretations thereupon, and so hold forth a substance and a mean- ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 225 ing which are not in it. It is truly the duty of every Christian student, earnestly but yet humbly and reverently, to inquire into the sense of these mysterious communications — yet with a due regard to the methods of prophecy, and a due sense of the vast inferiority between the thoughts and the ways of man, and the thoughts and the ways of God.* * We so perfectly accord with the just and admirable sentiments of the author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm in this matter, that we cannot refrain from indulging our- selves, and, we are sure, gratif ing our readers, with a few extracts from his chapter on the Enthusiasm of Prophetical Interpretation. “ A confident and dogmatical interpretation of those prophecies that are supposed to be on the eve of fulfilment, has manifestly a tendency thus to bring forth the wonders of the unseen world, and to connect them in sensible contact with the familiar objects and events of the present state. And such interpretations may be held with so full and overwhelming a persuasion of their truth, that heaven and its splendours may seem to stand at the door of our very homes : — to-morrow, perhaps, the hastening crisis of the nations shall lift the veil which so long has hidden the brightness of the eternal throne from mortal eyes .—each turn of public affairs ; a war — a truce— a conspiracy— a royal marriage — may be the immediate precursor of that new era, wherein it shall no longer be true, as heretofore, that * the things eternal are unseen.’ “ When an opinion — or we should rather say, a persuasion, of this imposing kind is enter- tained by a mind of more mobility than strength, and when it has acquired form, and con- sistency, and definiteness, by being long and incessantly the object of contemplation, it may easily gain exclusive possession of the mind ; and a state of exclusive occupation of the thoughts by a single subject, if it be not real madness, differs little from it; for a man can hardly be called sane who is mastered by one set of ideas, and has lost the will or the power to break up the continuity of his musings. “ Whether or not this explanation be just, it is matter of fact that no species of enthusiasm has carried its victims nearer to the brink of insanity than that which originates in the in- terpretation of unfulfilled prophecy. It need not be asked whether there is not some capital error on the side of many who have given themselves to this study ; for the indications of egregious delusion have been of a kind not to be mistaken. There must be present some lurking mischief when the study of any part of Holy Scripture issues in extravagance of con- duct, and in an offensive turgidness of language, and produces — not quietness and peace, but a wild and quaking looking for of impending wonders. There must be a fault of prin- ciple when the demeanour of Christians is such that those who occupy the place of the un- learned are excused when they say, ‘ Ye are mad.’ “ That some peculiar danger haunts this region of biblical inquiry is established by a double proof ; for not only have men of exorbitant imaginations and feeble judgments rushed towards it instinctively and with the eagerness of infatuation; but sometimes the soundest understandings have lost, in these inquiries, their wonted discretion. At several periods of church -history, and again in our own times, multitudes have drunk to intoxica- tion of the phial of prophetic interpretation ; and, amid imagined peals of the mystic thunder, have become deaf to the voice both of common sense and of duty. The piety of such persons— if piety it may be called, has made them hunger and thirst, not for ‘the bread and water of life,’ but for the news of the political world. In such instances it may be confidently affirmed, previously to a hearing of the argument, that, even if the interpre- tation were true, it has been entangled with some knotted thread of egregious error. “The proper remedy for this evil is not to be found in the timid or overbearing prohi- bitions of those who endeavour to prevent the mischief by interdicting inquiry ; and who VOL. VI. P 226 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 24. One tiling is undeniable, tbe inexpediency of bringing forward these doubtful explanations into tbe pulpit. And there is one baleful effect which has resulted from these abstruser speculations. They have not only taken up the room which rightfully belongs to the invitations of the gospel and the calls to repentance, but they have given the feeling, to a certain extent, that all this plain and practical preaching may now be given up in despair, because of the approaching certainty of that awful and inevitable doom which now impends over an unbelieving world. In other words, some have well-nigh given up the hope of any good from the ordinary means of praying, or of preaching, or of would make it a sin or a folly fora Christian to ask the meaning of certain portions of Scrip- ture. Cautions and restrictions of this nature are incompatible with the principles of Pro- testantism, as well as unnecessary, arrogant, and unavailing. If indeed man possessed any means of intrusion upon the mysteries of the upper world, or upon the secrets of futurity, there might be room to reprehend the audacity of those who should attempt to know by force or by importunity of research what has not been revealed. But when the unseen and the future are, by the spontaneous grace of heaven, in part set open — when a message, which might have been withheld, has been sent to earth, encircled with a benediction like this — ‘Blessed are they that hear, and keep these words : ’ then it may most safely be con- cluded that whatever is not marked with the seal of prohibition, is open to scrutiny. In truth, there is something incongruous in the notion of a revelation enveloped in restrictions. Be this as it may, it is certain that whoever would shut up the Scriptures, in whole or in part, from his fellow- disciples, or who affirms it to be unsafe or unwise to study such and such passages, is bound to show reasons of the most convincing kind for the exclusion. * What God has joined, let not man put asunder.’ But He has connected His blessing, com- prehensively, with the study of His word. It may be left to the Romish Church to employ that faulty argument of captious arrogance, which prohibits the use of whatever may be abused. Unless, then, it can be shown that a divine interdiction encloses the prophetic por- tions of Scripture, it must be deemed an ill-judged and irreligious, though perhaps well in- tended usurpation, in any who assumes to plant his little rod of obstruction across the high- way of revelation “The agitation which has recently taken place on the subject of prophecy, may perhaps, ere long, subside, and the Church may again acquiesce in its old sobrieties of opinion. And yet a different and better result of the existing controversy seems not altogether improbable ; for when enthusiasm has raved itself into exhaustion, and has received from time the re- futation of its precocious hopes ; and when, on the other side, prosing mediocrity has uttered all its saws, and fallen back into its own slumber of contented ignorance, then the spirit of research and of legitimate curiosity, which no doubt has been diffused among not a few in- telligent students of Scripture, may bring on a calm, a learned, and a productive discussion of the many great questions that belong to the undeveloped destiny of man. And it may be believed that the issue of such discussions will take its place among the means that shall concur to usher in a brighter age of Christianity “The study of those parts of Scripture which relate to futurity should therefore be un- dertaken with zeal, inspired by a reasonable hope of successful research ; and at the same time with the modesty and resignation which must spring from a not unreasonable suppo- sition — that all such researches may be fruitless. So long as this modesty is preserved — there will be no danger of enthusiastic excitements, whatever may be the opinions which we are led to entertain." ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. circulating the Bible, or of sending forth missionaries — because of the great revolution that is now at hand, and which is to cut short all and to supersede all. It is thus that the incumbent precept for to-day is to be held in abeyance by the pictured futurities which some near or distant morrow is expected to realize ; and far the worst direction, we apprehend, which these speculations have taken is — that, instead of waiting for the Lord in the attitude which Himself has prescribed — that is, in doing the work which He plainly and peremptorily lays upon them, they wait in a sort of mystic expectancy, during which all duty is suspended, and their own precarious imaginations are made to overbear the most express injunctions of the New Tes- tament. 25. In justice, however, to one at least of their general views, let us state our own suspicion of what we hold to be a prevalent opinion, and by which we have no doubt the great majority of Christians is actuated. We cannot get the better of an impres- sion, grounded on what we hold to be the general sense of Scripture, and which, we think, may be distinctly traced in many of its passages, that the next coming of the Saviour is not a coming to the final judgment on the day of the general resur- rection. This we hold to be the faith of the great majority ; and yet there is much in the Bible to discountenance it. In prophecy there is a distinct millennium foretold, nor do we see how this can be expunged from the future history of the Divine administration ; and this indefinite period of peace and prosper- ous Christianity upon earth is to be ushered in, it would appear, not as the ultimate term of a progressive series, along the suc- cessive steps of which one nation is to be converted after another — till, in the triumphs of a universal faith, made out by the gradual advancement of light and knowledge to the uttermost ends of the world, the earth is at length to be transformed into the fair habitation of piety and righteousness. We would speak with diffidence ; but as far as we can read into the prophecies of the time that is before us, we feel as if there was to be the arrest of a sudden and unlooked-for visitation to be laid on the ordinary processes of nature and history ; and that the millennium is to be ushered in in the midst of judgments, and desolations, and frightful convulsions which will uproot the present fabric of society, and shake the framework of its machinery into pieces. It is still as much the part of missionaries to carry the gospel unto every people under heaven, as it was of the apostolic 228 ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. missionaries who went forth over all the then known world, previous to the destruction of Jerusalem. But though in these days they preached it universally, they did not plant it univer- sally ; and in like manner, we can imagine now a general publi- cation without a general conversion of the nations, and that, instead of a diffused and universal Christianity being anterior to the next coming of the Saviour, that coming may be in judgment and sore displeasure on the irreligion and apostasy of a world that had now prepared itself for the outpourings of an accumulated wrath, by its continued resistance to all the ordinary demonstra- tions. Instead of a diffused and universal Christianity being anterior to the next coming of the Saviour, that coming itself may be anterior to a diffused and universal Christianity — to the restoration of the Jews, and the consequent fulness of the Gen- tiles. We speak not of a personal coming : there was none such at the destruction of Jerusalem, though it seems at least as if the Son of Man was then said to come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. But certain it is, that a coming is spoken of as yet in reserve, when, instead of being met by the glad acclamations of a Christianized world, He will come like a thief in the night, and with sudden destruction as with a whirl- wind — when, as in the days of Noah and Lot, He will abruptly terminate the festivities and the schemes, and the busy occupa- tions of a secure and wholly secular generation — and, so far from coming down on a regenerated species, then waiting in joyful expectancy for their King, it is asked whether, when this descent, whatever it may be, is accomplished, u Verily shall the Son of Man find faith upon the earth ?” We say this notin full confidence or for the purpose of dogmatizing any, but for the purpose of exciting all to an inquiry of deepest interest ; and we should not advise a perusal of the more recent interpre- ters of prophecy till Mede, and Chandler, and Newton, and Hurd, and Horsley, and Davison, have become familiar to them. Then may they address themselves to the lucubrations of Cun- ninghame, and Faber, and Irving, and M‘Neile, and Bickersteth. The little work of the last-mentioned author is written with so much caution, and is at the same time so pervaded by the unction of personal Christianity, that it may with all safety be made the subject of an immediate perusal. CONNEXION OF THE MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 229 CHAPTER VIII. ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE TRUTH OF A MIRACLE, ANI) THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE IN SUPPORT OF WHICH IT IS PERFORMED. 1. For man to affirm that nothing short of omnipotence can suspend the laws of visible nature, would seem to presume a far more extended acquaintance with nature and with the universe than in fact belongs to him. For ourselves, we can perceive nothing like self-evidence in such an assertion. We cannot tell what be the orders of power and of intelligence between us and God. We do not know either the limits or the extent of their agency in the affairs of this lower world. It appears to us a monstrous presumption to affirm, that no archangel, no second- ary or intermediate being whatever, can perform a miracle. We, in fact, transgress the line of separation between the known and the unknown, when we make either a confident affirmation, or a confident denial upon this subject. It is one of those things which are placed on the terra incognita beyond us ; and it would comport more with the soundness and modesty of true science, just to acknowledge that we cannot say. What do we know about the constitution of the universe, or the concatenations of universal being ; and, though warranted to believe in a supreme and all-powerful God, is it for us to define the amount of per- mission or of delegated power He may have vested in the crea- tures who are beneath Him ? 2. But at this rate, how shall we be sure of a miracle being the voucher of a messenger from God ? For aught we know, it may proceed from the foul machination of a powerful but wicked spirit, bent on some infernal experiment of deceit and cruelty. That very Bible, which stands pillared on its own miraculous evidence, affirms the existence of such beings, and actuated too by a mischievous policy, the object of which is to inthral and destroy our species. Nay, we read there of lying spirits ; of wonders by enchantment, which, according to the literal descrip- tion of them, are to all intents and purposes miracles ; of posses- sions by spirits of superior force and intelligence, insomuch that they imparted both a preternatural knowledge, and a preternatur- al strength to those whom they occupied. Now there is a per- 230 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE plexity here which requires much thought and argument to un- ravel. It certainly tends to obscure the connexion between the truth of a miracle, and the truth of the doctrine which is sanc- tioned by it. It is on the adjustment of this question that the English writers on miracles have expended, we think, the most of their strength ; and, while in Scotland the great labour has been to dissipate the sophistries of Hume, and so to vindicate the Christian miracles as sufficiently ascertained facts — in the sister kingdom it has been, admitting them as facts, to vindicate them as real credentials from the God of heaven, and so as com- petent vouchers for that system of religion wherewith they are associated. 3. We can be at no loss to perceive what the tenets are, which in this walk of theological speculation the controvertists on either side must, for the sake of consistency, make to stand or to fall together. They, on the one hand, who affirm that the bare fact of a miracle is in itself the instant and decisive token of an im- mediate forthputting by the hand of God, must explain away the feats of the Egyptian magicians in the days of Moses ; must explain away the demoniacal possessions of the New Testament ; must explain away certain precepts and narratives of the Old, as a certain passage for example in the history of Saul, and a precept too which recognises false miracles by the hand of false prophets. The divinations before king Pharaoh by the wise men of his court have been resolved into a successful leger- demain ; the ejection of evil spirits by our Saviour has been resolved into the cure of certain diseases ; the preternatural appearances and doings of wicked angels, however simply and literally recorded, have been resolved into dreams, or, like the history of the fall, into mere figurative description — and all for the purpose of harmonizing those various passages with their own theory, that a miracle can never happen without God being im- mediately in it ; and that, therefore, when associated with the promulgation of a doctrine, His faithfulness is staked to the truth of it — when associated with the utterance of a threat or a pro- mise, His power is staked to the fulfilment of it. 4. All this would tend no doubt to simplify the evidences of Christianity, and to supersede a question in the adjustment of which there might be some difficulty. It would follow that the bare fact of a miracle must at once accredit a revelation ; and that for the purpose of confirming the evidence, all further in- quiry is foreclosed, because altogether unnecessary. Yet one MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 231 cannot help the question, what ought to be the effect, if in such a revelation, there dicl occur what one knew to be a historical, or what he irresistibly believed to be a mathematical falsity? — or what, if possible, would be more startling still, if it proclaimed a code of morality the reverse of all which conscience now holds to be sacred, of all which man is at present led by his most urgent sense of obligation to revere? Were this a mere hypo- thetical question, we might spare ourselves the pains of laying a difficulty conjured up by our own imagination. But Scripture itself gives countenance to the speculation ; for, so far from dis- missing the question as unworthy of all consideration, it is a question which itself has entertained, and to which it has deigned a reply. And the principle of that reply which silenced the old adversaries will still be of avail to silence the present adversaries of the faith. Of itself perhaps it may be a subordinate question ; yet sound and important principle may be concerned in the solu- tion of it — and, however little the practical necessity may be for any deliverance on the subject, still it is precisely that subject, the right management of which might shed an illustration over the rationale of the Christian evidences. 5. v In entering then on as succinct an exposition of this matter as possible, the very first remark which occurs to us is, that it does appear ultra vires on the part of man, to affirm of every miracle, that, because a miracle, it must proceed from the imme- diate finger or fiat of God. Is it in the spirit, we ask, either of Butler or Bacon, to make this confident affirmation ? What is it that invests us with the mighty intelligence of knowing either the extent or the limit of those faculties which belong to the powers, and the principalities, and the higher orders of being that ascend, in upward gradation, between us and God ? Does either the experience of our little day, but a moment on the high scale of eternity ; or the observation of our narrow sphere, but an atom in the peopled immensity of worlds that are around us, — Do these entitle us to pronounce on the movements that take place in a universal economy of things, or to say how the parts are affected, and how they are implicated with each other? All that we have ever been led to regard as sound philosophy is utterly at antipodes with such a presumption as this. It teaches to value the information of the senses, and to value the solid in- formations of history. This is the philosophy of facts, and has no fellowship with that mere notional philosophy which has nothing but gratuitous imaginations to rest upon. It is of the 232 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE latter and not of the former philosophy that, when a miracle is evolved upon the platform of opr visible world, we should pro- nounce on the operation behind the curtain which gave birth to it ; or with confidence tell whether it was done by an immediate mandate from God, or by the spontaneous act of some subordinate but lofty creature stationed somewhere along that vast interval which separates man from the Deity. It is a matter altogether beyond our sphere, and therefore, to every apprehension of ours, it would comport better with the modesty of true science, to say in the first instance, that God must have the power of making invasion on the laws of visible nature ; but to say also, in the second instance, that for aught we know, God may have per- mitted the exercise of a like power to the angels or the arch- angels who are beneath him. 6. But there is another presumption no less revolting to our taste, in the advocates of that system to which we now refer. Why all this tampering with the plain and obvious literalities of Scripture? How is it possible, without giving up the authority of the record, to reduce these demoniacal possessions to diseases ? On this subject we should value the impression, the unsophisti- cated impression of a plain and simple cottager, before' the opinion of all the nosologists ; nor can the pompous nomencla- ture of all their demonstrations ever reconcile us to such a glaring violation, as some have attempted to practise on a narrative which tells us of the spirits that held converse with the Saviour ; that supplicated His forbearance ; that, on their part, told how they knew Him, and, on His part, were charged to be silent ; and that, when displaced from their old receptacles by the word of His power, entered by permission into other receptacles where they made demonstration both of the power and malignity which belonged to them. These are mysteries, no doubt — as everything is which belongs in part to the seen, and in part to the unseen world. But they have also come down to us in the light of palpable facts, grounded on sensible and historical evi- dence. And to refuse a fact thus authenticated, because of the unexplained or perhaps inexplicable mysteriousness involved in it, appears very clearly to ourselves a transgression both of sound philosophy and of sound faith. 7. The question then is still unresolved. If, for aught we know, an evil spirit may effect a miracle — how comes a miracle, and in what circumstances, to be the token of a revelation from God ? This question may be treated under three distinct sup- MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 233 positions, which, if satisfactorily disposed of, would exhaust the whole argument. 8. First, there are imaginable circumstances in which a miracle would carry no such indication along with it. If staked, for example, to a professed revelation which canonized cruelty, and deceit, and licentiousness as so many virtues, or which pro- claimed as truths that which we certainly knew to be historical or mathematical falsehoods ; this would clearly devolve the whole credit of the miracle on some wicked but powerful spirit who either plotted some infernal mischief to our species, or delighted in practising a mockery on the hopes and the principles of mankind. 9. But, secondly, if, on the other hand, the revelation in ques- tion was characterized throughout by a pure and unchanging morality ; if from the beginning to the end of it there was one reigning, and sustained, and consistent impression of sacredness ; if there sat an obvious truth and dignity upon all its pages ; above everything, if such were its doctrine, and such its precepts, that a belief in the one, and a steadfast observation of the other, exalted the character of man, and in proportion as they prevailed, made of mankind a happy and healthful society — we could not but recognise both the goodness and honesty of the living power that achieved these miracles ; and, if in the bosom of the reve- lation that power was declared to be God, we could not but ac- cept of all the moral characteristics wherewith the book was so obviously pervaded, as guarantees for the truth of its own infor- mation — that it came from God, and that it was God whose will and whose wisdom had inspired it. 10. But, thirdly, there is a middle supposition between these two extreme ones. In our treatment of both the first supposi- tions, we evidently go on the presumption that God is righteous. Ere we address ourselves to the task of examining either the one or the other professed revelation that we have just been imagin- ing, we are preoccupied with the sense of God, as a God of equity and truth ; and on this principle our decision, in fact, is suspended. We cannot, on the one hand, defer to the claims of a professed revelation, even though offered on the sanction of miracles, to have God for its author, if malignity and falsehood be graven upon its pages ; and why ? — because all our preconcep- tions of the Deity are on the side of His benignity and His faith- fulness. We, on the other hand, could most readily surrender to it our faith and our obedience, if, after having witnessed or been 234 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE convinced of its miracles, we saw that through all its passages, it was instinct with the purest morality ; and why? — because if the discordancy between its characteristics, and our previous no- tions of the character of God, led us to reject the first, even in spite of the miracles that accompanied it — so the accordancy between its characteristics and these previous notions of the Divine character, lifts as it were the burden of this deduction off from the miracles, and leaves to them all that force and * authority which properly belong to them. But by our present, or third supposition, a revelation might be imagined which of- fered to our notice no moral characteristics whatever ; which touched not at all on an ethical subject or principle of any kind ; which confined itself to the bare announcement, we shall suppose, of facts relative to the existence of things that lay without the sphere of our own previous observation or knowledge — but withal having miracles to which it could appeal as the vouchers for its authenticity. Would miracles alone, it might be asked, having neither an evil morality in their message to overset their authority, nor a good morality to confirm it — would these alone substantiate the claims of a professed revelation ? We hold that they would, but still because of the presumptions with which we are occupied in regard to the truth and benevolence of the Deity — believing, as we do, in the absence of every indication that marked the agency of a wicked spirit in the offered communica- tion, that He would not lend Himself either by permission to others, or by the direct exercise of His own power, to the decep- tion of His creatures. On each of the three suppositions, then, there is a prior natural religion which mingles the influence of its presumptions in the matter, and so modifies the resulting conclusion, whatever that may be. It is on the strength of this natural religion, and at the instigation of its principles, that we would reject a professed revelation charged either with obvious immorality or falsehood, even though in the face of undoubted miracles. It is on the strength also of this natural religion, that when, instead of being disgraced with aught so unseemly as this, the venerable signatures of truth and holiness are throughout conspicuous, that we defer to the miraculous evidence, and hold it all the stronger that the morality and the miracles go hand in hand. But even as we have said, though neither a good nor a bad morality stood associated with the message, still on the strength of natural religion would we defer to. the authority of the miracles alone. If but simply relieved from the presence of MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 235 aught that might indicate the agency of an evil though power- ful spirit, and though it gave no indication of a moral character in itself — resting on the external voucher of its miracles alone — we should hold it a sufficient and a satisfying voucher of its having proceeded from that good and great Spirit who presides over the universe, and has the absolute command of all its energies. And still it is a previous natural religion that would guide us to the conclusion. It is in virtue of its propositions that we cannot think of a message thus attested, and having in itself no marks of deceit or turpitude by which to betray its un- worthy origin, — we cannot think of such a message ushered in by miracles, or having miracles in its train, proceeding from any other than the Lord of nature, and more especially if it be from Him that it professes to have come. This is the na- tural conclusion ; and if there be nought to thwart or overbear it in the substance or circumstances of the communication, then on the simple removal of this disturbing force miracles are restored to the proper and legitimate effect which belongs to them. 11. We are aware that in this view of the matter a previous natural religion would seem to be indispensable ; whereas, in the other view of it, the whole credit and authority that belong to the Christian religion would have their primary fountain- head in the proper and peculiar evidences of revelation. Mira- cles, simply as such, and without regard to adjuncts at all, were enough, in all conceivable circumstances, to authenticate any professed communication from God to the world. The historical evidence for these miraculous facts were enough of themselves to constitute a simple but solid foundation on which to rest the whole superstructure of our creed. We confess our partiality, in other days, to what we held as a beautiful and consistent exem- plification of the question between us and infidels. There is nothing, however, which has contributed more to modify our views upon this subject than the very question whereof we now treat. Instead of bolding all religion as suspended on the miraculous evidence, we see this evidence itself standing at the bar of an anterior principle, and there waiting for its authenti- cation. There is a previous natural religion on whose aid we call for the determination of this matter. It is an authority that we at one time should have utterly disregarded and contemned ; but now hold it in higher reverence, since, reflecting on the su- premacy of conscience within us, we deem this to be the token 236 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE of an ascendent principle of morality and truth in the universe around us. 12. Now the charge which has been preferred against those who would require the doctrine to be such as neither to contra- vene any known truth, nor any obvious and universal principle of morality, is as follows. They say that it is first proving the miracle to have come from God by the doctrine, and then the doctrine to have come from Him by the miracle. But the argu- ment is altogether free of any such vicious circulation. Let the doctrine have immorality or obvious falsehood attached to it, and then it is insusceptible of being proved by miraculous evi- dence to have come from God. We require the immorality and the falsehood to be removed from the doctrine — not to prove it, but to give it the susceptibility of being proved. The mere absence of any contradiction to morality or known truth will not itself prove the doctrine ; but it will make the doctrine capable of being proved. It clears the way for the effect of the proper evidence. How that proper evidence is the miracle — an evi- dence that could not have overcome the barrier either of known truth or of palpable immorality, but, when this barrier is done away, works its full effect in favour of the doctrine at issue. The removal of a barrier is not tantamount to the rendering of a proof. It only affords room for the proof. There is no vicious circulation here. Though a miracle can demonstrate nothing in opposition to the evidence of the external senses, or even to the evidence of the moral sense that is within — yet, when all hostility from these quarters is displaced, a miracle, thus freed from the adverse or the disturbing force that would else have neutralized it, may in truth be the most effective of all demon- strations. 13. Now, to descend from the general or abstract form of the argument, let us inquire for a moment how it actually is with Christianity. It is already well known how it has been vindi- cated by Butler from the charge of certain immoralities where- with it has been represented as bound up, because in the Old Testament the children of Israel are said to have had the sanc- tion of the Divinity for borrowing from the Egytians what they never did repay, and for the total extermination of a people of whose land they took violent possession.* Let us accept of this * “ It is the province of reason to judge of the morality of the Scripture .... whether it contains things plainly contradictory to wisdom, justice, or goodness, to what the light of nature teaches us of God. And I know nothing of this sort objected against Scripture, ex- MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 237 vindication, and attend for the time to nothing positive on the side of Christianity, because of the transcendently pure and per- fect morality which radiates from all its pages. Then this would place Christianity on the level of our middle or third supposition, under which we conceived, in the case of some pro- fessed revelation — that, touching not on morality at all, there was neither a good morality that could be alleged in its favour, nor an evil that could be alleged to its prejudice or discredit. We hav3 already stated how a miracle performed on this wholly neutral ground, would exhibit a strongly affirmative argument in behalf of all which its performer claimed ; and that any doc- trine or information of his thus sanctioned, appealing as it does to a miracle as the voucher of its Divine origin, might with all safety be accepted as indeed the very doctrine or information which God himself has been pleased to set before us. Christi- anity, in spite of every exception which has been taken against it, stands clearly at least as high as this — that is, in a condition to be proved by miracles, even though the positive excellence of its ethical system had not placed it on a far surer and higher vantage-ground. 14. For what is the real state of the case in regard to our re- cepting such objections as are formed upon suppositions, which would equally conclude that the constitution of nature is contradictory to wisdom, justice, or goodness, which most cer- tainly it is not. Indeed there are some particular precepts in Scripture, given to particular persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and vicious were it not for such precepts. But it is easy to see, that all these are of such a kind as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the action ; and both constitutes and shows that not to be unjust or immoral, which, prior to the precept, must have appeared and really have been so ; which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the principles, and act from the spirit of treachery, in- gratitude, cruelty ; the command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing an external action ; for instance, taking away the property or life of any. For men have no right to either life or property, but what arises solely from the grant of God. When this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either. And when this revo- cation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either. And though a course of external acts, which without command would be immoral, must make an immoral habit ; yet a few detached commands have no such natural tendency. I thought proper to say thus much of the few Scripture precepts, which require not vicious actions, but actions which would have been vicious had it not been for such precepts; because they are sometimes weakly urged as immoral, and great weight is laid upon objections drawn from them. But to me there seems no difficulty at all in these precepts, but what arises from their being offences — i.e., from their being liable to be perverted, as indeed they are by wicked designing men, to serve the most horrid pur- poses; and perhaps to mislead the weak and enthusiastic. And objections from this head are not objections against revelation ; but against the whole notion of religion as a trial ; and against the general constitution of nature.”— Butler’s Analogy, part ii. chap. iii. 238 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ligion -^-breathing throughout a morality, which, if in universal practice among men, would turn the earth we live in to a para- dise — breaking forth through the mists of surrounding illiber- ality and prejudice with a lustre, and an expansion, and a purity, in broadest possible contrast with the conceptions and habitudes of the age — instead of thwarting the miraculous evidence by any painful dissonancy between its spirit and what we hold to be the spirit and character of God, superadding, in fact, the evidence of one sort of miracle to another, so that we do not wonder more at the men for the mighty works which they did, than for the noble and elevated system both of social and Divine morality which they inculcated. There may be some difficulty in the speculative adjustment of this question ; but in the specific case of Christianity, there is no practical difficulty at all. There is, in fact, no adjustment called for. The miracles and the morals of the gospel, instead of conflicting are conspiring forces, and stand side by side as harmonious witnesses of its having sprung from that mighty and unseen Being who unites in His nature the highest power with the highest goodness. 15. It has long struck us that there is a great accordancy be- tween this question, and one that has given rise to no small perplexity and difference of opinion in moral science. It is well known that there are two different systems on the origin of virtue — one in which it is represented as having a native and independent rightness in itself, independent of all legislation ; and another in which the will of God is represented as the primary fountainhead of all moral obligation. Now, it is con- ceivable that He might have put forth His authority so as to have enjoined that which is morally evil. And thus a question might have arisen, not whether it was our interest — for that must be our interest which recommends us to favour and good-will from the Supreme Power of the universe — but whether it was our duty to obey God when with the voice of a master, and all the sanctions of a legal authority, He commands that which morally is wrong. It is enough to originate the question, that God’s legal right to command, and the rightness of that which He hath commanded are separable in idea ; but surely we might save ourselves all the embarrassment and fatigue of such a question, if they are never separated in fact. It is a question which He hath never laid us under the practical necessity of resolving. The unfailing consistency that obtains under His government between the legal right and the moral rectitude, MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 239 may well excuse us from all the pains and perplexities of an argument that is merely speculative : arid we have nothing for it but to rejoice, that in the high and heavenly administration under which we sit, supreme power and supreme rectitude are at one ; that He who is throned in irreversible judgment is also in justice unerring and inflexible ; that with one and the same Being are conjoined the legal right to command, and that nature of perfect virtue which insures a perfect rightness to all the commandments; and therefore, instead of puzzling and pro- nouncing upon our own arbitrary imaginations, let us never cease to admire the actual economy which hath been instituted over us, and that we can say of Him who hath ordained it, “ I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right.” 16. If it be our duty to obey God, it is also our duty to be- lieve in Him. The supposition might be put that He affirmed what ^ve held to be mathematically untrue ; that He uttered a proposition which w T e irresistibly, and by the constitution of our understanding were led to regard as false ; and so the question might again be agitated, whether in this case it were incumbent upon us to resign our convictions to the authority of His saying. It is surely enough to cut short this perplexity that God cannot lie, and that we should not waste our intellect on the impossi- bilities of an airy and hypothetical region. Now what is true of this second puzzle, is equally true of the first one. He might be conceived to enjoin by authority that which all men by the con- stitution of their moral nature agreed in regarding as a crime ; and so casuistry be put upon her shifts to resolve an entangle- ment of her owm making. But it were altogether endless to unriddle all these self-created difficulties ; and therefore, as the Psalmist gave thanks at the remembrance of the holiness of God, so ought we to be thankful that the law written in the heart harmonizes wdth the law written in the book of an express reve- lation ; that the lessons of the vicegerent within so correspond to the lessons of every inspired visitant from the upper sanctu- ary ; that to the voice from above there is an echo in the hearts and consciences of the men who are below ; and that the moral judgment which springeth up from human bosoms upon earth reflects so accurately the righteousness that looketli down upon them from heaven. 17. “ The law of the Lord is perfect,” 11 the statutes of the Lord are right,” “the commandment of the Lord is pure,” “ the judgments of the Lord are altogether true and righteous,” — 240 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE these passages not only announce to us the prerogative of God as a lawgiver, but they announce to us the pure and righteous character of the enactments which proceed from Him. They tell us not only that He has the right of judgment, but, which is a distinct thing, they tell us that His judgments are right. They not only pronounce Him to have legally the right of com- manding, but they pronounce of what He hath commanded that it is right morally ; and often, in Scripture, instead of standing upon His prerogative as the argument upon which He might exact our obedience, He appeals to the goodness or the rectitude of His law as the argument upon which He might persuade us to obedience. “ Children,” says the apostle, “ obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right,” — not then on the naked plea of authority, not because it is for Him to be the absolute sovereign and for us to yield a passive and unquestioning obedience ; but also because, upon the moral cognizance that we ourselves take of the precept, we can discern the rightness of it. 18. It is well that God’s right to command, and the rightness of God’s commandments, are each of them so perfect in itself, and both of them so thoroughly adjusted the one to the other. The opposite state of things might be imagined, though, fortu- nately for us and for the universe of which we make a part, it has not been realized. Still one could figure a being who sat upon a throne of supremacy, and with that right of property in all things, which the act of their creation and the power of again sweeping them into the nonentity from which they were sum- moned, are supposed to confer — a being who had endued us with just moral susceptibilities, yet with a tyrant’s caprice, thwarted every sense that he himself had given of the distinction between good and evil, by setting up a law of revelation that was at variance with the law of the heart — a being who utterly reversed the characteristics of our own benign and venerable Deity, and bade us do the iniquity which he himself did love, and trample on the righteousness which he himself hated and despised — all this might certainly be imagined, a wild insurrectionary violence between the principles of virtue that he had put within, and the irreconcilable precepts that with authority and menace he had suspended over us ; the generous and high-minded revolt of all our better feelings, which rose to indignant mutiny against the base, and worthless, and arbitrary dictates of him, whose only claim to our obedience was, that in his hands there lay the irre- sistible strength which could either agonize or could destroy. In MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. 241 these circumstances there is room for the question, if such a monarch, even though divine and omnipotent, had the right to command, or if it would be right in his subjects to obey ; and such might be the discrepancy between these two elements of the legal and the moral right, that each might neutralize the other, and the sound that fell on the mental ear be as distinct as were the discord of two rival and conflicting voices. We therefore repeat it as a theme of high gratulation to the crea- tures of our existing universe, that these elements are at one ; that the testimonies which have come down to us from heaven's sanctuary, harmonize with the testimonies that issue from the recesses of the human conscience ; that the enactments which go forth from the seat of jurisdiction, occupied by the actual and the reigning power, all bear upon them the high impress of prin- ciple ; and that we are not only able to say of God, that He is rightfully the Judge of the whole earth, because to Him belong the earth and the fulness thereof, but we are further able to say that the Judge of all the earth will do right. 19. Now under another government this state of things might be reversed. The thing can at least be imagined by us — a reigning power all whose moral characteristics were in direct opposition to those of our all-perfect and presiding Deity. He could have given us the moral perceptions that we now have ; and, in most painful and perplexing variance with the tendencies of our nature, he could have utterly traversed them by the final issues of his administration. In the hands of such a ruler and such a proprietor, the good and the bad might have changed destinies, and a law been instituted, all whose sanctions were on the side of vice, and arrayed against virtue in the world. Then with the principles that we now have, our approbation would still have been to what is morally right, while our obligation, as far as the authority of the Divine law was concerned, would have been to what is morally wrong. The one would have run counter to the other. They would have drawn the perplexed and agitated spirit in opposite directions. On one and the same action, there would descend the praises of the righteous and the penalties of an unrighteous God ; and in very proportion to the force and the terror of these penalties would there be a louder testimony to the resolute and the high-minded integrity of him who braved them. Fiat justitia , ruat codum , is the sublime of moral heroism ; and it would raise this noble characteristic to the uttermost degree of its enhancement, that even when thun- vol. vi. Q 242 CONNEXION OF THE MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. der from heaven’s throne was brought to overpower the deter- minations of rectitude, it was found to be invincible. 20. On this subject we w'ould further refer the inquirer to Le Bas on Miracles — a work of great strength and originality ; and altogether of a superior character, both in point of sub- stance and of expression. Like Penrose, of whom he is the reviewer, he addresses himself chiefly to the question of the liga- ment between the fact of a miracle, and the truth of the doctrine for which it is the voucher — or whether a miracle is in all cases the seal of an attestation from God. BOOK 1 1 L ON THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER I. OX THE CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE WITH ITSELF AND WITH CONTEMPORARY AUTHORSHIP. 1. It is not at all times possible to obtain a precise adjust- ment between the actual state of things in nature, and the definitions of our own artificial philosophy. There are often certain rebellious and intractable phenomena which do not fully and properly belong either to one division or another ; and, just from the impossibility of an exact classification, we fail in our attempts completely to accommodate our schemes of universal science to the scheme of the existent universe. The line of demarcation between cognate subjects and cognate sciences, is often obscured by things of a common or ambiguous character, which partially belong to each, but fully belong to neither. Thus, for example, there are certain anomalies which serve to obliterate somewhat the distinction between the animal and the vegetable kingdom. Thus, too, there is a midway — a debatable ground between the sciences of chemistry and natural philosophy. There are many other instances which might be specified — all serving to show that it is not by an immediate transition that we pass from one branch of philosophy to another. There is what painters would call a shading off between them. They do not pass instanler into each other by lines, the mathematical definition of which is length without breadth. But they melt into each other by stripes or margins of separation, across which intermediate boundary, the colour or character of the one region gradually dies away, till it fully emerges into the distinct colour and character of the other region. 244 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 2. What has suggested these observations is, that, in attempt- ing to distinguish the internal from the external evidences of Christianity, we perceive the same sort of hazy undefined border between them, that there is between so many of the other con- tiguous provinces of human thought. The two kinds of evidence, in fact, run very much into each other. If it be meant of the external evidences for the truth of the Bible, that they are such as are gathered from places without the book, and of the internal that they are gathered from places within the book, it will be found of its largest and strongest evidence, that it comes not properly or fully under either the one head or the other. We scarcely know of any evidence purely external, but that which lies in the testimonies of writers not scriptural, to the existence and the authority and the early date and the reputed writers of Scripture. And we scarcely know of any evidence purely in- ternal, but that which is founded on the consistency of Scripture with itself, on the characteristics of honesty which may be more or less obviously discerned in it, $nd perhaps on the pure and right morality whether of its sentiments or precepts. It will be found of most other evidence that, instead of being drawn ex- clusively from either that which is without or that w'hich is within the Bible, it is in fact elicited by the comparison of the one .with the other. In estimating the force of the argument, for exa.mple, founded on the references of the early Fathers to Scripture, and even on their testimonies to the miracles which are recorded there, there is the comparison of that which is said out of the Bible, with that which is said in it ; and the mind must have respect to the contents of the book, when attending to the credentials by which they are thus verified. Again, when a credibility is founded on the accordance w T hich there is between the Bible and history, in those numerous allusions which it makes to the state and customs and various circum- stances of the age in which it was written — this too, though perhaps commonly ranking as an internal evidence, presupposes a comparison between that which is within and that which is without the record. Even that credibility so commonly spoken of as internal, which is drawn from the accordance of Biblo statements with the felt state of man and of all his moral and spiritual necessities, rests on the comparison of the scriptural with the ex-scriptural — of that which is graven on the tablet of revelation, with that which is graven on the tablet of the human heart. The evidence, too, that lies in the suitable representa- CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 245 tions which the Bible gives of the character and ways of God, requires that we should look not only to that which is in the book, but also to that which is separate from the book ; to com- pare the notions of God which are drawn purely from revelation, with the notions which are drawn from other sources of human opinion or knowledge. Notwithstanding the current and familiar style in which we talk of external and internal evidences for the truth of revelation, as if we perfectly understood what we were saying, there is a real difficulty in tracing the precise line of demarcation between them. 3. But we are not bound to task ourselves with the labour of bringing about an adjustment between the real state of the case on the one hand, and the arbitrary names or distinctions which our predecessors may have devised in the work of investigating it. Yet, in vindication of the title which we have prefixed to this book, it will be necessary to explain in what sense the various matters discussed in it should be brought within the department of the internal evidences. They all agree in this, that they have respect to the subject-matter of the Bible ; but to a great deal more regarding this subject-matter than to the consistency of its various parts with each other. Beside this, we found an argument on the consistency of that which is within the record, with that which is external to the record — of which last, however, it is necessary that we should have the distinct and independent knowledge. There may be a perfect consistency between what the Bible tells us of angels, and what is objectively or externally true in regard to them. But we have no inde- pendent knowledge of this order of beings, and can found no evidence therefore on this information of the Bible — to which our only access is through the pages of the Bible itself. When- ever an evidence is founded on the harmony which obtains between the depositions of Scripture respecting certain things and the actual state of these things, we must have other means by which we know of these things than Scripture itself ; and so the argument is made to rest on the coincidence which obtains between the statements of the Bible, and what we know of the truth of these statements from other sources. Yet one of these sources must be excepted, else we shall lose the distinction between the internal and the external evidences. The Bible announces to us its own miracles, beside furnishing us with cer- tain traces both of its own antiquity, and of the authors by whom it was penned. Its testimony in these matters is corro- 246 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. borated by the testimony of other and ex-scriptural authors ; and the strength of this latter testimony forms the main strength of the external evidence for the truth of the Christian revelation. Let us exclude this, and there remains an internal evidence — a great part of which is grounded, like the external, on a compari- son between what we learn in the Bible, and what we know apart from the Bible ; yet distinguished from the external, in that the knowledge is ours through another medium than the testimony of authors, deponing historically, either to the antiquity and genuineness and reception of the Bible, or to those miracles which constitute the first and most palpable vouchers for its authority. Our knowledge of God, our knowledge of the morally right and wrong, our knowledge of our own hearts, our know- ledge even of human life and character as grounded chiefly on personal observation — are all otherwise derived than from the testimony of historians*; and on the consistency between all this knowledge and the subject-matter of the Bible, there is founded a great part of what is commonly recognised as internal evidence. It seems in most instances to receive this appellation of internal, when the subject-matter of the Bible is brought immediately to the tribunal of a man’s own sense and a man’s own judgment — whether it is to the light of conscience and consciousness, or to the light of a well-exercised discernment into human character and affairs. Were we to avail ourselves of the distinction here between the truths of instruction and those of information, we should say of all the argument which is founded on the harmony between Scripture and the former class of truths, that it belongs to the department of the internal — whereas, when founded on the harmony between Scripture and the latter class of truths, it belongs to the department of the external evidences. Yet such is the difficulty of framing an unexceptionable definition on this subject, that, on the one hand, the agreement between the sub- ject-matter of the Bible and the informations of Josephus and other Jewish or profane authors, is referred to the head of the internal evidences ; and on the other hand, though a stronger argument for the miracles of the New Testament may be gathered, as we have abundantly endeavoured to show, from within than from without the canon, from the original testimony of scriptural than from the subsequent testimony of ex-scriptural writers — yet is the whole of this argument referred to the de- partment of the external evidences. 4. But whether we succeed or not in this work of classification, CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 247 it does not affect the substantive reality and strength of the various branches of evidence, however they may have been grouped when we view them separately. There is, however, one general remark applicable to almost all the evidence for Chris- tianity, and which we are unwilling to pass over. It is well known that the defenders of Christianity have often been led to certain walks of argument and investigation, on which they might not have otherwise entered, by some hostile assault or other of the enemies of the faith. When a combatant has pointed the finger of scorn to some alleged weakness, some vulnerable quarter, whether in the outworks or in the substance itself of Christianity — it has often ended with the counter- demonstration of a strength in that very quarter, of which neither the Church nor the public had any conception before. The objection of adversaries first drew to it the attention of friends ; and they have achieved a great deal more than simply displaced the objection — they have built up a strong affirmative evidence in its room. They have not been content with the overthrow of that hostile argument which first led them to the ground, and there set them on some specific walk of reasoning or of inquiry. They have generally chosen to prosecute that walk further; and the fruit has been, not a defence merely against the particular infidelity which had provoked them to the combat, but a great positive conquest over it. The alleged dis- proof has been turned into a weapon against the adversary ; and where we at one time in the battles of the faith w T ere told to look at a breach, an opening or place of exposure — there we now be- hold the firmest of its bulwarks. Such, for example, we flatter ourselves to be the effect of Hume’s peculiar scepticism on the subject of testimony, when the right treatment is bestowed on it. A great positive gain redounds to the Christian argument, if it have been proved, not only that there is enough of that best and highest testimony which neutralizes the improbability of a miracle — but as much more of it as creates a vast overplus of evidence in favour of the gospel miracles, and brings them down to posterity as far the best-authenticated facts which have been transmitted to us in the history of ancient times. The same has been the upshot of the controversy, first provoked by infidels, on, the alleged discrepancies between one part of Scripture and another. The defenders of the faith have not only adjusted these ; but they have made a more strenuous inquisition than was necessary for this service alone ; and the result is that, be- 248 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. neath the surface of general observation, they have discovered such a number of before unobserved harmonies — such minute, and till then unnoticed coincidences, that no impostor could ever have devised, or if he had, then, to serve his own purpose, he would have placed them more openly in the view of all men — such an artless and obviously undesigned correspondence, in many hundreds of particulars, that had escaped the discernment of all ordinary readers, and that has only been evolved into manifestation by a process of thorough sifting, on the part of those who have been at the pains laboriously to track, and to cross-examine, and to confront the various parts and passages of the record with each other — as nothing possibly can account for, but that the whole narrative or composition has a groundwork of truth for its subject-matter. In the present chapter we shall verify this remark by one or two instances, taken from that mar- vellous work, the Horse Paulinae of Dr. Paley. But again, excep- tions have been made to Scripture on the ground of its discrepan- cies, not with itself alone, but with the informations of other and contemporary writers. These have led to a distinct walk of inquiry from the former ; and the defenders of revelation have in general reconciled the alleged contradictions. But they have not stopped there. They have discovered, we mean Lardner and his followers, such a profusion of coincidences, and these too of so incidental a character, between the Bible and other writings — such an impregnation of historical truth, or what may be termed the truth of the times, as never could have been amalga- mated by the skill of any fabricator, with a work either of ficti- tious design or that was the production of a later age. In like manner, the alleged immoralities of Scripture have led to the triumphant exhibition of the moral, which some would place on a level with the miraculous argument for the truth of Chris- tianity. But in no walk of evidence, we think, has the observa- tion we now make been more remarkably verified, than in that which is termed the experimental. The subject-matter of Chris- tianity has been represented as incongruous with the state of human nature, and as therefore inapplicable to the rectification or the improvement of it. On the contrary, no argument has proved more effective on the side of the gospel of Jesus Christ — none has been so mightily instrumental in gaining disciples to the faith — as the deep insight of this religion into the before un- revealed mysteries of the human spirit, and the adaptation of its doctrines to the felt condition and necessities of the species. CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 249 5. In all these instances, there is a distinct transition from the negative to the positive. We first repel the alleged disproof; and then, by a continuous and sustained prosecution of the sub- ject, we may succeed in raising a highly affirmative proof upon its overthrow. We might not only, for example, clear away from revelation the burden of all its alleged immoralities ; but we may evince the perfection and refinement of the moml system of the Gospel to be such — that, when contrasted with the licen- tious and revengeful system of paganism on the one hand, or with illiberal Judaism on the other, it may manifest itself not to have originated with the fishermen of Galilee, but to have de- scended upon them by inspiration from heaven. Or again, not only may the imputed contradictions all be reconciled ; but such recondite harmonies may be evolved ; such obviously undesigned coincidences, as were beyond the reach or the policy of any im- postor, may be fetched from beneath the surface of common and cursory observation ; such minute and before unobserved sym- phonies between parts lying remote from each other may be brought out to view, as never could have been realized without a common substratum of truth to rest upon — that, out of these materials, a most impressive argument, and altogether of a posi- tive character, on the side of the Christian religion, may be con- structed — as has been done in most masterly and felicitous style by Dr. Paley in his Horse Paulinse. Or again, not only may we manifest, that there is nought of discrepancy between the Bible, and either the history and state of the world, or the state of human nature ; but that throughout the narrative and doctrine of the Sacred Volume, there is a most marvellous accordancy with both ; and on these may be grounded, not merely the affirmative proof of that sustained connexion which obtains be- tween Scripture and secular history, but that experimental proof which, in one branch of it, we hold to be the most effective of all for gaining proselytes to the faith. We mean the proof that is afforded by the felt agreement between the statements of the Bible and the state of the inquirer's own breast — by the mani- fold adaptations of Christianity to the moral nature of man — by the adjustment which obtains, like that of a mould to its counter- part die, between the offered remedy of the gospel and the diseases of humanity, as, for example, between the propitiation that is set forth to us from heaven and the guilt which trembles upon earth. In all this, there is not merely a power to constrain the attention but to convince and satisfy the judgment ; there is 250 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. a light struck out between the Bible on the one hand, and the conscience on the other, which radiates, not a fanatic gleam, but a clear and rational evidence on the soul — and which, however disowned or perhaps derided in the schools of literature, is a powerful instrument of discovery notwithstanding, and would be enough of itself to guide the path, whether of the peasant or of the philosopher, to heaven. 6. At present we begin with an evidence which is strictly and wholly internal, founded on the agreements between Scripture and Scripture — such agreements as no impostor would have de- vised, and which therefore can only be accounted for by the general truth and authenticity of the whole. The initial step, in the track of this investigation, is to deliver the Bible from the charge of its seeming contradictions — for even at first sight, and on the most slight and superficial view, appearances of this sort do stand palpably forth on the face of the record — such, therefore, as a superficial infidelity would be the most ready to seize upon. Now every semblance of this nature, if satisfactorily done away or disposed of on a nearer and stricter examination, forms a distinct argument in favour of the revelation — proving, as it does, such an absence of care and contrivance as could only proceed from the consciousness of truth on the part of the nar- rator — else he would not have exposed himself to a discredit, which every author, who tries to palm a fabrication upon the world, would labour most studiously to avoid. When the alleged discrepancy obtains between different writers in Scripture, as the Evangelists of the New Testament — the legitimate inference on the adjustment of such discrepancy is, that there could be no collusion between them ; and that their testimonies therefore are independent of each other. This whole subject has been inves- tigated with much detail, and been most ably and elaborately argued by the defenders of Christianity.* It will be found that, with very few exceptions, these apparent contradictions all admit of an actual solution ; and the remaining ones, of a solution which may be termed hypothetical — that is, a solution which would perfectly account for the seeming discrepancy, on certain given suppositions not unlikely in themselves, though not ex- pressly warranted by any informations that we actually possess. Even here the principle which we have elsewhere laboured to * We have a pretty full list of these contradictions in Horne’s “ Introduction to the Holy Scriptures.” Ed. 7th, vol. ii. Part II. Book II. ch. vii. sect. vi. — with an account of the manner in which they are reconciled. CONSISTENCY OF SCIUPXURE. 251 demonstrate will be found of avail — we mean the use of a hypo- thesis in controversial argument, not as being competent to the office of establishing a proof, but altogether competent to the office of repelling an objection. If the supposition in question remove the discrepancy, and if, for aught we know , the suppo- sition may be true or is not incredible — then, although not of strength enough to warrant its own absolute certainty, it may at least be of strength enough to keep an objection at abeyance, so that it shall not be suffered, when thus capable of being disposed of, to overset a religion having such weight and variety of posi- tive evidence in its favour. It reconciles us all the more to this conclusion on the subject of these remaining difficulties, that the labours of criticism are constantly diminishing the number of them — the affirmation of Michaelis respecting the alleged mis- quotations of the Old Testament in the New, which form one species of apparent inconsistency, holding true of them all. u Having found,” he says, “ by actual experience and a more minute investigation of the subject, that many passages, which other critics as well as myself had taken for false quotations, were yet properly cited by the apostles, I trust that future critics will be able to solve the doubts in the few examples that re- main.”* It is thus that the hypothetical solutions are at length converted into actual ones ; and on the strength of both, such a vindication has been effected, as not merely to neutralize the objection, but to substantiate a strong affirmative proof in favour of the artless honesty of writers, who evidently practised no ela- boration for the purpose of sustaining a verisimilitude in the absence of verity, or giving an aspect of consistency to impos- ture. 7. But the argument thus obtained from the adjustment of these seeming contradictions and differences, is distinct from the argument on which we are now to insist, and which is obtained from the discovery that has been made, in this same line of in- vestigation, of a mighty host of coincidences before unnoticed and unknown. For many centuries the Christian world had not been aware of their existence ; because, placed as it were in latent depths beneath the reach of cursory or superficial obser- vation, whence they have at length been extracted and exposed to view by the diligence of critics and collators. We have already referred to the happiest specimen of this in the Horse Paulinse of Dr. Paley, who not only, as if by the use of a prob- * Michaelis’s " Introduction” by Marsh. Ed 4th, vol. i p 210. 252 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. ing instrument in most skilful hands, has found his way to these hidden treasures ; but gathered and arranged them into a cabinet of truly precious things, for the entertainment and solid instruction of his readers. There are only two hypotheses which can account for the perfect correspondence that he exhibits, be- tween remote informations, and often fragments of information, which he has brought together from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul — and so as to make out of them, in each instance, one entire and consistent fact or passage in the history of the Apostle. Either it must have been a true history, or else a most artful and laborious fabrication. It must have had a real groundwork in a series of actual occurrences : or it must have been the sustained and skilful invention of one, who so pieced and adjusted one part to another, as to present us with that im- mense and ever-increasing number of circumstantial agreements, which are now set forth in open manifestation to the general eye. Their exceeding minuteness and variety altogether refute the imagination that they could have happened at random ; and thus shuts us up to one or other of the two hypotheses — an authentic story ; or a most intricate and refined imposture — the chief plausibilities of which, however, were to lie in reserve for nearly two thousand years, till, by a process of development almost as laborious as the original invention of them, they should at length become patent to general observation, and then work their full and favourable effect on the minds of a distant pos- terity. Such a species of practising is wdiolly unexampled in the history of this world’s delusions. We might as soon expect that the pretender to an estate would, with his own hands, tear the likeliest of its forged title-deeds into fragments, and then bury them in scattered portions under ground — where, in the course of generations, they might be reassembled by some future anti- quaries into a demonstration, that his were the valid rights of the property, that these were the undoubted evidences of himself being the legitimate proprietor. No impostor would first devise a number, an exceeding number of specious likelihoods in his favour ; and then deposit them in places so inaccessible, as that not one in ten thousand could be in the least aware of them. This is not the way of an impostor, who is ever sure to set him- self off to the greatest and most immediate advantage, and who for this purpose would make all his proofs and pretensions stand forth as discernibly as possible before the eye of public observa- tion. There remains no other conclusion, then, respecting these CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 253 inferred and altogether undesigned congruities, than that they are the vestiges and proofs of a real history, and of which the world was not conscious till thoroughly explored by the shrewd and fortunate adventurer who had opened his way to them, as to a rich mine of evidence, and thence gathered the materials of an overpowering argument for the truth of our religion. But, in- stead of attempting the general description of this mode of in- ference, it is better that we should present the reader with at least one or two of its specimens — selected, not altogether be- cause they are the most striking in the collection, but because they are among the shortest. 8. “ Colossians iv. 9. 4 With Onesimus, a faithful and be- loved brother, who is one of you. 1 44 Observe how it may be made out that Onesimus was a Co- lossian. Turn to the Epistle to Philemon, and you will find that Onesimus was the servant or slave of Philemon. The ques- tion will therefore be, to what city Philemon belonged. In the Epistle addressed to him this is not declared. It appears only that he was of the same place, whatever that place was, with an eminent Christian named Arch ippus. ‘Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly be- loved and fellow-labourer ; and to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house/ Now turn back to the Epistle to the Colossians, and you will find Archippus saluted by name amongst the Christians of that church. 4 Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it/ (iv. 17.) The necessary result is, that Onesimus also was of the same city, agreeably to what is said of him, 4 he is one of you/ And this result is the effect either of truth, which produces consistency without the writer’s thought or care, or of a contexture of for- geries confirming and falling in with one another by a species of fortuity of which I know no example. The supposition of de- sign, I think, is excluded, not only because the purpose to which the design must have been directed, viz., the verification of the passage in our Epistle in which it is said concerning Onesimus, 4 he is one of you, 7 is a purpose which would be lost upon ninety- nine readers out of a hundred ; but because the means made use of are too circuitous to have been the subject of affectation and contrivance. Would a forger, who had this purpose in view, have left his readers to hunt it out, by going forward and back- ward from one epistle to another in order to connect Onesimus 254 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. with Philemon, Philemon with Archippus, and Archippus with Colosse ? all which he must do before he arrives at his discovery, that it was truly said of Onesimus, 4 he is one of you/ 44 2 Timothy iii. 15. 4 And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation/ 44 This verse discloses a circumstance which agrees exactly with what is intimated in Acts xvi. 1, where it is recorded of Timothy’s mother 4 that she was a Jewess/ This description is virtually, though I am satisfied, undesignedly, recognised in the Epistle, when Timothy is reminded in it 4 that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures/ The Holy Scriptures undoubt- edly meant the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The expres- sion bears that sense in every place in which it occurs. Those of the New had not yet acquired the name, not to mention that in Timothy’s childhood, probably, none of them existed. In what manner, then, could Timothy have known 4 from a child’ the Jewish Scriptures had he not been born on one side or both of Jewish parentage ? Perhaps he was not less likely to be carefully instructed in them, for that his mother alone professed that religion.” 9. These are but two specimens out of many alike impressive, and they are yet far from being exhausted. They will be still further multiplied by the labours of future inquirers, and so as to form an accumulating evidence, and of a kind too strictly and wholly internal — educed as it is altogether from the comparison of Scripture with Scripture. Were the agreements thus mani- fested obvious and explicit, refuge might be taken in the impu- tation of forgery ; but, when they can only be obtained by a very circuitous track of investigation, all suspicion of contrivance is effectually done away. It is this which constitutes the main strength of that circumstantial evidence which lies in the deposi- tions of living witnesses, who exhibit a sustained coincidence without collusion, and that too in evidence of the utmost parti- cularity. It is consent without concert, in things of such exceed- ing minuteness and variety, that stamps a credit upon testimony, even when the character and condition of the witnesses are alto- gether unknown — nor is it necessary, for the purpose of feeling its strength, that more should be attended to than the testimony itself. The two species of agreement are quite distinguishable — that which is the fruit of artifice, and that which is altogether unsought and spontaneous ; and it is the exceeding multitude of CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 255 these last which makes the history of Paul, as educed from the Acts of the Apostles and from his own Epistles, so pregnant with an evidence of the highest order. For these documents admit of being confronted and cross-examined in the same way that living witnesses are, who, if found to agree in every point even the most incidental and the most exempt from every appearance of design — then no other conviction can possibly result from their common testimony, than that it is the evidence of a common truth to which all the parties had access, and on which the statements of them all are founded. The closeness and exactness of these now evolved harmonies are all the more impressive that they were before unnoticed, and which go therefore irresistibly to prove that they were also undevised — for they would not have answered the purposes of forgery. The evidence afforded by these unexpected junctions of so many little fragments which lie far apart from each other, has been aptly compared by Dr. Paley himself to the evidence given by the parts of a cloven tally, as being indeed the real parts of a real and authentic whole. No such contexture could have come forth of the hands of fiction or imposture — which never would have busied itself in framing a tissue, not of palpable but of unseen consistencies, that never could have been known, had it not been for the labours of a dexterous analyst who succeeded, but with great pains, to open up and unravel them. The thread, to use Dr. Paley's own image, which touches upon so many points, would have been set forth more fully and plainly by the original fabricator, if the whole be indeed a fab- rication, and not left to be disentangled from the mass in which it lies enveloped — proving incontrovertibly, that it is a substra- tum or a groundwork of truth from which it has been taken. The reciprocal illustration cast by texts or clauses of texts far asunder from each other, as being obviously not the result of studied adaptation, can only be the result of that living reality which pervades and animates the whole. The immense number of such correspondences, as if by an author altogether unconsci- ous or certainly without the least endeavour to display them, yields an evidence of the strongest sort — an evidence, too, in- dependent of history, and not drawn from any external source, from any outward credentials ; but from the very contents and substance of the record itself. 10. And it is an evidence not confined to that special depart- ment of Scripture, whence it has been gathered in such teeming and marvellous profusion by the hand of Dr. Paley. We be- 256 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. lieve that it is an evidence more or less to be found in every true narrative of any considerable length, which has descended to us from ancient times. We must therefore expect to meet with it in other parts of Scripture ; and, accordingly, this successful at- tempt of Paley has been followed up by successful imitations on the part of other labourers. The direct narrative of the trans- actions in the Pentateuch, and the proper record of which is to be found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, is again presented to us in an altered and abridged form in the book of Deuteronomy. The comparison of the history with its recapitulation has been ably prosecuted by Dr. Graves ; and much pleasing evidence of this kind has been deduced by him.* The same has been well accomplished by Mr. Blunt in another portion of Scripture — the four gospels which he confronts both with each other and with the Acts of the Apostles. -J- We offer from the latter performance a few brief specimens of that coin- cidence without design on which the whole of this particular argument is founded. — Compare Matt. viii. 14 with 1 Cor. ix. 5, where from each passage, and obviously not copied the one from the other, we gather that Peter was a married man. — Bead the four following passages, Mark vi. 3, Luke viii. 19, John ii. 12, and Matt. xii. 46 ; and it will be found that the death of Joseph is indirectly shewn, by all the four Evangelists, to have happened when Christ was alive ; and we add, that from Luke ii. 42, 43, it appears to have happened after He was twelve years of age. In keeping with this no mention is made of Joseph at the feast of Cana, or at the resurrection. — There are certain minute and delicate traits, and certainly not the less effective on that account, of the authorship of the Gospels by Matthew and John, and which harmonize with the received understanding, that themselves were the writers of them. The following are two examples taken from the former of these Evangelists. In Matt. ix. 10, Jesus is represented as sitting down to meat with publicans and sinners in the house. When the same transaction is recorded in Mark ii. 15, it is called his house, the house of Matthew. In Luke v. 29, it is called his own house. It was natural in the proprietor to call it the , rather than his or his own house. It forms another internal mark of truth that so many publicans * See Graves’ “ Lectures on the four last books of the Pentateuch,” designed to show the divine origin of the Jewish religion, chiefly from Internal Evidence f See Blunt’s “Veracity of the Gospels and Acts, from their coincidences with each other and with Josephus.” CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 257 should have been of the party. Again, in Matt. x. 2, &c., the apostles are enumerated in pairs, probably from their being sent in their respective missions by two and two. Matthew is asso- ciated with Thomas ; and when the enumeration is made by Matthew, Thomas is named first. In Mark iii. 18, and Luke vi. 15, Matthew is named the first. The discreditable circum- stance of his having been a publican is kept out of sight by the two latter Evangelists, but noticed with characteristic modesty by Matthew himself. — In Matt. xiv. 1, 2, we find Herod speak- ing to his servants , of Jesus, which was very likely to happen, if he knew them to have been interested in Jesus and aware of Him. This is corroborated both in Luke viii. 3, where mention is made of Joanna the wife of Herod’s steward, and Acts xiii. 1, where we read of Manaen brought up with Herod. — In Matt, xxvi. 67, 68, they who struck Jesus with the palms of their hands are made to say, “ Prophesy (or divine) unto us, thou Christ, who is he that smote thee?” — a challenge to the super- natural pretensions of him who professed to be the Messiah, that is not very intelligible, from the omission of a circumstance sup- plied by another Evangelist. In Luke xxii. 64, we are told that He was blindfolded . — In Matt. xxvi. 65, the charge on which the Jews condemned Christ was blasphemy — a crime of all others the best fitted to make Him the object of popular in- dignation. Whereas in Luke xxiii. 2, when instead of being accused before the Jews, He was taken to the Roman governor before whom this charge would not have been so effective, He was represented as “perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a king.” All this is in harmony, but surely an unstudied harmony, with John x. 33, John v. 18, and Acts xxiii. 29. — Lastly, in John vi. 5, we find Jesus singling out Philip in the question He put, as to the means that could be provided at the place where they then were, for the entertainment of a multitude overtaken with hunger. In Luke ix. 10, we read that it was a desert place, belonging to a city called Bethsaida. And lastly, in John i. 44, we are told that Philip was of Bethsaida — the likeliest person then to whom this question should have been addressed. These are but a few examples out of the many. In Mr. Blunt’s work, which is a superior performance, the reader will meet with a goodly number of others to the full as striking and satisfactory as those which we have now given. 11. Scripture throughout is replete with this internal cvi- VOL. VI. R 258 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. dence ; but, without instancing any other or separate portions of it, let us advert for one moment to that great and general coinci- dence — that unity of purpose and counsel, by which from first to last the whole of it is pervaded. In the whole history of the world, there is nothing that bears the least resemblance to it — an authorship beginning with Moses and terminating with the apostle John, that is, sustained by a series of writers for 1500 years, many of them isolated from all the rest, and the greater part of whom were unknowing and unknown to each other, insomuch that there could be no converse and no possible concert between them. A conspiracy between parties or individuals so situated had been altogether superhuman. Their lots were cast in different generations ; and nothing can explain the consistency or continuity of their movements towards one and the same great object, but that they were instruments in the hands of the one God, w r ho, from generation to generation, keeps unchangeably by the counsels of His unerring wisdom, and the determinations of His unerring will. The convergency towards one and the same fulfilment of so many different lights, appearing in differ- ent ages of the world, and placed at such a distance from each other, admits, we think, of but one interpretation — nor, without the power and the prescience of an overruling God, can we ac- count for that goodly, that regular progression of consentaneous and consecutive authorship, which is carried forward by the legislators, and seers, and historians of the children of Israel. And this evidence is not confined to the articulate testimony of their writings. The ritual, the institutions, the events, of which their priestly and consecrated land was the theatre, all tell us of the same thing ; and announce that divine harmony which connects the dim prefigurations of the elder with the brighter developments of the latter dispensation. There is a minute and microscopic cognizance which might be taken of the harmonies of Scripture, and which comes intimately home to the conviction of the inquirer ; but there is also a consistency of greater linea- ments — an unbroken continuity of design which passes onward from century to century — the congruities, not of one personal history, but of a scheme that commences with the first origin, and has its consummation in the final destinies of our species — a succession of professed revelations, of which the first and last stand apart at the distance of greatly more than a millennium, yet all actuated by one reigning spirit, and having for their object the establishment of a spiritual economy, which might reconcile CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 259 glory to God in the highest with peace on earth and good-will to men — these form the correspondences, not of a story that em- braces but the transactions of one individual, but of a system which is commensurate to the world, and bespeaks in its leading characters the mind and the majesty of God.* 12. But there is another species of adaptation, alike prolific of argument with that on which we have insisted hitherto — not the coincidence only which obtains between Scripture and Scrip- ture, but the coincidence, alike varied and minute, and circum- stantial, which obtains between Scripture and the works either of Jewish or Christian authors — or rather between Scripture and the state of things as made known, by these authors in and about Judea. The title of Mr. Blunt's work, to which we have already referred, is, “ The Veracity of the Gospels and Acts, from their coincidences with each other and Josephus The truth is, that from the one comparison w r e might educe an argument of the very same character and effect, with that more strictly in- ternal argument, which, by means of the other comparison, has been presented with such signal ability and success by Dr. Paley. In mathematics, if one line of perfect straightness but coincide w 7 ith another in two points, then they are perfectly straight throughout and coincide universally. What is now affirmed of a line in mathematics does not hold to the same ex- tent of a line in history — but certain it is, that the greater is the number of points at which any given history coincides with another that is received and trusted in as authentic, the greater is the probability of their entire coincidence both with truth and with each other — the inference from their mutual agreement being, that both copied from, and therefore that both agree with the same original realities which they are employed in describ- ing. This probability is greatly enhanced by the situation in which we find these points of coincidence— that is, in situations the least prominent, the least noticeable, the least obtrusive, and therefore the least likely to attract the observation of readers or inquirers. We can imagine a number of coincidences to be framed by an inventor, but then it would be in places which served his immediate purpose best; nor would he ever think of devising a number of coincidences, and then placing them so beyond the reach of common access or observation, that not one in ten thousand of his readers ever could have discovered them. * We ask the reader to reflect how unlike, in this respect, the religion of Mahomet is to that of Jesus Christ. 260 CONSISTENCY OF SCKtPTUHE. They are agreements like these which form the materials of one and the same argument, whether in the process of internal or of external comparison. When the comparison is between parts of Scripture, the resulting evidence is like that afforded by the fragments of a cloven tally. When the comparison is between Scripture and other authors, the resulting evidence is altogether of the same genus — though, without supposing a disjunction of parts, it is more like that afforded by the adaptation of a key to its lock, of a die to its counterpart mould, of a seal to its impres- sion, or of anv unbroken whole to the external contour from which it has taken both its dimensions and its outline. 13. The literature connected with this part of the argument, too, was, like the other, originated by infidelity. Contradictions were alleged by Woolston and others, between Scripture and the known customs and history of Scripture times ; and not only have these been satisfactorily disposed of, but the ulterior achieve- ment in this walk of investigation has been, that a strong affirmative evidence is now raised on the basis of a deeper and more manifold coincidence, between Scripture and external his- tory or external observation, than was before known or even imagined. Both ancient writers and modern travellers have made their respective contributions to this argument, which, though defensive at the first, has earned a great positive acces- sion to the cause, and made it far more rich in evidence than before. In the work of reconciling the apparent contradictions, the student will not fail to observe the operation of a principle to which we have often adverted — a disposition on the part not of infidel only, but of Christian writers also, to defer greatly more to the testimony of the ex-scriptural than to that of the scriptural authors — insomuch that, on every semblance of a dis- agreement betwixt them, the blemish or suspicion is always associated with the latter and not with the former. Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and Paul are sisted as parties or pannels at the bar — while Josephus and Philo and Tacitus and Pliny are made the judges, at whose tribunal they must wait their sentence, whether of acquittal or condemnation. Nay, the silence of the profane has often been construed into an impeach- ment against the testimony of the sacred authors — whereas the converse treatment has never been attempted in the way of re- taliation by the defenders of Christianity. If it had, the attempt would have been resented, and most warrantably, by every sound eruditionist or critic — for how are the informations of CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 261 history to grow upon our hands, unless each individual writer be permitted to offer some contributions of his own ? There might be enough of common truth among the esteemed authors of antiquity, to authenticate their respective narrations — so that, while Tacitus obtains full credit for all that is peculiar in his history, why might not evangelists and apostles be indulged also in their peculiar statements, even when no foreign corro- boration is to be found ? But it is when the evangelists are not only unsupported, but to appearance contradicted by profane or Jewish writers, that this disparity in their treatment becomes most obvious. For example, Josephus tells that Cyrenius was not governor of Syria till ten or twelve years after the time at which Luke, in the first and second verses of his third chapter, seems to tell us that he was the governor of that province. It seems a settled point among the controvertists on both sides of this question that Josephus must be right, and the mistake, if any, must be Luke's.* The defenders of Christianity scarcely every think of boldly retorting the possibility that Josephus or Tacitus or Pliny might be mistaken. The infallibility is all conceded to the ex-scriptural authors ; and the great effort is to clear up the apparent misstatements or mistakes into which it is assumed, on every case of an aspect of contrariety, that the evan- gelical writers must have fallen. In the particular instance now referred to, this has been effectively done by the indefatigable Lardner, who conceives that Cyrenius had made an assessment at the time of our Saviour's birth, and before he was governor of Syria ; but that Luke, in telling the transaction, mentions Cyrenius not as being actually governor at the time, but as one who now, or at the moment of his writing, in virtue of having received the preferment some time afterwards, had the title affixed to his name ; and which is often given to individuals — even when relating those parts of their history that take place * “When St. Luke, then, and Josephus differ in their accounts of the same fact, the question is, which of the two writers has given the true one? And here it is not a little extraordinary, that without further inquiry it is universally determined in favour of the latter, as if Josephus were inspired, and whoever contradicted him must of course be mistaken. This is a method of proceeding which is applied on no other occasion,” &c. “ This at least is certain, that if we found the same contradiction in the relation of a fact between either Greek, or Roman, or modern historians, we should not hesitate to prefer the author who was contemporary to the event related, and who to a knowledge of the person described joins minuteness and impartiality, to him who lived in a later period, and wrote a general history, of which the subject in question was only an inconsiderable part — Michaelis’s Introduction, vol i., part ii., chap, ii , sect. 12. 262 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. either previous or subsequent to the period of their official dignity. 14. But not only, in the progress of criticism, are these con- tradictions rapidly clearing away, so as to present a number that is gradually and perpetually lessening ; but their force is well- nigh disarmed, in that they seem now as if lost and overborne, in the affirmative evidence of those opposite harmonies, which every new labourer in this field of inquiry is adding to the list — and such harmonies too, as nothing but truth can explain. The richest collection of these is to be met with in Lardner, who — if we read of the trials, or the travels, or the customs, or the contro- versies, or the local and national peculiarities, or the varieties of incident and discourse which are recorded in the New Testament — finds in every contemporaneous author who borders on the same ground, and may even have entered upon it, or in the subjects of which he treats, whether they be Chronology, or Geography, or Jurisprudence, or History, or facts and statistics of any sort — finds in every such author, and in every such sub- ject, a test or a touchstone which he might apply to the writings of the evangelists and apostles, and by which he might deter- mine the accuracy of their statements or allusions both to the circumstances and the events of the period which is described by them. The restless politics of that age — the perpetual changes then taking place in the government of provinces, and the terri- torial distribution of the lesser states, more especially of Judea — the limits and respective functions of the civil and military power in these subjugated countries, adverted to so frequently in Scripture, and open either to disproof or confirmation from the well-known practice and polity of the Romans — these, and such as these, make up altogether a most delicate and severe ordeal, by which to detect the mistakes of ignorance, or the misstatements of forgery and fiction. It is strikingly demon- strated by Lardner in the first part of his Credibility , how well the writers of the New Testament have stood this ordeal. We can scarcely afford to offer any of the particulars of that very minute and statistical examination into which he has gone. In his chapter on the Princes and Governors mentioned in the New Testament, the evangelical writers stand confronted chiefly with Josephus — both as to the name, and title, and history, and period of these ever-shifting functionaries, and as to the limits of their respective jurisdictions. For one example out of the very many — when Herod, who had possession of the whole country, died ; CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 263 and Joseph, the reputed father of our Lord, returned from Egypt — he was afraid of Archelaus, who, in the division that took place after his father’s death, was made king of Judea — and turned aside to the parts of Galilee, not now under the same government ; for Herod Antipas, as Josephus tells us, was then governor of Galilee and Persea, and Philip of Trachonitis and the neighbouring countries. Among the manifold points of agreement that are elicited by this comparison between the in- cidental allusions of the Hew Testament and the direct informa- tions of the Jewish historian, we would instance the passage which relates to this Herod, and which respects both Lis wife Herodias and his daughter Salome — as also the story of another Herod mentioned in the Acts, who was grandson of Herod the Great, who killed James, and apprehended Peter, and suffered a remarkable death, and which, as respects all that is ostensible in the testimony of Luke, is fully borne out by the testimony of Josephus. Regarding this last Herod, there occurs what may truly be termed a very critical coincidence — inasmuch as Luke ascribes to him, towards the end of his government, the sove- reign power in Judea; and it appears from other sources, that this power he actually did exercise, but only during the three last years of his life. We have a nicety of a still more trying description in the title of Proconsul given with propriety by the Evangelist, but a propriety dependent on the fluctuations that were constantly taking place in the arrangement and con- stitution of the Roman provinces. In another chapter respect- ing the state of the Jews and Judea during the ministry of Christ and His apostles, the history in the Gospel is brought into contact at many points with that of Josephus and others. We advert but to one of these instances — the power of life and death reserved to themselves by the Romans, while the power of the lesser punishments was suffered to remain with the Jewish au- thorities. It is only for the purpose of noticing the amount of surface over which this work of comparison has been extended, that we advert to the title of his next chapter, “ Of the state of the Jews out of Judea” — whilst the title of the following, “ Con- cerning the Jewish sects and Samaritans,” serves to evince how crowded the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles are with 'the materials of a cross-examination between their respective authors and Josephus. The next succeeding chapter of the Jews and Samaritans’ expectations, and their idea of the Messiah, brings even heathen authors into a state of juxtaposition with the 264 CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. writers of the New Testament. But perhaps no passages of the evangelical history are more replete with this sort of argument, than the single chapters which retail the circumstances of our Saviour's last sufferings, where we have the names and titles and respective powers of the respective dignitaries that were concerned in this solemn transaction — the process of trial and condemnation — the infliction of mockery and scourging that took place before the ex- ecution — the bearing of the cross — the inscription of the offence upon it in three different languages, which is fully deponed to by classic authors as one of the customs of the age — the mockeries which He had to endure at the time of the crucifixion — the place of it, without the city of Jerusalem — the burial, and, lastly, the embalming of the body. Nothing can be more artless or incidental than the manner in which all these particulars are detailed by the apostles ; and yet, such testimonies can be brought together both of the Jewish and classic authors, as to furnish throughout the most ample and sustained corroboration — carried forward, beyond the death and resurrection, to the accounts which the New Tes- tament gives of the various churches that were founded by the first teachers of Christianity. Here we have a chapter of close and manifold communion between the scriptural and ex-scriptural, in the account it gives of the treatment which the apostles and other disciples of Jesus met with both from Jews and Gentiles. The chapter which follows treats of diverse opinions and prac- tices of the Jews ; and we shall finish our very general descrip- tion of this vast and voluminous evidence, by the catalogue which Lardner makes of the Roman customs mentioned in the New Testament. First, the use of the question or of torture for the discovery of crimes by the Romans — then of their method of examination by scourging — then of the unlawfulness of scourging a Roman, especially if uncondemned — then of the power which Lysias, who had Paul in custody, held at Jerusalem— then of Paul’s citizenship — then of the way in which this was obtained by purchase — then of the Roman justice in not receiving accu- sations in the absence of the person accused — then on the im- prisonment of St. Paul — then on the sending of prisoners to Rome — and, lastly, on the practice of their being delivered there to the captain of the guard. Within our narrow limits, we re- present most inadequately the power and the abundance of this argument ; and perhaps it had been better, for the purpose of impressing it on the reader, to have made a general reference to Lardner — without attempting, what we have done but slightly, CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 265 to instance a few of the specimens. The number, the minute- ness, the circumstantiality of the allusions, and the manifest un- designedness wherewith they occur in the course of the narra- tion — all serve to satisfy the inquirer, that a history which touches the truth at so many points, could not have done so for- tuitously and at random ; and these coincidences are so obviously beyond the reach, or even though within possibility could so little subserve any of the purposes of design, that no other con- clusion remains for us, but that they touch the truth at so many points, only because they touch it generally or at all points ; or because truth is the direction in which the writers of the New Testament move, the groundwork along which the platform of the gospel history is laid. The coincidence with truth at so many places, in the absence of the art that could have framed, or even of the power that could have accomplished it, is the sure token of an entire coincidence. 15. One precious fruit of these investigations is, that they have demonstrated, and upon their own new and peculiar evi- dence alone, the antiquity of the evangelical record. None but contemporary writers could have exhibited so minute and mani- fold an accuracy, amid the ephemeral changes which, in these days of incessant fluctuation, were ever taking place in the civil and political arrangements of Judea. And what makes it altogether conclusive is, that in a few years after the resurrection of our Saviour, Jerusalem was destroyed and the whole fabric of the Jewish polity was swept away — so that not a fragment or a vestige of it remained. On this tremendous event we feel assured, that the local practices and peculiarities which are so statistically and truly set forth in the New Testament must have been described by eye-witnesses, or at least during the subsist- ence of the Hebrew commonwealth — for the memory of them could not have survived a single generation. The unavoidable inference as to the early publication of these narratives, is of immense w’orth to the Christian argument — proving, as it does, that they made their appearance at a period far enough back for affording every facility, whether to the confirmation or the ex- posure of the miracles which are recorded in them. 16. And there is one great synchronism, which, singly and of itself, fixes the age of the composition of the New Testament, and settles it down to the first age of Christianity. It is such a style as could only have proceeded from men of Hebrew origin, who wrote in Greek, but in a Greek tinged and interspersed with 266 CONSISTENCY OF SC1UPTUKE. the peculiarities of their own vernacular language. And ac- cordingly, it is alike distinguishable from the language of classic authors, and from that of the Christian Fathers of the second and third centuries. To imagine that the innumerable Hebra- isms and Syriasms of the New Testament were interpolated, or rather intertwined with the whole structure of the book, for the sole purpose of giving a colour or consistency to its reputed authorship in the days of the apostles, were to accredit some forger of a later age, with the most difficult if not impracticable of all imitations — and the more as the idioms in question, in- stead of being simply inserted in the volume are obviously incorporated or interwoven therewith. It is an infusion rather than a mixture ; and what altogether precludes the theory of a fabrication, as aggravating tenfold the unlikelihood of its ever being realized, is the distinct and characteristic variety of style, which appears in each of the individual writers — another coinci- dence, by the way, between the internal character of the volume and its external history. There is no mistaking, for example, the signatures of one and the same hand in the Gospel of John and in the epistles which are ascribed to him. And the same remark is applicable to the obvious mannerism of Paul — in whose writ- ings we cannot fail to recognise the same energy, and affection, and argumentative vehemence, and abrupt transitions of a mind fired by its subject, and overflowing with its fulness every new channel which every new suggestion opens up to him. The argument is all the more enhanced by the peculiarities that obtain in the writings of Luke ; and by the circumstance that Paul, notwithstanding the peculiarities of his style, gives abun- dant evidence of that more accomplished literature and general erudition, which harmonize with the accounts that are handed down to us by ecclesiastical history of his superior education and opportunities to those of the other apostles.* 17 . And we have to remark in this department, too — in the external harmonies of Scripture with other and separate testi- mony, as well as in its internal harmonies with itself — a great and general coincidence between the whole history which it unfolds to us, and all that is known beside of the history of the world. And the history in the Bible is the history of the world ; but under the peculiar aspect, in the language of Butler, of its being God’s world. 7 He deduces a strong argument for * Michaelis's “ Introduction to the New Testament,” by Marsh. Fourth Edition. Part L chap. ii. sect. x. t Analogy, Part II. chap. vii. CONSISTENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 267 the truth of Scripture, from the immense number of places at which it lies open to comparison with profane history ; and yet the manner in which it stands its ground, and bears to be con- fronted with all the informations and documents of antiquity. This argument for the general truth of Scripture grows in strength and intensity, the more intensely it is reflected on. This book professes to be an account of the world regarded as the dominion and property of God ; and, both in its commence- ment and its conclusion as well as its intermediate contents, there is a greatness altogether commensurate to this object — be- ginning, as it does, with the creation of the species, and ending with an account of the two distinct and everlasting destinies which await the two great divisions of the human family. In the conducting of this sublime narrative, there are references to beings and places external to our world, arising from the inter- changes which are said to have taken place between the visible and the invisible — the occasional visits from heaven to earth, actual or alleged — the inspirations which descended upon men ; and, in the course of these allusions we have not only repeated notices of God, but of other orders of intelligence beside our- selves, and of the relations in which we stand to them. Now, in the glimpses which are thus afforded of an extended moral economy, we are unable to confront the informations of Scripture with any independent knowledge of our own. We have no direct or personal observation of angels and spirits ; and we are not in circumstances, either for obtaining a confirmation of the Bible, or of detecting in its statements any marks of imposture — by comparing what it tells of things supernal to the world, with aught that w 7 e previously or originally know of these things. 18. But the Scripture not only offers notices and allusions in regal'd to matters external to the world ; it offers these notices far more abundantly in regard to matters that are within the compass of the world, but external to the church — and all which matters, unlike to the former, were within the compass of human observation, and many of wdiich have been derived by historical transmission to ourselves in the present day. The truth is, that the Bible may be said to present us with a general outline of the world's history — as consisting in the movement of nations, in the rise and fall of earth's great empires, in the most noted chronological eras ; and adventuring, as it does, both on the names of countries, and the monarchs that ruled over them, 268 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE and the manners that characterized their people — never did im- posture, if imposture indeed it be, so expose herself to a thou- sand lights of cross-examination, or so multiply her vulnerable points, by the daring and extended sweep that she has thus taken among the affairs of men. There is something incredible in a compact or conspiracy of deceivers, the scheme and spirit of which were handed down from one to another through a whole millennium ; but that one and all of them should have sustained such a general historic consistency through the whole of that period, that no glaring contradiction has yet been detected be- tween the multitude of incidental notices that the penmen of Scripture have made to the countries around Judea, and at a great distance from it, and the actual state of the world — that sacred and profane history should so have harmonized, as that a consistent erudition, made up of an immense variety of particulars, has actually been raised and established out of the connexion * between them— that there should be such a sustained coinci- dence from the first dawnings of history, and extended by means of prophetic anticipation to the present day — truly, apart from the peculiar evidence of prophecy altogether, there is much in the artless and unforced agreements which are everywhere spread over so broad a surface of comparison, as to stamp the strongest appearance of truth both on the general narrative of the Bible, and, by implication, on the miraculous narrative, that, without the slightest appearance of ingenuity or elaborate design, is so incorporated therewith. CHAPTER II. ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 1. The argument of the last chapter is of frequent applica- tion in questions of general criticism ; and upon its authority alone many of the writers of past times have been admitted into credit, and many have been condemned as unworthy of it. The numerous and correct allusions to the customs and institu- tions, and other statistics of the age in which the pieces of the New Testament profess to have been written, give evidence of their antiquity. The artless and undesigned way in which these * See Shuckford, Prideaux, and Russe), on the connexions between sacred and profane history TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 269 allusions are interwoven with the whole history, impresses upon us the perfect simplicity of the authors, and the total absence of every wish or intention to palm an imposture upon the world. And there is such a thing, too, as a general air of authenticity ; which, however difficult to resolve into particulars, gives a very close and powerful impression of truth to the narrative. There is nothing fanciful in this species of internal evidence. It carries in it all the certainty of experience, and experience too upon a familiar and well-known subject, the characters of honesty in the written testimony of our fellow-men. We are often called upon, in private and every-day life, to exercise our judgment upon the testimony of others ; and we both feel and understand the powerful evidence which lies in the tone, the manner, the circumstantiality, the number, the agreement of the witnesses, and the consistency of all the particulars with what we already know from other sources of information. Now, it is undeniable that all those marks which give evidence and credibility to spoken testimony, may also exist to a very impressive degree in written testimony ; and the argument founded upon them, so far from being fanciful or illegitimate, has the sanction of a principle which no philosopher will refuse ; the experience of the human mind on a subject on which it is much exer- cised, and which lies completely within the range of its observa- tion. 2. We now enter on the consideration of the moral evidence for the truth of the New Testament, as gathered, however, not from the present character of the witnesses, but from the nature of that ethical system which they delivered ; or, more generally still, not from themselves but from the subject-matter of their testimony. Doubtless, we may collect from the performance itself, such marks of truth and honesty, as entitle us to conclude, that the human agents employed in the construction of this book were men of veracity and principle. But this argument has already been resorted to,* and a very substantial argument it is. Our present attempt is to found an internal evidence for the divinity of Scripture on the morality of its doctrines, or the purity of that moral light which beams from its pages; and which, as distinguished from other systems of religion, whether from revengeful and licentious Paganism on the one hand, or from a corrupted Judaism on the other — seems to invest the New * In chap. iii. of Book II., where we also adverted to the argument of the last chapter, but not with such particularity or fulness aa to prevent ohr again recurring to it. 270 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE Testament with a sort of celestial radiance, and so to be no unambiguous token of the Heaven from whence it came. 3. But a certain preliminary question requires to be adjusted, ere it is made perfectly clear, that an internal evidence can be raised on the superior and recognised excellence of the Christian morality. For if man be capable of recognising this excellence, does it not argue him to be alike capable of having conceived it at the first, and so of bringing it forth originally to the view and admiration of the world ? The faculty, one might think, of discerning the worth or goodness of any system, would seem to bespeak the faculty of discovering or devising it. If the pure and perfect morality of the gospel be now the theme of universal acknowledgment, and that by minds of every order — why might not some mind of the highest order, at the era of its publication, have been able to originate the ethical system, that was after- wards to command the assent and acquiescence of the enlight- ened and the virtuous in all ages ? The same faculties, it can naturally be imagined, by which we are enabled to appreciate the inherent truth and value of any doctrine, might have also suggested that doctrine — so that not only might men have be- come its obedient disciples, but a man might have been the inventor of it. In short, it is not perceived why a thing of earthly recognition might not be a thing of earthly origination also — or how, if man, in virtue of his natural powers, can justly estimate the merits of any practical code or directory of human conduct, he might not, in virtue of the same powers, have been competent to frame it. It is on this ground that Christianity might be argued, notwithstanding the lustre of its moral superi- ority over every other faith, to be still a thing of terrestrial growth ; and that therefore the hypothesis of a Divine revelation is altogether uncalled for. 4. Now, in opposition to this, we hold that many are the truths, which never could have sprung up within the mind — but which, when brought to it from without, meet with the full con- sent and coalescence of the judgment — and that in virtue not of any external evidence, but of their own inherent recommenda- tions. There is many a truth, the credibility of which does not serve to indicate it before it is announced, but which abundantly serves to recommend it afterwards. It may have no such light as shall guide the way to it ; and yet as much light as that it may be seen and recognised as truth, on the moment of its being presented. The intellect might remain in a state of darkness TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 271 and dormancy, as to many a truth which it never could have found ; but awakened, as if like a candle by ignition, at the moment of contact with that truth when it is told — it, in a medium of vision thus created, might be led to discern things, and on their own intrinsic evidence too, which it never could have discovered. Of this the experience of the mind itself sup- plies us with many familiar illustrations. In mathematics, where every doctrine has the ground of conviction within itself, how frequent are the discoveries which could only have been made bv the few, and yet which the many can most completely and most intelligently appreciate ! There are propositions of such a particular description, that the very statement of them fur- nishes the cipher for their own verification ; and the mind feels itself placed on a distinct vantage-ground, when, instead of having to go forth in general quest of that which was altogether unknown, its now more limited aim is to certify that of which it has been specifically told. It is a homely, but we think an effective illustration of this— that when desirous of joining in the psalmody, at church, but ignorant of the verses which have been given out, we are unable to collect from the general voice of the congregation, the articulate sounds to which they are jointly giving utterance. Yet when directed to the place, we can instantly recognise the coincidence between the notes in the music and the syllables in the lines that have been pointed out to us. It is thus also that a prophecy, respecting the ful- filment of which we are utterly in the dark beforehand, might be cleared up afterwards — the coincidence between predictions and events which we could never have discovered, or perhaps even guessed at, becoming manifest as day, on the means of comparison being brought within our reach, when both are set before us. On the same principle, too, we shall be able to explain that powerful and peculiar evidence of which we are told in Scripture, when it speaks of the manifestation of the truth unto the conscience. But our inquiry at present is, whe- ther the moral system of the Bible might not be the object of man's most intelligent approval, although he could neither have discovered nor devised it — or whether, though now abundantly met by the acknowledgments of an enlightened human sym- pathy, it did not require for its first introduction into the world a superhuman revelation. 5. The apparent diversities of moral sentiment among men, have been well accounted for by those ethical writers who con- 272 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE tend that the standard of duty is one and immutable notwith- standing ; and that, not objectively in itself alone, but subjec- tively, or so as that all men have the same moral nature, and would agree in all their moral perceptions of virtue, if brought under the same moral tuition — insomuch that, to be owned uni- versally, it only needs to be promulgated universally, and in such circumstances as might insure the serious and sustained attention of all men.* There are seeming exceptions to this, in the state both of individuals and nations — in the one, when con- science is perverted by the sophistry of the passions, or, if not extinguished, brought to utter stupefaction, by the headlong and reckless indulgence of them — in the other, when some urgent and generally felt interest associates whole communities in some practice or sentiment that nevertheless is at war with the com- mon sense of humanity. It is thus that we can imagine, among the families of a smuggling village, or of a piratical state, or even of a large commercial city, in civilized and enlightened Christendom, which owes its wealth and pre-eminence to the guilty horrors of the slave-trade — we can imagine a very slender comprehension among them, of the unlawfulness of their respec- tive vocations. And this epidemic peculiarity, extending to whole societies of men, is greatly enhanced by the sympathy of a common feeling and a common interest in the midst of them — so as to account for those aberrations from a universal morality, by which whole countries and whole ages of the world have been characterized. It is thus that in those tribes and nations which have to maintain a continued struggle for their existence, re- venge and rapacity are canonized as virtues — the obligations of a general equity being lost and overborne in the obligations of a contracted patriotism. Whether we look to the cruelties of Indian warfare, or to the guilty conquests of Eome, we find, not that the obligations of an unchangeable morality have ever been formally renounced, but that they have been lost sight of and forgotten for centuries together, in the dazzling images of a na- tion’s glory and a nation’s weal. Apart from such influences as these — apart from the darkening and disturbing forces that we have now specified — we could obtain the same assent to the same lessons of piety, and truth, and justice, and universal philan- thropy all the world over. But the question is, who, in the strength and prevalence of a wide-spread delusion, who is to originate these lessons? We can understand how, should these * See our Natural Theology, Book III., Chap, ii., Art. 10-23. TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 273 forces be suspended — bow, when the spirit of a man, arrested and solemnized, and recalled for a season from those influences which have so long perverted and enthralled it by a voice from without — how it should respond to the voice ; and the light of conscience, thus resuscitated and restored, should meet and be - in harmony with the external light that has awakened it. But still the question recurs, who lifted that voice at the first ; and whence, or in what quarter, did the light arise? Both in the islands of the South Sea, and in the North American wilderness — large portions of the territory have been reclaimed ; and the men formerly of savage life, whose consciences had lain in a state of dormancy and delusion from time immemorial, are now awake to the pure morality of the gospel — not however in virtue of a light that sprung up among themselves, but of a light brought to them by missionaries from afar. Thus it is, we his- torically know, that the local darkness in every particular country of the world has been dissipated — by a visitation from abroad, by a movement from some region of light to this region of bar- barism. This gives a sort of experimental solution to the ques- tion— whence did light break in upon the world at the first ? or at the period of its universal darkness, when that pure and perfect system of morality, the introduction of which requires to be accounted for, was nowhere to be found— how, and from what quarter, must it not have been from beyond the world, that the invasion was first made ? * u When darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people, the Lord,” it is said, “ shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.” u When the people which sat in darkness saw great light, when on them which sat in the region and shadow of death the light shone ” — • did it spring up from the earth itself, or was it a supernal light which shone over them ? Might it not have been a superhuman light, although it met with a reflection in human bosoms? Might it not have been a superhuman voice that first gave utterance to those lessons of highest virtue, although it called forth a response and an echo from the consciences of men ? 6. It might help us to pronounce on this question all the more confidently, if we look to the state of the Jews at the time of our Saviour — to their exclusive, their inveterately national principle, and contrast it with the more generous and expansive principle * The first origin of civilisation in the world is a controversy charged with principle. If history, which it seems to do, countenance or confirm the assertion that it never arose spon- taneously in any nation — this points strongly to the conclusion of a primary revelation. VOL. VI. S 274 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE of our own Christianity — the one being obviously a system for a nation, the other as obviously a system for the species. Who, it may be repeated, could be the first author of such an enlarge- ment ? It follows not from any distinction of ours between the ethics and the objects of revelation, that, however competent for humanity to own the lesson, it was therefore competent for hu- manity to have framed it — and, more especially, cumbered, as the universal mind of society then was, by the weight of those prejudices which it was called upon to renounce. The light which appears in the very midst of this darkness, could not, we appre- hend, have been originated there. In the history of the apostles themselves, we recognise the slowness and the extreme difficulty of its reception, by a merely Jewish understanding — which, though at length brought to acquiesce in the system, could never have devised it. In the very nature of that system, and more especially when taken in connexion with the circumstances in which it arose, we have an internal evidence for the divinity of its origin. To teach that which is not only repugnant to the taste, but at variance with all the hereditary and long-established notions of society — to have germinated, in the heart of a dark and narrow region, a system of morality, that conflicted at the time with all which was immediately around it, but now receives the homage of every enlightened and well-exercised spirit in Christendom — such a phenomenon closely approximates to a mir- acle, or rather possesses all the characters of an event as extra- ordinary. If to do that which is beyond human strength be a miracle of power, and to prophesy that which is beyond human foresight be a miracle of knowledge — then for a carpenter of Galilee to have taught, or for fishermen of Galilee to have pro- mulgated that which was beyond human discovery, and surely beyond all the means and likelihoods of a discovery by them, this may well be termed a miracle of science or a miracle of sentiment. 7. This conclusion is greatly strengthened, when we attend in detail to the moralities of the gospel — and, more especially, to those of its original moralities which may be regarded in the light of a protest against, not merely the universal practice, but till then the universal sense and feelings of mankind. Its pre- scribed love of enemies — its law of universal purity, extending to the imaginations of the heart as well as to the overt acts of the history — its moral estimation of the superiority which lies in the desires and purposes of the inner, over the deeds and ob- TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 275 serrations of the outer man — its equal and diffusive benevolence, without the abjuration at the same time of those relative sym- pathies which bind together the members of the same family — its high standard of charity, the love of one’s neighbour as one’s self ; and withal, the extension of this neighbourhood so as to embrace the men of other climes and other countries than our own, embracing all in fact as we have the opportunity — its re- spect for rank, and yet the honour in which it requires us to hold all men, so as to maintain unbroken the distinctions of civil life, while it dignifies and exalts the very humblest of the species — the equal estimation in which it holds rich and poor on the high scale of immortality, and yet the homage which it pays to nobility and office, giving to this world’s authority all its prero- gatives, while reserving for the objects and interests of another world all their immeasurable value — its self-denial — its profound humility and self-abasement — its renunciation of pleasure and ambition and vanity — its walk of faith rather than of sight — its just comparison of the magnitude of time with that of eternity — above all, its entire subordination to God whom it teaches us supremely to love and implicitly to obey — These are the leading characteristics of the morality of the gospel, new to the world at the time of its publication, however fitted to recommend itself to the moral nature, not extinct though under obliteration, given to men at the first and coeval with the species. And not only is this the morality which most approves itself to the calm and enlightened judgment of men, but, in act and in experience, is it found to be the best for the happiness of the world — a regimen of peace and charity and righteousness, that of itself would turn earth into heaven ; and when once universal, which it is its ob- vious tendency at length to become, then, in the great and glori- ous renovation that ensues, the brightest visions of prophecy will be fully realized. The same gospel which gladdens every "heart and every family that it enters, would turn the dwelling-jfiace of every nation whom it christianizes into a gladsome land ; and, when once commensurate with the globe, and of complete ope- ration on all who live in it, it would revive and regenerate the whole earth. Other codes and other constitutions have been framed for the separate countries of the world, and they tell the wisdom of their respective but earthly legislators ; but this, in its characters alike of goodness and of greatness, and withal of boundless application, obviously announces itself as the code of humanity — and bespeaks the comprehensive wisdom of Him, 276 ON THE MOKAIv EVIDENCE FOR THE who, devising for all times and for all people, is the Legislator of the species. It is not the workmanship of a few peasants in Judea. The perfection of its moral characteristics, the greatness and perpetuity of its results — both speak to us of a different fountainhead, and decisively point to us the celestial origin whence it must have sprung. 8. But beside these more general attributes which belong to the morality of the New Testament, there are certain tests of exceeding delicacy which serve to mark the discrimination of its Author — the profoundness of His wisdom, and never more than when exemplified in cases of actual occurrence. The first specimen of this which offers itself to our recollection, is the occasion when an expensive ointment was poured on the head of the Saviour, and Judas remonstrated because of that being wasted which might have been sold and its price given to the poor. If there be one characteristic of the gospel more promi- nent than another, it is the tenderness of its care and considera- tion for the poor — not in the form, however, of a headlong affec- tion, but. subject, as every other affection ought to be under a system not of moral feeling alone but of moral tuition, to the qualifications of wisdom and principle. Our Saviour vindicates the application that was made of the precious ointment ; and thus lets us know that there are other impulses beside com- passion for the poor, which, in their right place and on fitting occasions, should in their turn be obeyed. And an expression of reverence and respect for a Divine messenger was one of these occasions. There are certain short-sighted philanthropists who would set up the plea of humanity to the poor in opposition to every cause, and who, under the guise — perhaps the reality — of a sympathetic regard for them, would lay an arrest on other good works, not only of more urgent principle and necessity at the time, but tenfold more beneficial in point of effect. It is thus that the expenses, even the most needful expenses of Christi- anity have been looked to with an evil eye ; and not only would the decency, still more the dignity, of its temple-services be grudged for the reason alleged by him who betrayed its author — but, on the same ground too, have we heard both the cost of religious education for our families at home, and the cost of a missionary apparatus for the people abroad, made alike the subjects of a most virulent declamation. And there are other expenses, beside those which subserve the wellbeing of the soul, that relief for the wants of the body ought not to supersede — TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 277 the expense of justice — the expense of government — the expense even of upholding in becoming state and splendour the offices of magistracy — all which, as connected with right sentiment as well as the real interests of human society, would seem to be warranted by this example of our Saviour, even in the face of that exclusive preference for the poor which some would allege in argument for doing them away. Little have they reflected on the ruinous effect, on the fatal certainty, wherewith it would extend and sorely aggravate the poverty of our land — were the whole wealth of the country turned into one undiverted and undivided stream towards the object of relieving it. And it marks, we have often thought, not only a sound discrimi- nation on the part of our first Christian teachers, but their wisdom, the reach and comprehensiveness of their wisdom in the foresight of consequences — that, while every positive sanc- tion is given by them to the virtue of liberality, they have not left it unassociated with the prudence and the principle by which all its exercises ought to be guarded. The refusal of the twelve apostles to continue their services in the distribution of the com- mon fund for the poor, and that because of the better services by which they were occupied, evince, not their disinterestedness alone, but their enlightened judgment, in that they thought it a far higher walk of benevolence to instruct the poor than to re- lieve them. In striking and remarkable contrast with this is the conduct of Paul — who, while his brethren in the ministry refused to join in the work of distribution, because of its en- croachment on the peculiar business of their apostleship, he made large encroachment thereupon, by mixing with the labours of an apostle the labours of a tent-maker, and so working with his own hands rather than that he should be burdensome. And this he did, we are told, that he might be an example to others, in being able to say that with his own hands he had ministered to his own necessities. There are some who appear to look on alms-giving as the highest exercise of charity ; but here we are most impressively told, that a higher charity still is to teach the people to be independent of alms-giving. The same lesson is reiterated by Paul in his correspondence with the churches. u If any refuse to work, neither should he eat.” “ If any pro- vide not for his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” Nothing can be more obvious than his con- tempt for money, or rather, his contempt for the sordid affection of covetousness — when he urges on every possessor of wealth its 278 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE best and most rightful application, whether at one time for the relief of the poor saints, or at another for the expenses of the ministry of the gospel. But there is withal so much of manly sense, and so little of weak sentimentalism — such an equal and impartial dealing with all ranks, charging the rich that they should be ready to distribute and willing to communicate, charg- ing the poor to be industrious and contented, and if possible, independent of charity — such a care lest his infant society should suffer from the contaminations of that hypocrisy which would u make a gain of godliness” — such a preference for that system of helping the poor, which teaches them, by their own exertions and economy, and good conduct, to help themselves — in a word, along with the tenderness, the undoubted feeling which prompted his benevolence, such a power and predominance of wholesome judgment in all his ministrations of it — as bespeaks, not only the enlightened moralist, but the enlightened political economist also. In the directions given by him for the management of the pauperism of these days, there is the profoundest insight both into motives and consequences — insomuch that, from the epistles which he has left behind him, we might draw a system of rules and principles, which, though the product of so early and rude an age, might not only serve for the guidance of parti- cular churches, but is of best possible adaptation to the general and complicated society of modern times. This adaptation is of itself an argument for the wisdom of Christianity ; and it amounts to a miracle, when we connect it with the first teachers of Chris- tianity, and think of a wisdom so singular, so original, in the mind, whether of the tent-maker of Tarsus or of the fishermen of Galilee. 9. But in these days there occurred questions of still greater perplexity, in the solution of which Paul discovers a sagacity and a soundness of principle still more marvellous. We would instance his deliverance on marriage,* which he permits as an indulgence, but prescribes not as a duty — a sentence in which many of our household moralists, and many even of those eco- nomists who devise for the wellbeing, not of a family, but of a kingdom at large, would not altogether sympathize. We would instance also his sound decision on the question of slavery*]- — unlike, we do think, to the headlong, the precipitate zeal of many modern philanthropists, when he enjoins on the children of a hapless servitude, both respect for their masters, and an acqui- escence in their state, but a preference withal for a state of en- * 1 Cor. vii. 7 , 17, 28, 32-35. f 1 Cor. vii. 21-24. TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 279 largement, which, when it may be had, he tells them to “use it rather.” But on no occasion does he evince a wisdom that looks more like the wisdom of inspiration, than in his treatment of certain peculiar questions which arose from the admission of the Gentiles into the Church of Christ, and their consequent union with the Jews in one and the same society. There is nothing to be more admired in Paul than the skill, even the dexterity, wherewith he unravels the casuistry of these questions — not of broad and obvious principle, but all the more delicate and dif- ficult of management, that they related altogether to certain minuter observances of meats, and ceremonies, and days. It is impossible to withhold our homage from the superior and en- lightened way in which the apostle treats these questions of in- differency with the command of a master, whose own conscience had strength and enlargement enough for either alternative — but, at the same time, with the tenderness of a fellow-Cbristian which prompted the utmost respect and forbearance for the scrupulosities of other and weaker men. He had a difficult part to act between Jews and Christians, in being all things to all men — not, it is quite palpable, for any end of selfishness, but for the sake of the furtherance of the gospel. It is thus that he who fought so manfully for the exemption and privileges of his Gentile converts, would not himself eat flesh while the world standeth, if it wounded the conscientious prejudices of a brother or made him to offend. In the exercise of his apostolic wisdom, he was called upon to give sentence on many of these points of lesser observation ; but he always did it so as to sustain Chris- tianity in all its characters of greatness, to vindicate and mani- fest it as being a religion not of points, but of principles. And accordingly, w T hen he recommended compliance in these matters of insignificance, he did it on a clear principle — the principle of charity. And w'hen he contended for liberty, it was on a prin- ciple alike clear — even that of an enlightened piety which holds the obedience of the heart, as consisting of love to God and man, to be the alone indispensable obedience. If one regarded a day, enough if he regarded it unto the Lord. If another regarded not the day, enough if to the Lord he did not regard it. We have long thought that there is an identity of principle between these solutions of the apostle, and the solutions which should be given now on certain indeterminate and not very determinable ques- tions, that exercise, and often agitate and perplex, the minds of Christians in the present day. We mean those questions which 280 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE respect the precise style and circumstantials of Sabbath observa- tion, as well as the precise degree in which the true disciples of Christianity might externally associate with the world, or take part in its companies and amusements. It were well to irradiate all these topics with the light of great and unquestionable prin- ciple — that, instead of degrading Christianity into a system of petty exactions urged with senseless and intolerant dogmatism, it might sustain throughout the character of that wisdom which is justified u of its children.” Now Paul accomplished this service in his wise and right adjustment of the controversies of that period. He both accommodated to the Jews to the utter- most possibility, yet rescued the gospel from the littleness, the puerility, of narrow and illiberal Judaism. When men pass from one extreme to another, they betray, in general, a like unqualified vehemence in both. But when Paul, brought up in the straitest of the sect of the Pharisees, passed from this yoke of bondage to the liberty wherewith Christ had made him free, he was not transported thereby into any unbridled or un- manageable ardour of this sort. He partitioned the matter aright between the prejudices of the old and the privileges of the new economy ; and the utterance of his temperate yet decided judg- ments, while it bespeaks the enlargement, bespeaks also the guidance and the restraints of inspiration. 10. This reasoning might be prosecuted further. Other examples might be given in detail, of high wisdom and principle, not humanly to be expected in the state and circumstances of the apostles — and which, therefore, as bordering on the miraculous, or perhaps as fully realizing this character, might well be pro- posed as distinct credentials for the divinity of the New Testa- ment. But the morality of the gospel might be viewed in another light, than merely as an exhibition on the part of its messengers — approving themselves to be singularly, and perhaps, supernaturally gifted men. It might be viewed in immediate connexion with God — or held as a demonstration, at least as a likelihood, of having proceeded from Him, with whose character it is in such full and marvellous accordance. For that system of virtue which recommends itself to the consciences of men, must also recommend itself to their notions of the Godhead. The chief argument of nature, as we have already attempted to prove, for the character of the Divinity, is the character of that law which has been graven by His own hands on the tablet of our moral nature. That to which we do homage in the syStem TKUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 281 of virtue, is also that to which we do homage in God as the living exemplar of it — and on the principle that Himself must be adorned by the virtues which He has taught us to admire. It is thus that we personify the ethical system into a Being ; or pass from the character of the law to the character of the Law- giver. We fully esteem and accredit God as author of the law of conscience ; and should it correspond with the law of a pro- fessed revelation, more especially if it be a revelation by which the conscience itself has been greatly enlightened and enlarged, do we recognise the probability at least, if not the certainty, of its having come from God. 11. But we can imagine more than this. We can imagine a reader of the Bible to be visited with the resistless yet legiti- mate conviction, amounting to a strongly felt and immediate sense that God has spoken to him there — insomuch that he feels himself to be in as direct correspondence with God uttering His own words to him, as with an earthly friend, when engaged in the perusal of a letter which he knows to be the authentic pro- duction of him from whom it professes to have come. It may be difficult to convince those who have never thus been visited by any such direct or satisfying revelation, that there is no fancy or fanatical allusion in the confidence of those who profess to have been made the subjects of it. And yet they may be helped to conceive aright of it by certain illustrations. Those Jews who heard our Saviour and testified that He spake as one having authority, had at first hand an argument for His divine mission which they could not adequately survey or explain the grounds of to another. The officers of the Sanhedrim, who were sent to apprehend Jesus, yet refrained from touching- Him, “because,” as they reported, u never man spake like this man,” had also an evidence, which, however powerfully and warrantably felt in their own minds, they could not, by any statement, pass entire into the minds of other men. The centurion, who was present at the crucifixion of the Saviour, and who, from what he heard and saw of the tone, and aspect, and manner of the Divine suf- ferer, testified that surely this was the Son of God — may have received, through the vehicle of his senses, a deep and a just persuasion, which yet by no testimony of his could be borne with full effect, and so as to give the same persuasion, to those who were distant from the scene. And in like manner, the men who were not able to resist the spirit and the wisdom wherewith Stephen spake, may have felt a great deal more than they could 282 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOB- THE tell — yet not a groundless or imaginative feeling, but a rightful impression, which it would have been well if they had acted on, that he spake with the truth and authority of an inspired man. In all these cases, we admit the possibility of such tokens having been exhibited, as might give to the parties who were present a strong and intimate persuasion, not the less solid, that it was only felt by themselves and incommunicable to others. The solitary visitant of some desert and before unexplored island, has as good reason for believing in the reality of the scenes and spectacles before him, though no other eyes ever witnessed them but his own. And so, too, in the person of a celestial messenger, there might, for aught we know, be such real though indescrib- able symptoms of the character wherewith he is invested — such undoubted signatures of wisdom, and authority, and truth — such a thorough aspect of sacredness — such traits of a divinity in every look and every utterance — that, though not capable of being made the subject of a public argument, or of being re- ported to the satisfaction of others, might nevertheless awaken a most honest and homefelt and withal sound conviction in the hearts of those who were the witnesses of such a present and personal manifestation, and who themselves saw with their eyes and heard with their ears, what they could not make other un- derstandings than their own to conceive. 12. Now the question is, Whether those characters of truth and of power, which we now imagine to have been in the oral testimony, might not have been transplanted into the written testimony — or whether that palpable evidence embodied in the personal history, and in the words of our Saviour as He spake them upon earth, and of which the hearers took immediate cog- nizance, might not be fixed and substantiated in the Bible that He left behind Him, and be there taken immediate cognizance of by the readers of the Bible. Certain it is, that th e prima facie evidence, the first aspect of that verisimilitude which lies in the obvious sacredness and honesty of Scripture, is greatly bright- ened and enhanced by our intent and our prolonged regards to it. The man who devotes himself in the spirit of a thorough moral earnestness to the perusal of Scripture, feels a growing homage in his heart to the sanctity, and the majesty, and the authority which beam upon him from its pages — and in more conspicuous light, and with more commanding effect, the longer that this holy exercise is persevered in. And the question recurs — Might not this growing probability grow into a complete and TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 283 irresistible certainty at the last? Might not the verisimilitude ripen and be confirmed into the full assurance of a verity ? If in the course of actual experience it be found, that we do meet with daily accessions to this evidence — how are we to know that there is not as much of the evidence in reserve, as shall at length overpower the mind into a settled yet sound conviction, that verily God is in the Bible of a truth ? It is no condemnation of this evidence, that, only seen by those who have thus reached their way to it, it has not yet come within the observation of others who are behind them, who have not given the same serious and sustained attention to the Bible, or not so much made it the book of their anxious and repeated perusals — nor their right understanding of the book, the subject of their de- voutest prayers. It is true, the resulting evidence is of that personal and peculiar quality, which cannot be translated in all its proper force and clearness into the mind of another — yet may it be a good and a solid evidence notwithstanding — as much so as the ocular evidence for the reality of some isolated spot which I alone have been admitted to see, and which no human eyes but my own have ever once beheld. The evidence is not at all weakened by this monopoly. To myself it is every way as satisfying and strong as if thousands shared in it. At least, irrespective of them, the conviction on my own separate and independent view of the object of the question, may have been so perfect, as to require no additions. Yet, if not an addition, there is at least a pleasing harmony in the experience of men, who have been admitted to the view along wdth me. We might be strengthened and confirmed by our mutual assurance of a reality in things unknown to all but ourselves, and which to the generality of the world abide in deepest secrecy. And such too the sympathy, such the confirmation felt by 44 the peculiar people,” in their converse with each other. They are a chosen generation, and have been translated out of darkness into the marvellous light of the gospel — each having the witness within himself, yet all prizing the discovery, when, on talking one with another, they find the consistency and the oneness of a common manifestation. 13. No explanation of this evidence will convince the unini- tiated. But it may assist them to conceive of it — nay, to acqui- esce in its possibility, perhaps even in its probability, or still further in its truth — though a truth which they individually have not been permitted to behold. Yet we see not how they 284 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE can approximate to the true understanding of it, unless they are told of the revelation made to the mind of man by the Spirit of God — although it be a revelation to which they are yet strangers. Yet they cannot fail to have read the intimations of such a pro- cess in the Bible — of u men translated out of darkness into mar- vellous light ” — of u things hidden from the wise and the prudent yet revealed unto babes” — of the “day dawning, and the day- star arising in the hearts of those who were making diligent search after the doctrine of their salvation” — of “ eyes being opened to behold the marvellous light contained in God’s law” — and, finally, of “ God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shining in the hearts of men, and giving them the light of His own glory in the face of Jesus Christ.” There may be to them a felt mysticism in these various passages — yet they are the passages of a book, the argumentative evidence of which many of them have studied, and been satisfied therewith. This higher, this transcendental evidence, they may not have shared in. Yet perhaps some general notion could be given of it ; and even they might be taught in part to apprehend w 7 hat they have not yet appropriated. 14. It is of capital importance for those who are strangers to this evidence, and perhaps are suspicious of its fanaticism and folly — it is of capital importance for them to be told, that the Spirit, in revealing truth to the mind, reveals only the things which are contained in Scripture. He tells us, not of the things which are out of the Bible ; but he tells us of the things that are in the Bible. He sheds a light on the pages of the Word. He opens the understandings of men, but it is to understand the Scriptures. He opens their eyes, but it is to behold the things contained in this book. The design of His internal revelation, is to make the things of the external revelation visible. They are the previous objective realities of Scripture in wdiich He deals ; and, though His be in one respect a new revelation, yet the great purpose of it is to cast a light over the stable and in- dependent truths of the old revelation. When He takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us, He but shows us the things of Scripture, or the things which the Scripture tells of Christ. Each man on whom He operates is made the subject of a distinct manifestation ; yet He does not tell a different Christianity to each, but the same Christianity to all — for the Christianity which He has graven on the hearts of those to whom He has imparted the gift of spiritual discernment, is a precise TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 285 transcript of the Christianity previously graven on the pages of the New Testament. At this rate there might be no fancy, no fluctuation, in the Christianity of these men — for they are all made to behold the same things ; and both the doctrine which they believe, and the morality which they are taught to practise, may be tried by a reference to the same standard, even the standard of the law and of the testimony. And Scripture is still' the abiding test-book of their Christianity — for, whatever the pretensions of these men, if they speak not according to the things that are written in this book, there is no truth in them. And as there is nothing precarious in their doctrine, neither is there aught precarious in the evidence upon which they have received it. One can imagine a hundred-fold strength given to the faculty of distant vision, on which the features of a remote landscape, now beyond the perception of the natural eye, might start into sure and satisfying revelation ; and what we should thus behold would not be an illusion, but a solid reality, and on the best of all evidence, even that of ocular demonstration. And one can also imagine a hundred-fold strength given to the faculty of minute or microscopic vision — on which the arcana of a hidden region, now beneath the perception of the natural eye would come into view, and still on the same evidence of ocnlar demonstration. And thus, too, we might imagine of the Spirit of God, whom it is not for us to limit as if we indeed compre- hended the whole of His way — that He gives to the mind of the inquirer, to the eye of his intellect, a powerful and penetrating discernment into the matters of Scripture ; and that he is made in consequence to behold a character of majesty and sacredness, and to hear a voice of authority which tells him irresistibly of God. Whether such signatures of the Godhead as these be actually in Scripture, or what the things to be discerned are which lie in reserve for our discernment there, can only be told by him who has the faculty of discernment, not by him who wants it ; in like manner, as the objects of a telescopic region can only be told by him who has the enlarged vision of the telescope, not by him who possesses but the limited vision of the natural eye. Certain it is, that if such tokens of the divinity exist in the Bible, and it is by an augmentation in the visual faculties of the mind that we are enabled to behold them — there might be as much reason and philosophy in the convictions of those by whom the truth as it is in Jesus is spiritually discerned, as there is in the confidence of the astronomer, when he tells of 286 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE the satellites of Jupiter; or of the naturalist, when he tells of the atoms and animalcules that are beneath the ken of our un- aided eyesight. The reader of the Bible, when thus gifted, might have as legitimate an assurance of the new meaning he is now made to behold — as, with only his old faculties, he had of the mind or meaning of any ordinary author.* The very pro- cess whereof he is conscious in his own mind, and by which he has been ushered into this new and impressive manifestation of the Deity, adds a peculiar evidence of its own to that of the out- ward manifestation itself ; and rivets still more the conviction, that the same God, who thus supernatu rally teaches him to un- derstand this Bible, is verily in the Bible of a truth. 15. It is thus that the veriest babe in natural knowledge might be made to perceive God in the Scriptures, and there be revealed to him things hidden from the wise and the prudent.-J- When, in virtue of this spiritual revelation, the scales are made to fall from his eyes — he might recognise, in the sentences which the Bible gives forth, the divinity of Him who utters them, di- rectly announcing itself to be the voice of God clothed in majesty. Yet he is informed of nothing but what the Word tells him ; but to his mind, now opened and clarified, it tells what it never told before ; and he can now say with him in the Gospel, whom a miracle had cured, “ I was once blind, but now I see.” In the whole of this wondrous record, from first to last, from the patri- arch and prophets of the Old to the apostles of the New Testa- ment, he descries throughout the purity and the wisdom and the sustained loftiness of the Godhead. As in personal converse we might recognise at once both the dignity and wisdom of him to whose spoken language we are at the time giving ear — so, in the perusal of written language, the same attributes might be discernible ; and be so enhanced as to impress on the awakened reader, the sense and the rightful conviction that God Himself had broken silence. He feels it to be the language not of earth, but of heaven’s august sanctuary. The evidence of this in the Bible beams direct upon him from its own pages ; and, how- ever difficult or perhaps incapable of analysis it may be, this hinders not its being his rational and well-grounded faith — when * “ We cannot conceive how reason should be prejudiced by the advancement of the ra- tional faculties of our souls with respect unto their exercise toward their proper obj ects ; which is all we assign unto the work of the Holy Spirit in this matter ” — Dr. Owen, On the Spirit. t Matt. xi. 25. TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 287 to him the reading of Scripture is an act of felt and immediate fellowship with God. 16. This evidence, however distinctly felt by him who is the subject of it, or who has had the experience of its manifestation, it is extremely difficult to speak of discursively or to the satis- faction of others. Dr. Owen, in his treatise on “ the Divine original authority, self-evidencing light, and power of the Scrip- tures, with an answer to that inquiry, How we know the Scrip- tures to be the Word of God,” has with all his efforts failed, we think, in describing to others, what we have no doubt he genu- inely experienced himself — and so leaves the subject in great obscurity. Our own Halyburton, whose book on Deism in reply to Lord Herbert,* and whose little tract, or u Essay concerning the Nature of Faith, or the grounds upon which it assents to the Scriptures,” place him in a high rank among our philosophical theologians — is the most successful expounder of it whom we have yet met with. In this latter performance, the running title of which is an u Essay concerning the Reason of Faith,” he controverts the opinion of the rationalists on this subject, and especially of Mr. Locke, in his book on the Human Understand- ing. The following are a few extracts : — “ This impre^, those characters, prints and vestiges of the infinite perfections of the Deity, that unavoidably must be allowed to be stamp’d on, and shine, not merely or only or principally in the matter, but in that as spoken or written, and in the writings or words, in their style, the spirit running through them, the scope, tendency, &c. This Osocrgs-TTs/a or God-becoming impress of majesty, sovereignty, omniscience, independence, holiness, justice, goodness, wisdom, and power, is not only a sufficient and real, but in very deed, the greatest objective light and evidence imaginable. And where one has an understanding given to know Him that is true, and is made thereby to entertain any suitable notion of the Deity, upon intuition of this objective evidence, without waiting to reason on the matter, his assent will be carried, and unavoid- ably determined to rest on it as the highest ground of assurance. And this assent founded on this impress of the Deity in His own Word, is indeed an assent of the highest degree. And thus far * “Natural Religion insufficient, and Revealed necessary to man’s happiness in his present state ; or, A rational inquiry into the principles of the Modern Deists,” &c. ; by the Rev. Thomas Halyburton, Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews. He flourished at the beginning of the last century ; and is author of a most valuable practical work — “ The Great Concern.” 283 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE faith resembles our intuitive knowledge, with this difference, not as to the manner of the mind's acting, but as to the ability whence it acts ; that in our intuitive knowledge, as Mr. Locke, and those of his opinion, restricts it, the evidence or objective light is such as not only is immediately without reasoning dis- cern'd, but such as lies open to, and is discernible by our un- derstandings, without any subjective light, any work of the Spirit of God, either repairing disabled faculties, or elevating and guiding them to the due observation, or fixing their atten- tion, or freeing their minds of the power and present influence of aversion of will, disorder of affections and prejudices that ob- struct the discerning power. Whereas this is really necessary in this case, and though the objective evidence is great, and still the same ; yet according to the greater or lesser degree of this assistance, our assent must be stronger or weaker, more fixed or wavering. u When this objective evidence is actually observant to, and under the view of the mind thus enabled, disposed, and assisted, there doth arise from it, and there is made by it, an impression on the whole soul corresponding thereto. The beaming of God's sovereign authority awes conscience. The piercing evidence of His omniscience increases that regard, the view of goodness, mercy, love, and grace operates on the will, and leaves a relish on the affections, and this truly resembles sensible evidence, tho' it is of spiritual things, and of a spiritual nature ; nor is it, as it is evidence, inferiour to, but upon many accounts preferable to that which results from the impression made by sensible ob- jects. And this, as was observ'd of the former, is also greater or less, according and in proportion unto the view we have of that objective light above mentioned. This self-evidencing power is a resultancy from, and in degree keeps pace with that self-evidencing light. “ This light whereby the written Word evidences itself unto the minds of those who have spiritual ears to hear and apply them, is nothing else, save the impress of the majesty, truth, omniscience, wisdom, holiness, justice, grace, mercy, and autho- rity of God, stamped upon the Scriptures by the Holy Ghost, and beaming or shining into the minds, of such persons upon their hearing or perusal, and affecting them with a sense of these perfections, both in what is spoken, and in the majestick and God-becoming way of speaking : they speak as never man spake ; the matter spoken, and the manner of speaking, has a TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 2S9 greatness discernible by a spiritual understanding, that satisfies it fully, that God is the speaker. And all the impressions of God’s wisdom, faithfulness, omniscience, and majesty that are stamped upon the matter contain’d in the Scriptures being convey’d only by the Word, do join the impressions that are upon the Word, and strengthen the evidence they give of their Divine original, since these impressions do not otherwise appear to our minds, or affect them, than by the Word. The Word — by a God-becoming manifestation of the truth, that scorns all these little and mean arts of insinuation, by fair and enticing words ; and artificially dress’d-up argumentations, with other the like confessions of human weakness, that are in all humane writings — commends itself to the conscience, dives into the souls of men, into all the secret recesses of their hearts, guides, teaches, directs, deter- mines, and judges in them, and upon them, in the name, majesty, and authority of God. And when it enters thus into the soul, it fills it with the light of the glory of the beamings of those per- fections upon it ; whereby it is made to cry out, 4 The voice of God, and not of man.’ ” 17. But we can imagine certain minds to be unsettled, if not repelled, by the whole of this contemplation. Many may feel that, instead of bringing the subject nearer, it has in truth dis- tanced them from Christianity. They could apprehend the ra- tional evidence for the truth of the gospel ; and perhaps rejoiced as they were trying the strength of it, in the solidity of that ground upon which they were standing. But they have no taste and no understanding for this spiritual evidence— nor can they at all sympathize with those men of another conformation who seem regaled in the study of it, as if by a splendour and a rich- ness to them incomprehensible. To them it appears like the substitution of an imaginary for a real basis — the quitting of a firm vantage-ground, with no other compensation for the loss of it, than a certain visionary and viewless mysticism in its place. They refuse, therefore, to enter on this impracticable region ; or to entertain at all that shadowy argument which, to the eye of their intellect, has exceedingly bedimmed the question, and put it on an elevation, which, be it sound or be it fanciful, they regard as being hopelessly and inaccessibly above them. And so they incline to keep by the position which they at present occupy, and to attempt nothing higher — leaving this adventurous flight to others, but satisfied themselves with the more palpable reasonings of Leslie, and Littleton, and Butler, and Lardner, and Paley. VOL. VI. T 290 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE 18. Our first reply to this is, that they do not set aside the rational, when they enter on the consideration of the spiritual evidence, or when they attempt in their own persons to realize it. They need not forego a single advantage which they have gained. The spiritual evidence does not darken or cast an uncertainty over the rational evidence — no more unsettles, for example, the historical argument for the truth of the Christian religion, than it unsettles any of the demonstrations of geometry. If by this new opening they do not feel themselves led forward, and so as to make a nearer approximation to the truth than before — they most assuredly are not thrown back by it. The argument from prophecy does not obscure the argument from miracles ; and as little does the moral or spiritual .evidence which we are now attempting to unfold, obscure either the one or the other of these arguments. The validity of one species of reasoning does not depend on the validity of another species which is altogether distinct from it. The more transcendental light of which we have just spoken, leaves all the other and lesser lights precisely where it found them. They discharge the same function as heretofore. The pleadings of the very authors on the deistical controversy, whom we have quoted, remain as good as ever; and if we are not admitted by them into the glories of the inner temple, they one and all of them have at least strengthened the bulwarks of the faith. 19. But moreover. What ought to abate the formidableness of this evidence (regarded by them as if it were a secret of free- masonry and only for the initiated), and make it less repulsive in their eyes, is, that, however lofty and remote from every present view and vision of theirs, there is a series of patent and practic- able steps by which they and all others might be led to the per- ception of it. There is one most obvious principle, clear of all mysticism, and which they will not refuse — that if once con- vinced on rational, or on any evidence, of the Bible being indeed a message from the God of heaven, it is their urgent, their im- perative duty to read that Bible ; or, after having studied and been satisfied with the credentials of the book, now to explore with all docility and labour the contents of the book. There is another principle of an equally elementary character which they cannot refuse to admit, and should not refuse to act upon — that, however strange and transcendental the light of spiritual Chris- tianity may appear in their eyes, they have at least a light of conscience within them which they are bound to follow, so as to TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 29 i accompany their devout and diligent reading of the Scriptures with the most faithful observation of all which this inward monitor tells them to be right, and as scrupulous an avoidance of all which it tells them to be wrong. Thus far they walk on a plain path ; and there is but one suggestion more, which, if theirs be indeed an honest respect for the authority of Scripture (as sufficiently vindicated to their apprehension on the ground of its argumentative and literary evidence alone) they will not shrink from — and that is, the obligation as well as the efficacy of prayer, and of prayer for other and higher manifestations of the truth than they have yet been permitted to enjoy. They surely do not imagine such to be the fulness and perfection of their knowledge, that there is no room in their minds for any further enlargement or further illumination. Let us then sup- pose them to have actually entered on this process — a most care- ful perusal of His Word— a most careful and conscientious doing of His will as far as is known to them — and withal, most earnest prayer for the visitation of that light which they have not yet reached, but now most honestly aspire after. We think that the truth of Scripture may be perilled on the result of such an enterprise; and that, because its own declarations will either be verified or disproved by it. For here are men willing to do the will of God ; let us see whether they will not be made to know of Christ's doctrine that it is of God.* Here are men keeping the sayings of the Saviour; let us see whether He will not manifest Himself to them in such a way as He doth not unto the world. ^ Here are men making a conscientious use of the light they have : and let us see whether in their history there will not be the fulfilment of the saying, that to him who hath more shall be given.J Here are men giving earnest heed to the Word ; let us see whether the promise will not be accomplished, that the day shall dawn and the day-star arise in their hearts. § Here are men seeking intently, and with all earnestness seeking ; let us see whether or not the declaration of the Saviour will come to pass, He that seeketh findeth.|| Here are men, while in the busy and anxious pursuit of that truth which is unto salvation, con- forming their walk, as far as in them lies, to all the lessons of piety and righteousness ; let us see whether the glorious assur- ance will not be realized, that To him w r ho ordereth his conver- sation aright I will show my salvation.^ Such seems then to be * John vii. '7 t John xiv. 21 f xxv. 29 . § 2 Pet. i. 19. I Mutt. vii. 8. T r Psalm 1. 23. 292 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE the economy of the gospel. It has an incipient day of small things,* which, if not despised but prosecuted aright, will ter- minate in a day of large and lofty manifestations. It takes its outset from the plainest biddings of conscience. It has its con- summation in the things of the Spirit of God, which the natural man cannot receive, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. It begins with that which all may ap- prehend, and all may act upon. It ends with that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the hearts of man to conceive ; but which God reveals by His Spirit, even by the Holy Ghost given to those who obey him.-j- He is quenched, He is grieved, He is resisted by our despite of Him and of His suggestions — or, which is every way tantamount to this, the despite and disobedience done by us to the suggestions of our own conscience. Were we faithful to the lesser light,, the larger would at length shine upon us. Did we hunger and thirst after these higher revelations of the gospel, then their glory and their fulness would at length be ours. This is the constitution of things. There is a connexion established be- tween disobedience and spiritual desertion — u He who hateth his brother is in darkness/’ j And there is a connexion between obedience and spiritual discernment — u The path of the upright is like the shining light, which shinetlf more and more unto the perfect day.”§ The every-day virtues of the gospel form the steps of that ladder by which we ascend to the mystic glory of its full and finished revelations. The moral is the conductor to the spiritual. Conscientiousness in practice leads to clearness in theology. “ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” || “ He meeteth him that worketh righteousness.”^ “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house ? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily ; and thy righteousness shall go before thee : the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.”** u If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the * Zech. iv. 10 f 1 Cor. ii. 9. 10. ♦ 1 John ii. 11. § Prov. iv. 1& 11 Psalm xxv. 14. Isa lxiv. 5 . *'* Isa. lviii. 6-8. TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 293 afflicted soul ; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day.”* 20. Now this should reconcile men to the alleged mystery of these higher communications, should soften or rather do away their offence and prejudice against it, when Christianity thus consents to be put upon its trial. However inconceivable or inaccessible the glories of its inner temple might be deemed, it is truly a plain and practicable avenue which leads to them. That is no uncertain sound which the trumpet giveth forth, when the gospel makes its first intimations, and sets those who are obe- dient to its call on that progressive way, which leads to the dis- covery of things beyond the ken of nature, and which only a light from the upper sanctuary can make manifest to the soul. It is true, that there are things revealed unto babes, and hidden from the wise and the prudent ; but this is because they want the docility of babes. They have not been initiated into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, because they have not been converted and become as little children. *J- They do not sit to the book of revelation, as Newton did to the book of nature, with the modesty and teachableness of him who felt that he had all to learn. They have been alike unobservant of the wisdom of true philosophy, and the piety of true Christians ; and so have renounced not their lofty imaginations, nor brought every thought of their hearts in captivity to the obedience of Scripture. J It is thus that their contempt for the higher mysteries of the gospel will be found to resolve itself into contempt for the plainest of its lessons. It tells them how to wait and work for spiritual illumination, yet they did not act — it tells them how to seek for it, yet they did not pray. They admit the authority of the book ; but they refuse its sayings. It is because of its rational evidence that they admit the authority ; and it is because they refuse the sayings, that they remain contemptuous and ignorant of its spiritual evidence. They are strangers to that which is recon- dite, because, traversing even their own principles, they have not made a faithful use of that which is obvious. Theirs will be a palpable condemnation — that the clearest dictates of their own conscience, the clearest intimations of the Word acknowledged by themselves to be divine, have been alike disregarded by them. 21. That evidence for Christianity which is seen in the light of the spirit, though called a mystical, is in truth a moral evi- dence. By all the Scripture testimonies which we have quoted, * Isa.lviii. 10 ] Matt, xviii. 3. *2 Cor. x. 5. 294 ON THE MORAL EVIDENCE FOR THE it is an illumination which begins and brightens onwards along the pathway of a moral obedience — advancing step by step from the lesser to the greater light, but through the conscientious use of the smaller being followed up, under the virtuous administra- tion of the gospel, by the larger manifestation. When looked to in connexion with God, who in every individual case originates the process, it may be regarded as the fruit of His grace and sovereignty. When looked to in connexion with man, who un- dergoes the process, it may be regarded as the fruit of moral earnestness and prayer. Whether viewed in the history or in the results of it, it gives the impress of a thorough moral cha- racter to the economy under which we sit — that the fulfilment of duty should thus lead the way to the fuller comprehension of doctrine — or that by the desires and the labours of an honest aspiring conscientiousness, that channel is opened by which the light of heaven is let in upon the soul. The system under which knowledge is thus made to arise in the train of righteousness bespeaks the essential righteousness of its author, and is so far an evidence of its having come from the all-righteous God. But this evidence, grounded on the nature of the process which leads to the spiritual revelation, is distinct from the more latent evi- dence that lies in the things which are revealed — in the linea- ments, now made obvious, of an authority and a sacredness and a wisdom and a truth which serve immediately to announce the Godhead to an awakened and illuminated reader of the Bible. And in the event itself of his being thus awakened, in the fact or the fulfilment that has taken place in the history of his mind, there is a third evidence, as distinct from the two former as the miraculous is from the moral evidence. The event viewed his- torically, or as an event, has in it indeed somewhat of the cha- racter of a miracle ; but, to estimate fully its argumentative force, we must view it not merely in the light of a moral, but of an experimental evidence for the truth of Christianity.* 22. The spiritual evidence of Christianity does not supersede the use or the importance of its rational evidence — which dis- charges the same function in the revealed, that the incipient light in the minds of all men does in the natural theology. If the first suggestions of conscience respecting a God lay us under the obligation of entertaining the topic and prolonging our re- gards to it — so the first evidence that we obtain for the Bible, as a message from God, lays us under the same obligation of pondering * See the next Chapter TRUTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 295 its contents, and of making honest and faithful application of them. A larger illumination, in the one case, as to the evidence for natural religion ; and, in the other, as to the evidence for the religion of the gospel, will be the fruit of both these exer- cises. It is not the historical or the literary evidence for the truth of the Bible which Christianizes the philosophical inquire]'. But it should lead him to read the Bible, and to go in quest of that evidence by which he is Christianized. Neither those cre- dentials of the book which gain the assent of the philosopher, nor that precognition of the book which is taken by the peasant, are able of themselves to work that faith which is unto salva- tion. They fall short of awakening such a conviction as this in the breast of either — but they form like imperative claims on the attention of both. And it is in the train of this attention, earnest and prayerful and persevering, that the effective mani- festation comes, by which the soul is turned from darkness unto light ; and, as the fruit of this earnest heed to the word of the testimony, the day dawns and the day-star arises in the heart. The evidence lies in the Word. It is the entrance of the Word which gives light unto the simple. It is the Word which is a light unto his feet, and a lamp unto his paths. Whatever ori- ginated the attention at the first, however diverse the points from which the peasant and the philosopher have taken their respective departures — both must arrive at the same landing- place, and both must submit to be tutored by the same evidence at the last. The manifestation of the truth unto the conscience is made to each in the same way ; and there is a common pro- cess by which they arrive at their common Christianity. CHAPTER III. ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. The moral may b£ distinguished from the experimental evidence for the truth of Christianity thus. In the former, we look altogether to that which is objective — for the evidence is elicited by our comparison of one objective thing with another. The moral system contained in the Bible is clearly an objective matter of contemplation — presented to the mind in an outward volume, and made present to the mind in the act of perusing it. The abstract system, or the system of virtue as regarded accord- 290 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ing to our own natural and anterior notions of it, may be viewed also in the light of that which is objective — as separate from the mind, and distinct from any of those facts or phenomena of which the mind is the subject. It is true, that the system of virtue in the Bible rectifies our own previous notions of it ; and, by its enlightening effect upon the conscience, tends to assimilate more closely the ethical system of revelation -with the ethical system of our now better-instructed human nature. At length, instead of the likeness, we come to feel the identity between these two ; but this, instead of lessening the objective character of our contemplation, makes it more singly and strongly objective than before. When we make a study of Scripture, we immediately, and without any feeling of comparison, recognise the purity and perfection of those moral characteristics which enter into its ethical system ; and so pro- nounce it worthy of having proceeded from the God who is at once the fountain and the exemplar of all righteousness. 2. And this objective nature of the things which engage our attention is fully sustained, when, instead of looking to the virtues of Scripture as the component parts of its ethical system, we look to them as embodied in the character of the Godhead. There is an evidence grounded on the accordancy which obtains between the representations in the Bible and our own previous notions of the Deity ; and still more, when these notions are rectified by the Bible itself, to the appearance of w'hich book in the world, we indeed owe the now purer and more enlightened theism of modern Europe. Still, when comparing God as set forth in Scripture with God as seen in the light of our own minds, we compare the objective with the objective ; and this character is if possible enhanced, when, instead of recognising the likeness, we recognise the identity, and feel immediately, on our perusal of Scripture, that God himself is* speaking to us, or that we are engaged in close and personal correspondence with God. It is when God thus announces Himself as present to us in the Bible, in His own characters of holiness and majesty, that this self-evidencing light is seen in its brightest manifesta- tion. A simple uneducated peasant, when his eyes are opened to behold this, takes up immediately with Scripture as a commu- nication from heaven — -which, viewed altogether objectively by him, and without any reflex view of what passes within himself, makes direct revelation of its own divinity to his soul. 3. But though in the study of the moral evidence the mind is FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 297 altogether engaged objectively — it is not so in the study of the experimental evidence. Of the two parts of the tally which are here brought into comparison, the one is objective and the other subjective. It is on the accordancy between the sayings of Scripture and the findings of conscience that this evidence is chiefly founded — between the statements or proposals in the book of revelation on the one hand, and the facts or phenomena of our own felt and familiar nature upon the other. Yet to pre- pare us fully for a judgment on the experimental, we must at tend to things connected with the moral evidence also. When the Bible, for example, affirms the great moral depravation of the human character — to meet this by an independent judgment of our own, we must be able to pronounce, not only on what man is, but on what man ought to be. In other words, there must be a conscience or moral faculty which takes cognizance of the right and the wrong, as well as a consciousness or faculty of internal observation which enters into the penetralia of our own bosom, and takes cognizance of the desires and the affec- tions and the purposes that have their being and operation there.* 4. That men possess, and that natively and universally, the faculty of conscience, or that faculty which takes cognizance of and makes distinction between the morally good and evil, is palpable to all observation. This faculty or power is in fact met with throughout all the members of the human family. Under all the varieties of light and obscuration, and with allow- ance for every modification of sentiment — still there is a general sense of right and wrong that is characteristic of our species — a feeling of approval and complacency associated with the former — a feeling of shame and dissatisfaction and remorse associated with the latter. This peculiarity of our nature obtains in all countries, and among all the conditions of humanity. Whatever the practice may be, there is a certain truth of perception as to the difference between good and evil everywhere. There is a law of rectitude to which in every nation, how degraded soever, a universal homage is yielded by the sensibilities of the heart — however little it may be yielded to by the practical habit of their * It is unfortunate that, in the use of language, the terms of conscience and consciousness are not kept as distinct from each other, as are the mental faculties which they express, and the provinces on which it is the part of these faculties respectively to expatiate. Con- sciousness has been strictly enough appropriated to its legitimate meaning; but conscience has been indiscriminately applied both to questions of right and wrong, and to questions which respect the actual state of one’s own character. 298 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE lives. In a word, there is a morality recognised by all men — imprinting the deepest traces of itself on the vocabulary of every language, and marking the residence of a conscience in every bosom — insomuch that, go to any outcast tribe of wanderers — and, however sunk in barbarism, if we tell them of right and wrong, they will meet the demonstration with responding and intelligent sympathy. We do not speak to them in vocables unknown. There is a common feeling, a common understanding betwixt us — one ground of fellowship at least, on which the most enlightened missionary from Europe might hold converse with the rudest savages of the desert. 5. But again, this conscience, this sense of morality, does not exist alone in the heart. It is more or less followed up by a certain sense or conception of some rightful sovereign who planted it there. The feeling of a judge within the breast, is in no case altogether apart from the faith of a judge above, who sits as overseer upon the doings, and as arbiter of the destinies of men. The moral sense does not terminate or rest in the mere abstract relations of right or wrong ; but is embodied into the belief of a substantive being, who dispenses the rewards that are due unto the one, and inflicts the penalties that are felt to be due unto the other. It is this which gives rise to the theology of conscience, more quick and powerful than the theology of academic demonstration — not so much an inference from the marks of design and harmony in external nature, as an instant suggestion from what is felt and what is feared within the re- cesses of our own bosom — because leading by one footstep from the felt supremacy of conscience within, to the feared supremacy of a God, the author of conscience, and who knoweth all things. It is a mistake to imagine of this theology, that it is not uni- versal, or that any degree, whether of ignorance or corruption, can wholly obliterate it. It was not stifled by the polytheism of Greece and Rome. Neither is it extinct, as may be seen by their invocations to the Great Spirit, among the tribes of the American wilderness. In short, wherever men are to be found, there is the impression at least, of a reigning and a righteous God. When utterance is made of such a Being, even in the darkest places of the earth, they are not startled as if by the sound of a thing unknown. There is a ready coalescence with the theme — and as he speaks of God, and sin, and vengeance, there is a felt harmony between the conscience of the savage and the sermon of the missionary. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 299 6. But there is a second faculty concerned in this matter of the experimental evidence, even the faculty of internal observa- tion. Conscience, in the sense that we have just used it, is that faculty by which cognizance is taken of the good or the evil desert of conduct in general. But conscience by the use of language has obtained a meaning more extended than this. It is implicated with the faculty of consciousness ; and so is made to take especial cognizance of one's own character, of one's own conduct.* One man is said to speak to the conscience of another, when he speaks to the independent sense or knowledge which the other has of the state of his own heart and his own history. And certain it is, that never do we feel profounder veneration for any wisdom, than for that which searches and scrutinizes among the arcana of one's own nature, and comes to a right discernment thereupon. The man who can pronounce aright upon my character, and accurately read on this inner tablet the lineaments which I know to be graven there — the man who offers .to me the picture of what I am ; and I behold it to be at all points the faithful reflexion of what I feel myself to be — the man whose voice from without is thus responded to by the echo of conscience or of consciousness within — the man who can awaken this inhabitant of my bosom from his slumbers, and make him all alive to the truth of such a representation as he now perceives but never before adverted to — to such a man we render the homage due to an insight and a sagacity so marvel- lous.* And at length, to border on our argument, this sagacity we might conceive enhanced into a discernment supernatural. It might amount to such a divination of the secrets of the heart, as nought but the interposal of the Divinity can explain. It might announce itself to be a higher wisdom than any upon earth, to be wisdom from above — and so draw the very ac- knowledgment which the first teachers of Christianity drew, to whom when an unlearned hearer listened, he was judged of all and convinced of all — and thus were the secrets of his heart made manifest ; and so, falling down on his face, he worshipped God, and reported that God was in them of a truth. 7. After these prefatory and general observations on the ex- perimental evidence, we may now resolve it into three leading particulars— -viewing it first as an evidence grounded on the accordancy which obtains between what the Bible says we are, * We have no doubt that the term is comprehensive of both these senses in Scripture - when mention is made of the manifestation of the truth unto the conscience. ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE and what we find ourselves to be — secondly, as an evidence grounded on the accordancy between what the Bible overtures for our acceptance, and what we feel ourselves to need — and third, or most strictly experimental, as an evidence grounded on the accordancy between what the Bible tells of the events, and the changes, and the advancements which take place in the mind of an exercised Christian, and what this Christian realizes in his own personal history, in the process which he actually de- scribes, and the transitions from one state and one character to another which he actually undergoes. 8. I. The first thing then that might draw the regards of the inquirer to such a volume, and ultimately draw from him the acknowledgment of a felt conviction in its divinity, is, the in- sight which it manifested into the arcana of his own spirit — the perceived accordancy which obtains between what it said that he was, and what he felt himself to be — the marks, wherewith it abounded, of that shrewd and penetrating sagacity which can pronounce on the mysteries of the human character; and to which testimony from without, there is the echo of a respondent testimony from the conscience which is within us. There is no authorship so interesting as that which holds up to the reader the mirror of his own heart ; and no wisdom to which we yield the homage of a readier admiration, than to that which can look through the deeds and the disguises of men. Now it is conceiv- able, that the volume in question might stand distinguished from all other authorship, by its profounder and more penetrating discernment into all the lurking places of our moral economy — so superior indeed to everything else of human authorship upon the subject, that, by this superiority alone, it might recommend itself to be superhuman. To the man who can find his way among the penetralia of my bosom, and utter himself aright as to the thoughts and the passions and the purposes that hold the mastery there — to such a man we should readily award the credit of a very high and powerful intelligence. Now one can figure, at least, the proofs of such an intelligence to be so multi- plied, as to pass upwards from what we have experienced of the intelligence of a man, to what we conceive of the intelligence of a God. Were a prophet to stand before us, and, laying claim to a heavenly inspiration, were he to divine, and with unexcepted accuracy, all the thoughts of my heart and all the circumstances of my past history — this miraculous achievement would recon- cile us to his pretensions. Now this very power and property FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 301 of divination, that snch a gifted messenger from on high mani- fests in his oral testimony, he could transfer to the written testi- mony that he left behind him, for the instruction of distant ages — and thus what we should hold to be a satisfying evidence of his commission, were he alive, and did he address us in person, might be conveyed from his words to his writings, and compose a book which should announce in perpetual characters to all future generations, the high original from which it had de- scended. 9. A merely human author might recommend himself both to the confidence and the admiration of those who study him, by the reach and the penetration of that sagacity, wherewith he finds his way among the hidden yet the felt and conscious inti- macies of the human character. Now this sagacity might be evinced by amauthorship that professes to be divine, in a degree so marvellous — there might be so minute, and varied, and scru- pulous an accordancy between its representations of our heart, and the responses given to them by that faculty within, which takes cognizance of its feelings and processes — the voice that is without may be so accurately reflected or echoed back again by the still small voice that issueth in whispers from the deeply- seated recesses of consciousness — as first to draw our regards towards a volume that holds up to observation such a picture of ourselves; and finally to decide our reliance upon it, as being indeed a communication that hath proceeded from a higher quarter than from any individual, or any party of individuals within the limits of our species. It is a conclusion, drawn from the correct scrutiny wherewith the author of this book enters among the arcana of the human constitution, and so pronounces of this microcosm within the breast, as to evince a superhuman acquaintance with its laws and its processes. This evidence is founded on the accordancy between what is in the book, and what is in the chamber of our own moral and spiritual economy. Our reading of the volume unfolds to us the one. The faculty of consciousness, aw T ake and enlightened, unfolds to us the other ; and the agreement between these two might be spread out and sustained in a way so evidently superhuman, as to evince that he who constructed the volume had a superhuman acquaintance with all the peculiarities, and the -wants, and the phases of that nature to which it constantly refers, and for whose benefit it was framed. To come in contact with this evidence, we do not need to range abroad over the -walks of a lofty or recondite scholar- 302 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ship. The whole apparatus that seems requisite for the impres- sion of it, is to be in possession of a Bible and of a conscience — and, with the readings of the one, to combine the reflections of the other. 10. There is one most notable example that might be given of this species of accordancy between what the book says that we are, and what we, should our attention be earnestly directed to ourselves and our consciences be prepared for an enlightened decision, must feel ourselves to be. We refer to the assertion that is so often repeated throughout the pages of this professed revelation of man’s total and universal depravity. It was a fearful thing, with this high pretence of the Christian message to a Divine inspiration — it was a fearful thing thus ^ commit itself to an affirmation, on which it stood liable to be confronted with the experience of one and all of the human. species. Had it spoken to us of distant things, in distant and by us unex- plored parts of the universe, it might have been safe from all the cross-examinations of those on whom it had made the high demand of their faith and their obedience. Of that remote and lofty region it may have told us many things, without the hazard of any effectual resistance on the part of those who had no con- trary experience of their own to oppose it. But when, in addi- tion to things that lie afar, and which it professes to have fetched from the upper sanctuary — it tells us of things that lie within the precincts of our own daily and familiar experience ; when, instead of bringing its informations from a land of dim- ness and mystery, it maketh averment in regard to such facts and phenomena as are accessible to all — more especially, when it ventures on the ground of a man’s own heart and history ; and proclaims to his face that such is the uniform character of the one, and such has been the uniform style and complexion of the other — when it speaks of that which is so near at hand, and stakes its credit on the affirmation of things within our own bosom, and that we therefore should intimately know. Then it comes under the ordeal of man’s severest judgment, because, while it hath mortified his pride, it hath laid itself open to the scrutiny of his most close and intimate observation. Man hath no antecedent knowledge wherewith to confront the messenger who fetches down information from the altitudes of heaven ; but he may be well able to confront him, when told of the things that lie within the grasp of his own consciousness — because all within the limits of his own moral and spiritual economy. He FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 303 may know, for example, whether he lives without God in the world. He may know whether or not there be such a thing as the fear of God before his eyes. It is a matter of fact that lies within the reach of his internal observation, whether the affec- tion he bears to the things that are made hath wholly dispos- sessed him of the affection he owes to Him who formed all and who upholds all. He might know, upon prior and independent ground, whether he be justly chargeable with all that foul and fearful guilt which the Scriptures have so boldly denounced against him. Had they restricted their information to the things of heaven that are without our reach, they might have claimed the deference of our entire understanding, and reposed on the strength of their external evidence alone. But they have touched furthermore on the things of earth that are within our reach, and, in so doing, they have made an appeal to the consciences of men — they have placed themselves at the bar of a human reckoning, where, if they are convicted of error, the fallacy of their high pretensions will be instantly exposed ; or where it may possibly be found that such is the marvellous truth even of their most singular and most startling affirmations, as to stamp upon this extraordinary volume the credit and the cha- racter of that divinity which it claims. 11. But, as in other examples, this part too of the subject- matter of Scripture has been turned into an objection against it. It is not to be told, how much of odium and resistance the affir- mation in the Bible, of the blight or the great moral degeneracy wherewith our species have been smitten, has had to encounter. Had it kept on the ground of vague and inapplicable generali- ties, the doctrine might have been tolerated as a harmless or even a plausible speculation. But it has not only made a sweep- ing and indiscriminate charge against humanity in the lump ; it has brought the charge so specifically home to each individual, it has sent it forth with an aim so pointed and so personal, that there is not any who can make his escape from it. While it has made broad and general accusation of all, it has also given such express and special direction of it to each and to every ; it has spoken so unsparingly and in such unmeasured terms even of the loveliest of our kind ; and-, without regard to the varieties of the better or the worse, hath lifted the stern denunciation that none is righteous, no not one, that all the righteousness which our nature can claim is as filthy rags, that the whole world is guilty before God, that all are the children of wrath, 304 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE that all are the heirs of damnation. It is truly not to be wondered at — it is a most natural reaction on the part of arraigned and vilified humanity — it is just the revolt that we should have expected, and expected too from those of her chil- dren who were the loveliest in charity, or stood the most erect in the pride of their own native integrity and honour — when they shrink with veriest disgust from such a low and loathsome repre- sentation of our nature ; and are heard to exclaim against it as the hateful dogma of a theology the most unfeeling and barbarous. 12. We feel too, that, by such an averment as this, invasion is made on the province of man’s own natural and indepen- dent knowledge. It makes no transgression of its legitimate boundaries, wdien, on the question of the quid oportet , it claims a right of cognizance over both the terrestrial and the celestial ethics ; and, on the question of the quid est , though it has given up the celestial to the informations of a messenger from heaven, yet, on the terrestrial field, it hath a prior and indepen- dent observation of its own, and can lay its immediate hold on all the facts which lie within the confines of sight and of experi- ence. In virtue then of this ample cognizance which it is com- petent for it to take of the quid oportet , we should at least know what of duty we owe to the God who formed and who sustains us. And, in virtue of that more limited cognizance which we can take of the quid est , we may at least, one should think, venture so far as to jndge of our own hearts and our own lives, and pronounce upon the home question of fact — whether this duty be actually rendered. At this part of the investiga- tion, we stand upon that debateable ground, on which an ad- justment ought to be made, between the light of conscience and observation or the light of nature on the one hand, and the light of a professed revelation on the other ; and it is wholly impossible to avoid making reference to both. In this instance these two lights as it were cross each other, or rather, both have descended upon the same subject; and each hath given to it a special illumination of its own. They are like two witnesses who might be confronted either to their mutual discredit, or to their joint and honourable vindication. At all events, the one has uttered an affirmation in regard to a matter, upon which the other has an immediate eye; and, out of the discrepancy or out of the agreement between the utterance of the first and the find- ing of the second, we might draw a conclusion of highest im- portance to the claims and the credentials of both. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 305 13. First then as to the quid oportet of this question, the duty or the ethical relation that subsists between the creature and his Creator — let nature be called in to pronounce upon it, and by the light too of her own principles. Let her but attend to the complete sovereignty on the one hand, and the as complete subordination upon the other. Let her think more especially of man, upholden in the mechanism of his delicate and complicated frame work, by the care of an unseen but unerring hand — of that wakeful guardianship which never for one moment is inter- mitted, and is kept up for years together under all the thoughtless ingratitude of him who is its object — of the thousand circum- stances above all, of which the great and the living energy that is above us has the most perfect control, and, by the slightest defect or disproportion of any one of which we might be haunted all life long by the agony of a sore endurance — of the fact not- withstanding, that, throughout the vast majority of our days, there is perfect ease, and many precious intervals lighted up by positive enjoyment — of all the tenderness which this implies on the part of the Heavenly Father whose workmanship we are ; and who spread around us an external nature, that teems with adaptations innumerable, to the senses and the organs where- with He himself has furnished us. Let us only think that on His simple will is suspended the difference between our annihi- lation and our being ; and that, if by the withdrawment of His sustaining energy our heart should cease to beat or our blood to circulate, the change to each of us would be fully as moment- ous, as if all the lights of the universe were put out, and this earth and these heavens were swept away. Let us then think of this God, on whom we so wholly depend, calling for no other return, than the services of love to Himself, and of kindness to all the children of His family ; and, in the rendering of which, we advance to the uttermost the worth and the dignity of our own nature. Let us think too of God as a Being concerned in the morality of His creatures ; that He holds their virtue to be His glory, and their vice to be that nuisance upon the face of creation by which the high majesty of heaven is put to scorn. On these premises surely — on what we feel and know of the relationship between the thing that is formed and Him who has formed it, we might confidently say, whether aught can be named, that is a greater violence on the propriety of things, than the ingratitude of man to his Maker — or whether in all the records of jurisprudence any guilt can be specified, of more VOL. vi. u 306 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE deep and crimson dye, than the guilt of a careless and thought- less and thankless ungodliness. 14. So much for the u quid oportet ” — a question on which man can pronounce by his own moral light, even though it con- cerns the relationship in which he stands to those objects that are exalted above him, on the lofty and to him inaccessible region of the celestial ethics ; and then as to the “ quid est” of this argument — a question on which he may pronounce by the lights of memory and observation, when, as in the present in- stance, it is a question of fact, the materials of which lie near at hand on the surface of our terrestrial arena. The reply to this question glares upon us from the whole colour of our past history. There is a voice within the receptacles of the heart, that sends it in secret but impressive whispers to the ear of the inner man. It tells us, and with a power of moral evidence from which all escape is impossible, that we are aliens from God. It makes known to us, that a sense of the divinity is habitually absent from the mind ; and that, in the busy engrossment of all our faculties with the things of sense and of time which are around us, there is scarcely the recognition of a God all the day long. One man walks on a more elevated path of patriotism, of philanthropy, and honour than another ; but all of them w r alk in the independence of their own counsels. They have in truth cast off the authority of heaven, and it scarcely mingles any per- ceptible influence with the affairs or the occupations of men. Let there but be a correct analysis of human motives ; and, amid the exceeding variety of those which have a deciding ascen- dency over the spirit, we shall seldom, almost never, arrive at a simple devotedness to the will of the Maker. There is, on this subject, a very sore and unhappy delusion ; and that has veiled the actual truth of the question from the eye of observers. In the absence of all piety, there is still many an upright and hon- ourable motive bv which the breast may be actuated ; but it were an unphilosophical confounding of one thing with another, to allege these as any evidence of regard to a God, who, during the whole play and operation of these motives, is never perhaps thought of. There are divers principles, all of which may be good in their kind, and yet each of which may be distinct from the others. A sense of honour is good — instinctive humanity is good — the delicacy that recoils from aught that is unhallowed in word or in imagination is very beautiful and very good — the fidelity which spurns away all the temptations of interest is most FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 307 unquestionably good — the horror at cruelty ; the lively remem- brances of gratitude to an earthly benefactor ; the tenderness, whether of filial or of parental affection ; the constancy of un- alterable friendship ; the generous love of liberty ; the graceful sensibility that not only weeps over human wretchedness, but lavishes upon it of its succour as well as its sympathy — these are all so many features of the humanity wherewith we are clothed, and all of them are very good. But, as they are dis- tinct the one from the other, so may they be distinct from that which is strictly and essentially the religious principle. They may exist apart from piety. They might have all a dwelling- place in that heart, within the repositories of which, the prac- tical sense of God, or a principle of deference to His authority is not to be found. The man of native integrity is a nobler and a finer specimen of our kind, than the man of a creeping and ignoble selfishness. Yet the bosom of each may be alike de- solate of piety. And this is the universal charge which is pre- ferred against all the men of all the families of our species. It is not that all are destitute of benevolence or justice or truth — for this were experimentally untrue. But it is that all by na- ture are destitute of piety. It is not that the morality which reciprocates between man and man is extinct ; but it is that the morality which connects earth with heaven has been broken asunder ; and the world is now disjoined from that God, with whom it stood at one time in high and heavenly relationship. One might imagine the gravitation of our planet to the sun to be suspended ; and that it wandered on a strange excursion over the fields of immensity. Yet still it may bear along with it the very laws and processes, which, independently of the great central body in our system, now obtain within the limits of this lower world. It may retain, even in the darkness of its way- ward and unregulated course — it may retain its chemistry, and its magnetism, and the cohesion of its parts, and the attraction at least which maintains its own spherical form and binds the sea and the atmosphere and all that is around it to its surface. And so in the moral economy. There may be the disruption of our species from their God. The world they inhabit may have become an outcast from the region of the celestial ethics. The great family of mankind may have wandered from Him who is their Head. The affinity which at one time obtained between God and the creatures of this lower world may have been dissolved, and yet there may still be in operation, many a powerful and many a 308 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE precious affinity among themselves. There may be the recipro- cal play, even throughout this alienated planet of ours, of good affections and tender sympathies and many amiable and moral and neighbour-like regards. There is an earth-born virtue that will mingle with the passions and atrocities of the human cha- racter, and mitigate the else darker aspect of human affairs — and yet it may remain a truth, not merely announced by Scrip- ture, but confirmed by experience, that nature hath renounced her wonted alliance with the Divinitv, that the world hath de- parted from its God. 15. That indeed is a woful delusion by which the natural graces and virtues of the human character are pled in mitigation of its ungodliness. When beheld in their true light, they en- hance and they aggravate the charge. For what, after all, are these virtues? Who gave us the moral constitution of which they form a part and an ornament ? Who is it that causes the pulse of an honourable man so to beat in the pride of a high- minded integrity? Who poured the milk of human kindness into the economy of our affections ? Who is it that attuned the heart to those manifold sympathies by which it is actuated ? Who gave the delightful sensibilities of nature their play, and sent forth the charities of life to bless and to gladden the whole aspect of human society ? Who is the author of this beneficial mechanism ; and by whose hand has so much of this boasted loveliness been spread over the aspect of our species ? The very Being who pencilled all the glories of nature’s landscape, is the Being who strewed the moral landscape by all the graces where- with it is adorned. Each virtue, which serves to deck and to dignify our nature, is an additional obligation to Him who is the author of it. It calls for a louder gratitude to Him who has so liberally endowed us ; and therefore stamps a deeper atrocity on our ungrateful disregard of Him. These moral accomplishments are so many gifts, that only inflict the stain of a fouller turpitude on our indifference to the Giver, and make the state of practical atheism in which we live to be still more enormous. 16. We have already given an illustration of the moral by the natural philosophy.* In the latter science, we know how to distinguish the facts from the mathematics ; and we are per- fectly aware that the mathematics which avail for the terrestrial, avail for the celestial physics also. It is conceivable that every * See our “ Natural Theology,” Book I., chap. ii. art. 28-36. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 309 object of the celestial physics may somehow or other be shrouded from the discernment of our species ; that all which is known of the material heavens might pass into oblivion, and be beyond the power of ourrecalment ; that thus all the celestial of natural philosophy might vanish away from the sight and the remem- brance of men. This were the ruin of our astronomy ; but it would not be the ruin of our mathematics — all the principles of which would still abide in the world, and admit of the same application as before to the objects and the distances on the face of our earth. And so it is with the celestial in moral philosophy. There is a distinction to be made here too ; and the distinction is between the objects of the science and the ethics of the science. Here also it is conceivable that the objects of the heavenly region may be forgotten ; yet the ethics would remain, and continue to have an application to the objects of the earthly region. Just as there is a mathematics that would survive the extinction of astronomy — so there is a morals that would survive the extinction of our theology ; and as the mere existence of the mathematics bears no evidence to there being an astronomy, after that all the objects of this science cease to be remembered — so the mere existence of a morals bears no evidence to the godli- ness of man, after that God has ceased to be regarded by them. 17. But these considerations, however fit to be addressed to those who philosophize on the subjects of moral science, are vastly too general to be of any efficacy with the unlettered multitude. And therefore it is well that the delusion which we now endeavour to expose, is not the one by which they are most liable to be misled. They see the truth more in its nakedness. It is not so hidden from their view by the gloss of sentimentalism — nor in humble life, must it be confessed, do there exist so many of those graces and plausibilities of character which have served, but served most unjustly, to alleviate, among the higher classes of society, the felt guilt of their real and practical in- difference to God. This guilt, wherewith the book in question charges one and all of the children of humanity, it is found of the unsophisticated peasant, that he more willingly takes home than the votary either of imagination or of science. There lies, as it were, a more open and unobstructed avenue between the volume in his hand, and the conscience that lies within his heart ; so that the representations given by the one are more frequently and faithfully responded to by the echo of a consent- ing testimony on the part of the other. It is thus that the 310 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE evidence in question multiplies upon his observation, more than it often does on a reader of lofty scholarship and academic culti- vation ; and that whether Scripture tells him of the moral disease that is upon his spirit, or proposes to him its own remedy for the removal of it — there is a coalescence between all that he feels within himself, and all that he descries on the outer page of revelation. The very simplicity of his mind lays it open to a more correct impression of the external truth ; and his exemp- tion from the prejudices of taste and vanity and refinement favours a clearer discernment both of the matters that lie within the recesses of the inner man, and which are cognizable by con- science alone, and also of the matters that lie on the face of the world and of general society, on which even the homely and unlettered peasant is often known to cast an eye of most in- telligent observation. It is thus that, having access on the one hand to the volume of a profest revelation, and access on the other to the whole of that home territory which forms the scene or the subject of many of its descriptions, he has two sides of a comparison, from the one to the other of which, there might be a busy play and interchange between the readings of the book and the reflections of an independent consciousness. It is the sustained and the varied and the unexcepted coincidence be- tween the sayings of the volume and the findings of him who peruses it — it is this which constitutes the internal evidence on which we now insist. It is this which, even at the very outset of out inquiries, stamps a verisimilitude on this professed record of an embassy from heaven — a verisimilitude that we believe will, with every honest and persevering inquirer, be heightened at length into the impression, and that not a fanciful, but a most rational and well-warranted impression of its verity — so as to make stand out, even to the eye of our general population, such marks and characters on the face of the volume itself, as might palpably announce to them the divinity that penned it. 18. There is the philosophy of the subject as well as its poetry in the following beautiful lines of Cowper, when he compares the happier intelligence of a poor and an aged female with that of Voltaire — " She for her humble sphere by nature fit. Of little understanding and no wit. Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true, A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes Her title to a treasure in the skies. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 311 " O happy peasant, O unhappy bard — His the mere tinsel, her’s the rich reward. He praised perhaps for ages yet to come, She, never heard of half a mile from home ; He lost in errors his vain heart prefers. She safe in the simplicity of hers.” 19. It should be remarked, that, though in illustrating this branch of the experimental evidence, we confine ourselves to the affirmation which the Bible makes of human depravity, this is but one example of the accordancy which obtains between the statements of Scripture and the felt state of the human heart. The Bible is instinct throughout with this evidence — so that a reader, at once enlightened in the knowledge of himself and in the knowledge of that book which pictures man forth to the eye of his own consciousness, feels in the perusal of it a powerful and penetrating intelligence lighting up its pages. Even the one doctrine of man’s moral depravation is set forth, not nakedly and dogmatically like the article of a creed, but often with incidental touches of graphic and descriptive accuracy which awaken the most vivid recognition in the mind ; so that when telling in various ways of man’s alienation, of his “ living without God in the world,” of his “ not seeking after God,” of “ God not being in all his thoughts,” of his “ loving the creature more than the Creator,” of God being a “ wilderness and a weariness” unto him, of his “walking in the counsel of his own heart and after the sight of his own eyes,” of his “turning every man to his own way” — these sayings come home to consciences made alive, and serve to build up, at length to establish, the confidence of the reader, whose repeated observation of the Bible as an unfailing discerner leads him to submit to it as an infallible guide. 20. Even in the readings of ordinary authorship, when either a faithful picture is rendered of human manners, or a correct delineation is given of the human heart — how quick and vivid is our perception, of the likeness. To the voice of the witness from without, there is an instant echo given by conscience which is the witness in our bosom. The remarkable thing is, that in this way a skilful observer can make us recognise, and that immediately, what we have never adverted to before ; and what, but for him, might ever have remained among the un- noticed peculiarities of our own character. The truth is, that within the recesses of one’s own breast, there may lurk a variety of affections that are of daily and hourly influence, but of 312 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE which to this moment we have been wholly unconscious — having never once cast an eye upon them of reflex observation.* But on the moment that some sagacious acquaintance, or some pro- found and penetrating writer, hath by his shrewd remark directed our eye towards them — it is a remark the truth of which we may instantly recognise, and a flood of new light is made to break in upon the before unrevealed mysteries of the soul. This is what has well been called the manifestation of the truth unto the conscience — a manifestation that is instantly followed up by the consent of the inward faculty to the outward affirmations — which affirmations, we repeat, might be so varied, and reach so far among the recesses and profundities of the human constitution, and be so evidently beyond the compass of all human sagacity — that when actually either heard or read from without, and then responded to by the light of one's own con- science from within, they might impress, and most warrantably impress, the belief that they have proceeded from a sublimer and more searching intellect than any which is to be found among mortals here below. 21. Now what is the nature of those scriptural affirmations which conscience may try and may decide upon ? They relate of course to those matters which fall within the recognition of this faculty, or lie upon that territory over which its view is ex- tended. It is indeed a most peculiar averment on the part of the Bible, when it announces, and that without reserve or modi- fication, the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the heart ; when it predicates not of one mind but of every mind which has not been transformed by the influence of its own doctrines, that it is enmity against God ; when it casts abroad over the face of a world teeming with specimens of humanity, the charge that in each and all of these specimens we shall detect such a love to the creature as is exclusive of love to the Creator ; when, with the most unveering and unabating consistency, it charges a great moral and spiritual corruption on all the members of the human family — insomuch as to affirm that there is none right- eous, no not one, and that all are so much by nature the children of disobedience as by nature to be the children of wrath. On this particular ground, the Bible stands aloof from every compo- sition that has not borrowed from its own pages. We meet with nothing like it in the whole region of authorship. There is misanthropy we admit. There is the indignation of man against * See this further explained in our “ Natural Theology,” Book TV., chap, i., art. 3 and 4. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 313 his fellows. There are satire and severity and sentiment directed against the vices of society. There is the soreness of human feeling on the part of those who have been outraged of their rights, or mortified in their vanity, or driven to spleen and to solitude by some morbid peculiarity of temperament, and there find relief from their agitations by wreaking a wholesale contempt upon the species. There is the distempered eloquence of Rousseau, and there is the darkly vindictive poetry of Byron, and there is the biting irony of Swift, all arraigning the nature which they wear. But each is evidently asserting his own con- troversy. Each of them is avenging his own quarrel. It is not the ungodliness of man which forms any article of their impeachment against him. Theirs is all an indictment pre- ferred against men for their universal deceit and malignity, the one against the other; and, with such a tone of resentfulness too, as implies that they had felt themselves to be the sufferers. It is in the Bible alone where we see an indictment preferred against our whole species in the name of God. It is there alone where the universal charge is advanced, of departure and revolt against Him who made them. It is there alone, where, without any tincture from the soreness of wounded humanity, we meet with the grave and unimpassioned, and at the same time most decisive and persevering assertion of a great controversy, be- tween God and all that is human in this world's wide and peopled territory. It is there that, in the records of an embassy, the profest object of which is not to retaliate upon man by severe denunciation, but to reconcile him by the offers of pardon, he is charged with a sinfulness as universal among the individuals of his race as is the death which they have to undergo. It is not with the Bible as it is with the capricious judgment of man upon his fellows, who at one time pours forth upon them the vindictiveness of his injured feelings, and at another would clothe them in almost poetic excellence — ever changing his im- pression of the species with the varying hue of the individuals who pass before him ; and, under the impulse of his wayward imagination, vilifying or idolizing his own nature, just as self is affected by it. There is something which stands most mani- festly and separately out from all this in the one constant de- liverance of Scripture, which, without faltering, affirms this province of God to be in deepest rebellion against Him ; and that in reference to Him all have come under a curse, and all are dead in trespasses and in sins. 314 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE 22. Now for the manifestation of the truth of this word unto the conscience, it is not necessary that each should have a conscience for all ; it is enough that he has a conscience for himself. It is enough that each individual man carries home to himself what the Bible says of all men. What is true of all, is true of every ; and though each reader should retire within the chamber of his own separate consciousness, he will find materials there with which he can confront the Bible, and bring it to the test of a comparison between what it confidently says and what he cer- tainly knows. He will be able to convict this book of rash and ignorant affirmation, if, on consulting his own heart, he ascer- tains that it loves God ; or if, on reviewing his own life, he finds that he lives with God in the world ; or if, on reflecting upon his own tastes, he can aver that no created good has such charms for him, as has the Being from whom it all originated ; or if, on considering what the prospects are which chiefly engross and delight his imagination, he can say with conscious assurance that it is the prospect of a glorious eternity in Heaven, and not of some fair resting-place within the verge of our lower world. If these be indeed the habits of his nature, then has the Bible put itself into his power, and furnished him with a weapon by which he can disprove and may disown it. But if, instead of speaking against, it in every particular speaks with his intimate experience ; if, on entering the penetralia of his inner man, it there evinces itself to be indeed a most piercing and enlightened discerner ; if, on reading its pages, he is conscious all the while that he is reading the characters of his own soul, and is holding converse with an author whose eye and whose intellect has taken a correct survey of his moral constitution throughout all its hid- ing places ; if, through the consenting testimony of his own heart, every charge brought against man in the Bible is followed up by the conviction that of him at least, and of his heart it is true ; if he is sensible that he really is all that the Bible affirms man apart from the transforming influence of its own doctrine to be — that he lives without God and without hope in the world — that, unmindful of the desire of his Maker, he follows after the desires of his own flesh and his own mind — that, whatever the power may be of civil and natural restraints over his conduct, the direct authority of God has no presiding influence over him — that he neither seeks after his Maker, nor cares to understand Him — that he either dreads God or practically disowns Him, and at all events has no filial confidence or affection towards Him — FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 315 that self and sense and time are his idols ; and that God is too far removed in the distant heavens, and the ultimate enjoyment of His presence too far removed in the distant eternity, to be motives of any ascendency over the doings or the deliberations of his personal history in the world. If he read all this in the Bible, and conscience respond to it all in his own bosom, then might we not conceive such readings to be so multiplied, and such responses in every instance to be so accordant with them, as to stamp on this book all the credit of the inspiration which it claims. 23. There is no wisdom which so commands our reverence as that which evinces its discernment of man ; as that which can enter the recesses of the heart, and there detect all its lurk- ing and unseen tendencies ; as that by which our mysterious nature is probed and penetrated, and there are brought out, to the conviction of those who wear it, the lineaments which are actually thereupon engraven. We must all be sensible of the charm with which we have looked to a picture of human life, the fidelity of which we recognise ; and also of the homage we render to him who can shrewdly find his way through the am- biguities of the human character, and lay before us, in just delineation, the various feelings and principles which belong to it. There is no w r ay in which one man could earn from another the credit of a more marvellous sagacity, than by presenting him with a copy of himself that his own conscience told him was true to the original — and that, just in proportion to the number of the lines of resemblance that he introduced, and to the secrecy in which they lay wrapt from common or general observation. But in this way, is it possible to conceive, that the marvellous may rise into the miraculous ; and, instead of a skilful moralist, may he who thus anatomizes my mental frame and reveals to me its structure and its parts, impress me with the belief of a gifted apostle ; and whether I hear from his own mouth the divinations that he has practised upon me, or read it in the authorship that he has left behind him, may I be led to the very exclamation of those early converts to our faith, who felt that the secrets of their hearts had by their teachers been made manifest, and so they fell down upon their face, and worshipped God, and reported that God was in them of a truth. 24. There is a peculiarity which often belongs to the informa- tions of him who tells me that which passes within the limits of my own moral nature, which does not belong to him who tells 316 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE me of that which passes without the limits either of my con- sciousness or of my own personal observation. He who relates to me the things which take place at a distance, may relate such things as my eye never saw and my ears never heard of, and which, therefore, impress me with all the strangeness of novelties, in the truth of which I have no other ground of reliance than the testimony of my informer. He who relates to me the things which take place within the chambers of my own heart, may relate to me such things as I have often felt and daily continue to feel ; but they may at the same time be such things as I have always suffered to pass away, without remembrance and without observation. But it is very possible that the thing which I at one time felt, and then instantly forgot, and would have for- gotten for ever, may reappear upon the memory, the moment that I am told of it. An acquaintance may remind me of an event which took place on some past day of my existence, that but for his doing so would never again have been present to my thoughts, till the hour of my departure from the world. By a simple statement of the circumstances, he may bring up again to my most distinct and vivid recollection, that which had long sunk into the abyss of forgetfulness, and but for him might have remained there for ever. And what is true of a forgotten event in my history, is just as true of many of the forgotten emotions of my heart. A moralist may recall them to my notice, and I, upon his doing so, may instantly recognise them to have been my emotions ; and he may turn them into the materials upon which he an- nounces some principle or general law of my moral nature ; and I may be struck with this law as the accurately just expression of what I had often felt, but never till now had reflected upon ; and thus it is, that, while when the traveller relates what is beyond the range of my observation I may have nought to rely on but his testimony, when the moralist relates what passes in the busy receptacle of my own feelings, a thousand recollections may immediately start as it were from the slumbers of oblivion, and be vouchers for him that he is a true discerner. In one sense what he affirms is a novelty — for, though it be all about the daily and familiar processes of my own mind, yet they are such processes as I had never registered, but suffered all along to escape from my consciousness entirely. Yet in another sense, it is not a novelty— for now that he relates the mental feeling or mental operation, my own memory responds to the truth of it, and I now know to be true that of which I never before noticed FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 317 the existence — and, though I see in consequence what I never saw before, yet this is simply because I never looked upon it before — and, now that I do look upon it, I cannot fail to recog- nise it as the unregarded companion of many a former day, as the inmate perhaps of my hourly and most familiar experience. 25. Thus it is that one man may diffuse a light over the field of another man’s conscience ; and guide him to the dis- cernment of things which respect himself, and yet which he never before adverted to ; and attest of him what he has not once ob- served, but what notwithstanding he on the instant recognises to be true ; and by a succession of bare statements, may gain at every step upon his confidence — for, no sooner does the one relate than the other may recall ; and the affirmations of the former may be met by the inward responses of the latter ; and as the teacher draws, so to speak, the map of man’s moral con- stitution, the traces which had long faded away from the remem- brance of the scholar, may again come forth into visibility. It is thus that one man may not only tell to another such things as respect himself, and which he already knows — but he may also discover to him such things which respect himself and are daily present with him as he does not know. They are the things which he does neither notice at the time, nor remember afterwards — the fugitive sensations which pass through his heart in busy and perpetual career, to which he does not advert him- self, but which he would instantly recollect and recognise were another to advert to them. It is this which gives such a charm to the descriptive poetry of him who often pictures what all must have felt, yet never may have reflected upon — and which confers such an interest on the performance of one man, when he holds up to another man the mirror of himself — and which in- vests the philosophic sage who has made our common nature the province of his studious and skilful observation, with the credit of being a quick and a powerful discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart — one perhaps who can pierce and divide asunder his way through all the dormancies of another’s uncon- sciousness, and can awaken in the bosom of many a disciple such recollections as had been long asleep, and out of these recollec- tions can furnish each with his own image so as that he himself may recognise it. And thus, again, without any argumentative process at all, without inference and without logical demonstra- tion, but solely by judicious statements recommending them- selves and approving their own truth to every man’s conscience, 318 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE may new and sound and nlost important lessons of moral wis- dom be conveyed. 26. II. The second branch of the experimental evidence which we proposed to expound, lies in the accordancy between what the Bible overtures for our acceptance, and what we feel ourselves to need. Like the first it requires a comparison be- tween the objective and the subjective. Even previous to our contemplation of the overtures of relief, our felt need of relief could only have arisen from a regard had by us to both — that is, to the objective, when we think of the character of God the lawgiver ; and to the subjective, when we think of our own character as the subjects of His law. With our actual moral nature, we cannot escape from the impression of a reigning and righteous sovereign, who cannot be mocked, but whose authority, if trampled on, must be some way vindicated and maintained. On the other hand, we can as little escape from the conscious- ness of being defaulters to that high and holy government under which we sit ; and the most direct and palpable vindication of which were the condemnation and adequate punishment of the offenders. And thus a sense of our disruption from God, and of His displeasure against us may be said to haunt us continu- ally. It is true that, for the greater part of life, we live in a state of exemption from this sore disquietude — not however be- cause we have laid our confident hold on any relief or reconcilia- tion which has been authentically proposed to us ; but because, in the manifold engagements of the world, we have the faculty of committing the whole subject to oblivion, and can live at ease, simply because the thought of an angry God or of a coming vengeance is away from our hearts. It is not because we have made up the quarrel ; but it is when we forget the quarrel, that we slumber in the tranquillity of our deep and fatal unconscious- ness. When made fully awake to the realities of our condi- tion there is an unavoidable sense of necessity and of danger ; and, with even nothing but the theology of conscience brought home to the bosom of guilty man, there is enough to excite his fears in the apprehended frown of the God who is above him, in the anticipated terrors of the judgment which is before him. 27. On this subject conscience, when once made alive, gets the better of all those representations which are made of God, by the expounders of a poetic or sentimental theism. There is a dis- position to merge all the characteristics of the Divinity into one : FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 319 and while with many of our most eminent writers, the exuberant goodness, the soft and yielding benignity, the mercy that over- looks and makes liberal allowance for the infirmities of human weakness, have been fondly and most abundantly dwelt upon — there has been wdiat the French would call, if not a studied, at least an actually observed reticence , on the subject of His truth and purity, and His hatred of moral evil. There can be no government without a law ; and the question is little entertained — how are the violations of that law to be disposed of? Every law has its sanctions — the hopes of proffered reward on the one hand, the fears of threatened vengeance upon the other. Is the vengeance to be threatened only, but never to be executed ? Is guilt only to be dealt with by proclamations that go before, but never by punishments that are to follow ? What becomes of the truth or the dignity of heaven’s government — if man is to rebel, and God, stripped of every attribute but tenderness, can give no demonstration of His incensed and violated majesty? There is positively no law, if there be not a force and a certainty in its sanctions. Take away from jurisprudence its penalties, or, what were still worse, let the penalties only be denounced but never be exacted ; and we reduce the whole to an unsubstantial mockery. The fabric of moral government falls to pieces; and, instead of a great presiding authority in the universe, we have a subverted throne and a degraded sovereign. If the lawgiver in his treatment of sin is to betray a perpetual vacillation ; if at one time sin shall be the object of high-sounding but empty menaces, and at another be connived at or even looked to by an indulgent God with complacency ; if there is only to be the parade of a judicial economy, without any of its power or its performance ; if the truth is only to be kept in the promises of reward, but as constantly to be receded from in the threats of vengeance ; if the judge is thus to be lost in the overweening parent — then there is positively nothing of a moral government over us but the name. We are not the subjects of God’s authority ; we are but the fondlings of His regard. Under a system like this, the whole universe would drift, as it were, into a state of anarchy ; and, in the uproar of this wild misrule, the King who sitteth on high, would lose his hold on the creation that he had formed. 28. It is impossible to pursue this speculation into its conse- quences, without being shut up unto the conclusion, that there is indeed a moral government ; and, if so, that there is indeed a 320 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE law with its accompanying sanctions ; and again, if so, that guilt and condemnation, that sin and punishment, follow in the train of each other. Now what we complain of is, that, in the great majority of our writers on natural theism, while a moral government is admitted in the general, the doctrine is not at all carried out to its specific applications. There is nothing done to dispose of the palpable fact which glares so obviously upon us, that the rule of this government has been transgressed by every individual of the human species ; and that all, without exception, have become amenable to the high jurisdiction of hea- ven for their gross and repeated violations of it. Either this government, then, must resign its authority and honour ; or man is in that fearful dilemma, from which it deeply concerns one and all of us to know how it is that we can possibly be extri- cated. Now this is a question which the advocates of natural theism have scarcely ever offered to dispose of. By far the greatest number of them have blinked it altogether, or at least left it wholly unresolved. It remains with almost every one of them in the state of an unsettled problem ; and though both the character of God and the destinies of man are most esentially involved in it, yet if touched by any, it is with a very delicate and undecided hand. It is no vindication, that it lies not within the limits of their department. It is very true that it lies not within their limits in the shape of a doctrine. But it lies within their limits in the shape of a desideratum. They know as much both of the u quid oportet ” and the u quid est ” as to assure them of the conclusion, that all men have done despite to the authority of heaven — and the yet unresolved difficulty is, how can it consist with the truth and the unchangeableness of this authority, that the High and the Holy One, whose dwelling- place is among the sublimities of an unapproachable sacredness, how can He again look on His polluted creatures with compla- cency ? How, in a word, is the compromise to be struck between the mercy of God and the majesty of His government ; and in what terms shall that deed of amnesty be framed, which both provides an outlet for the Divine goodness on a sinful world, and inflicts not an irreparable blow on the other lofty and un- changeable attributes of His nature ? 29. It may not be for the expounder of moral science to find a positive reply to this question. He may not be in possession of resources for the solution of it : but there lie within his reach the materials for the enunciation of it ; and this enunciation he FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 321 ought to have bequeathed or handed over to the professor of the Christian theology. With the former it lies in the shape of an unreduced formula — a formula which he at least is able to con- struct, though not able to pass through the intermediate steps to the final resolution of it. Now it is the preparation of these formulae that appears to us the most important service which moral philosophy can render. It can collect the data for the construction of questions, and then present them for solution to the disciples of another and higher calculus. And how shall that God who hath both the truth of a righteous and the author- ity of a powerful sovereign — how shall He take sinners into acceptance, is just one of these questions. How, without the disgrace, and indeed the overthrow of heaven’s jurisdiction, can heaven ever be entered by those who have rebelled against the King who sitteth on its throne — this, it may not be the part of moral philosophy to pronounce upon as a doctrine ; but alto- gether its part to make it over as a difficulty to those who can resolve it. The error is, not that it has failed to make out the account. But the error is that it has closed the account, and so sends away its disciples with the impression of a sufficiency which it cannot realize. We do not require of it to put forth a physician’s hand to a disease which lies beyond the reach of its prescriptions. But we require of it as full and fair an exhibition as it can give of the disease. We charge it with having misled its votaries into a false and ruinous security — with having said peace when there was no peace — with the soft and the soothing whispers which it has given forth, when it ought to have sounded the trumpet of alarm — and, in the face of those intimations which even nature hath uttered of a fearful and unsettled controversy, with having suppressed every warn- ing of the danger ; and, by the lullaby of a delusive eloquence, having hushed all its votaries to sleep among the urgencies of an impending storm. 30. And it is further to be observed of this question, that, if left undetermined, it not only casts an ambiguity on the character of God in heaven, but it throws into a state of utter precariousness the cause of human virtue upon earth. The question is — if mercy shall be rendered at the expense of justice, at what point in the scale of moral worth or of moral worthlessness, shall the one attribute give way to the other ? If all have sinned, but in spite of this the mercy of God advances a certain way over the domain of humanity, it is a most natural, and we should think a VOL. vi. x 322 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE most needful inquiry — how far ? By what line are the outcasts of condemnation, to whom no forgiveness can be extended, sepa- rated from those who are within the confines of pardon and pity from on high ? The truth is, that, in the absence of all that is clear and all that is definite, every man will suit the reply to his own imagination ; or, what is likelier still, to his own convenience. The law of heaven will be brought down to a degrading com- promise with human corruption and human indolence. Each will make the adjustment for himself ; and, sinning just as much as he likes, will still figure that the indulgence of the God who knoweth our frame, and will make merciful allowance for all its infirmities — will be extended too to his own frailties and his own errors. The attributes of the Godhead will be made to play fast and loose with each other ; and so as to accommodate the standard of the Divine exactions to the ever-varying practice of men. There is a scale of moral worth that comprehends all the varieties of character in our world — up from the loveliest and most honourable of the species, down to those who are sunk in the worst excesses of profligacy ; arid, as none can say, at what point in this scale the momentous transition in question is situ- ated, each will determine it for himself; and so be able to com- bine the peace of his own spirit, with the full indulgence of all its waywardness. He will sin just as much as he likes ; and yet he will hope just as largely as his own fancy or his own wishes can carry him. He will give himself up to his own impulses in this world, and yet be as little disturbed by the prospect of another as if he fetched every practical impulse of his life from the will of Him who has the disposal both of his time and of his eternity. It is thus that a deep and fatal security hath spread itself over the face of our alienated world ; that men, even in the very midst of their rebellion, have no disturbance whatever from their fears ; that under ail the gradations of morality, even down to the malefactor’s cell, there is still a vague confidence in the mercy of God ; that they do not tremble under a sense of His justice, because they have confounded the attributes at their pleasure, and made the one to efface the character of the other. All is loose and obscure and indeterminate, under the lax ad- ministration of a law, whose sanctions have no fulfilment, whose threats have no significancy. This we hold to be the state of our academic theism, and a state the more dangerous, because of that seeming air of completeness and sufficiency wherewith she has finished off the ample round of her demonstrations. She FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 323 looks with all the complacency of having done a full and a finished achievement, and that without one utterance on man’s universal sinfulness — making no provision for the offended dignity of God in heaven, and no provision for the prostrate cause of godliness upon earth. 31. It is well that the conscience of man is often too strong, both for the lethargy of nature, and for the allusions of this sentimental theism. The soul of him who rightly contrasts the sacredness of the Divinity with the exceeding sinfulness of his own character, will not be so easily satisfied with the soft and flimsy representations which are often given of heaven’s cle- mency. His moral nature, now quickened into adequate sensi- bility, must be otherwise met ; and unless there be a revelation of mercy that makes full provision for the justice, anrl truth, and authority of the Godhead, he neither can view the Lawgiver as at peace with him nor himself as safe. 32. It is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and there alone, that he finds that precise counterpart which at once meets this diffi- culty and resolves it — a constitution of forgiveness which makes full exhibition of the Divine character, without any violation to the jurisprudence of the upper sanctuary, or any conflict and concussion between the attributes of the High and the Holy one who presides over it.* The atonement of the cross adjusts all, * So that beside the moral and the experimental, there is what may be called the doctrinal, as a branch of the internal evidence of Christianity — an evidence that results, not from the comparison of the objective truth with the subjective mind, but from the comparison of one truth or one doctrine of Christianity with another. The whole scheme, viewed objectively, may abound in those symphonies or adaptations of part to part, which might serve to re- commend it as founded in wisdom, or as having a real foundation in the nature of things. The resulting evidence might be illustrated in this way. We can imagine the human bearers of a professed message from some distant part of the universe, to report certain pecu- liarities of its astronomical or physical system, which prove that matter there is under a law of gravitation different from our own ; and yet that by a profound mathematics, each special phenomenon can be demonstrated to be a consequence of that law, which harmonizes all the separate informations, and gives consistency to them all. Let the apostles of such a revelation be simple ahid illiterate men, and palpably ignorant of mathematics — so as to make it obvious, that the distinct things which they tell could not have been educed by any reasoning process of their own. Then the dependence, the mathematical dependence of these things, argues that they must have received by information what they could not evolve by reasoning ; and the consistency which obtains in the matter of their revelation speaks for the truth of it. Now the same might apply to the agreements, the profound and ex- quisite agreements, which obtain between the parts of the spiritual system— too manifold* and perhaps too recondite, to have been devised by the messengers who have been the bearers of it — thus evincing the transcendental wisdom or truth from which it must have had, its rise. The doctrine of the atonement is far from being the only, though perhaps the most conspicuous, and certainly the most important exemplification of this — providing the freest 324 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE reconciles all. It is the intelligent view of this great mystery which lets in a flood of light on the mind of the beholder — as he discerns the impress of infinite love and infinite sacredness on that wondrous scheme, in the contemplation of which he finds all the misgivings of his own guilty nature appeased, and yet his reverence for the divine nature unbroken. 33. This much on the second experimental evidence for the truth of a professed revelation — the first being the accordancy be- tween the statements which are there made, and the felt state of the human heart. The second is founded on the accordancy between the felt wants of our nature, and the provision that is there intimated to have been made for them. Both serve to manifest a power of divination. By the one it proves itself a skilful diviner of our thoughts ; by the other, a skilful diviner of our necessities. Had we time to expatiate on this second argu- ment, we think it might be made palpable, that the hand of a God may be as directly inferred, from the adaptations which there are in the book of a professed revelation to the wants and the wellbeing of our moral economy — as from the adaptations which there are in the book of external nature to the wants and the wellbeing of our natural economy. If the beauty that regales the eye, if the music that charms the ear, if the food that ap- peases the hunger and sustains the else decaying body in health and vigour, if the many fitnesses of outward things to the senses and the convenience of man ; if on these there can be validly founded the conclusion, that the same God who constructed our material framework, may also be traced in the manifold congrui- ties of the surrounding materialism — then might there likewise be such a varied suitableness between the needs and the fears and the appetencies of man’s spirit on the one hand, and the doctrines or the directions of that volume which is addressed to him on the other, as to put the legible impress of a presiding and largest outlet for the divine mercy, and yet casting thereby a brighter radiance over the other attributes of the Godhead, and more especially over the divine holiness. The more intensely this is viewed, the deeper is the insight which it gives of Christianity, as a well- compacted system, that, instead of being devised by man, originated with Him who pre- sides over the harmonies, of truth and of the universe. The more that the understanding is illuminated to behold the truths of Scripture and their relations, the more will it appre- ciate the Bible as a well of hidden wisdom that is fathomless ; and the more will it perceive the siguificancy of the expression “ the unsearchable riches of Christ.” This doctrinal evi- dence is entitled to a distinct chapter by itself. But we must stop somewhere — for how- ever far we might prosecute the theme, we should still leave unfinished an argument that is in truth exhaustless. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 325 and an inspiring divinity upon its pages. Were full develop- ment given to this most interesting conclusion, we think that the evidence of a designing God may be made to shine forth as directly from His word, as it does from His works. And if we will only think of the vivid recognition, which even the most unlettered of our peasantry can take of his necessities and his dangers ; and also of the distinct intelligence wherewith he can lay hold of the simplicities of Scripture — we shall perceive that between the one and the other, he may have all the materials within his reach for the argument before us. Let us add to this consideration the principle upon which Dr. Paley holds anatomy to be a better sub- stratum on which to rear an argument for a God than astronomy. Let us think with him, that, within a narrow compass, the relations of fitness may be so crowded, as to give more intense proof of a divinity, than can the sublime but simple relations which obtain in the celestial machinery of the firmament— and then, perhaps, we may apprehend, how even the homeliest of our population, with nought but the Bible in his hand, and in his breast the microcosm of his own spirit, may nevertheless discern so many adaptations between the directions of the one and the desires or even diseases of the other, as to arrest him with the well-war- ranted conviction of the same divinity having been concerned in the formation of both. And it may not be the conceit of a fana- tical imagination, it may be sound and sober rationality — when, after the experience that this is the book whose informations have quelled his fears, and cleared away his perplexities, and lured him to the path of hopeful and progressive virtue, and renovated his whole character, arid brought him to peace with God, and poured health and holiness into all the recesses of his moral constitution — it may, indeed, be as valid an argument as ever philosopher has reared on the congruities of the external world, when, looking to the Word and to its manifold congruities with the economy of his own nature, he is riveted into the assur- ance that verily God is in it of a truth. 34. We may here again observe that the elementary truths of the Gospel are not like many of the truths of human science, in the pursuit of which w r e are carried onward by the stepping- stones of a long and successive, argument. They are brought forth, more in the w'ay of statement than in the way of demon- stration. And it is not through a train of reasoning that we gain for them the acceptance of a man’s understanding — but more speedily and directly through the manifestation of them 326 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE unto the mail's conscience. So that if this faculty be asleep, the intimations of the Gospel are unheeded ; and it is only when this faculty is awake, and the eye of the inner man is open to its own worthlessness, and sin is seen both in its deformity and its danger — that the tidings of salvation are apprehended to be true, and that, from the felt correspondence which there is between the offered remedy and the spiritual disease. But in order that this correspondence be felt, the disease must be felt — the mind must be so far recovered from its palsy, as to be recovered to a sense and a consciousness which really do not exist among the vast majority of this world's generations. And hence the vanity of all those logical and lengthened processes, which, though all triumphant on that march of investigation by which the studious inquirer is guided to a right conclusion on the questions of phi- losophy or physics or law, have never availed for the conversion of a human soul to the truth as it is in Jesus. That truth in fact often discovers itself to the mind of an unlettered peasant, on the bare intimation of it. There is a light which makes it manifest to his judgment, that may spring up immediately on the moment of its utterance ; and by which too he attains, not a fanciful, but a sound and just and solid apprehension of it. Just grant in his behalf an organ of discernment, so purified of all those obstructions which, in the shape of vain and carnal security, have blinded the perceptions of other men ; and he may see himself in the actual characters of guilt and ungodliness which belong to him. And if a man but see his deficiencies, then by a single glance of the eye may he also see, how the doctrines of the Gospel and these deficiencies fit to one another ; and thus, by an act of intuition, may a man without learning, but with a conscience simply awakened, be made to perceive what no erudi- tion and no elaborate contemplation of the articles of orthodoxy will make another man to perceive, whose conscience is unawak- ened. It is somewhat as if a fragment of anything was broken away from some mass of which at one time it formed a part. All the hollows and all the protuberances on the one surface, will be in a state of most accurate adjustment with the corresponding protuberances and hollows upon the other. But it is not by looking, however intently, to oije of these surfaces, that we shall come to ascertain the truth of this separation, or, if reunion be possible, the place at which the reunion should be made. It is not by the most strict and scientific measurement of the various angles and unevennesses which have been made at the place of FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 327 disruption, if we have only one side of the fracture to look upon. But if we have both sides to compare, the one with the other, ♦ we may, with the rapid inspection of a moment, perceive, what the labour of a whole life, expended on the inspection of one side, could not have enabled us to perceive. We may come at once to the belief, that here at one time a part was rent away — and this is the very fragment which has fallen off — and that on the rock from which it was detached, we behold its precise and certain counterpart — a conclusion to which we never should have come by the single contemplation of the precipice that is above us, but to which we come immediately, and as if by the light of intui- tion, on comparing it with the dissevered piece that is be- neath us. 35. There are many high and heavenly things announced to us in the New Testament. And there are earthly things too, such as the hidden things of the heart, for the full disclosure of which the eye of conscience must be opened, that we may perceive how truly it is that the Bible tells us of our wayward and wilful alienation from God — and how righteously therefore He may hold us in the light of everlasting outcasts from the place where His honour dwelleth. It tells us of a great disruption that took place between earth and heaven — and points out the way in which a connexion may again be established between them. We may look to these lofty announcements with the eye of scholar- ship. We may survey in all its parts and varieties that doctrine which has been brought forward to our view from heaven above — and even delight ourselves with the symmetry and the firm connexion of all its articles. We may weigh the import of every verse by the lexicon ; and, looking out on the face of the record, be the most skilled of all the theologians, in the system of truth which it unfolds to us. But that our Christianity should become a matter of home and practical exercise, instead of a matter of distant speculation — or rather, that, beside its doctrinal we may obtain a view of its experimental evidence also, we must look to one side of the disruption as well as to the other of it — and if by the eye of conscience we are made to see ourselves, while by the eye of a simple perusal we see the word of Him who hath spoken to us from heaven — then, as if by the light of immediate revelation, may w 7 e be made to recognise, in the adaptation which obtains between unaided nature below and that doctrine which is offered to our contemplation from above, that we indeed have broken loose from God ; but that this is the way in which 328 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE the old alliance between earth and heaven will again be cemented together. The conviction is imparted by what we see of the celestial part unfolded in the Bible, so tallying with what we know of the terrestrial part that lies in the recesses of our own conscience. This is a conviction which does not wait on the tardy processes of human criticism — and while the laborious commentator has gazed for years upon the record, and never felt the force of its personal application — the simple peasant who knows himself a sinner has found out the adjustments of Scrip- ture with all the moral and spiritual necessities under which he labours — and so, without one ray of guidance from the literature of the schools, does he rejoice in his Bible, and has embraced its promises, and believes and most rationally believes in its truth. 36. It is thus that where there is a sense of guilt, a bare statement may do and do immediately, what, without that sense, cannot be done by the most ingenious and well-sustained de- monstration. It is thus that the Gospel often finds a credence and an acceptation, when simply expounded among simple hear- ers who are practically in earnest, which is vainly attempted by a labouring and ambitious oratory among men whose fancies have been regaled, and whose feelings have been moved, and all whose reasoning faculties have been put on the play of their most congenial exercise while their consciences are in profound- est dormancy. Such men require a stream of argument or the flashes of imagery to keep them awake. The insipidity of a naked statement has no charms for them. Were it the state,- ment of their deliverance from that which they actually dreaded, they would feel an interest — but they have no dread, and there- fore it is that they seek for no deliverance. We stand in need of no literary attraction whatever, to secure a welcome admit- tance for the offer of a discharge from the debt which oppresses us, or of an unfailing cure for the disease under which we labour. But take away our personal interest from such a communication — let the subject of it be a scheme for the liquidation of the national debt, or an argument on the effect and virtues of a medicine — and that our attention may be engaged, there must be the exhibition of proofs and principles and processes of rea- soning. It is much in the same way that the doctrine of the atonement may either be argumented in the terms of scholar- ship, or it may be stated in the terms of a simple affirmation. The argument may be listened to and liked by men who feel no per- sonal concern, and therefore make no personal application. The FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 329 statement may lodge, and with the power of its own inherent evidence, in the bosoms of men, who see the lineaments of truth in a doctrine, which bears upon it so many traces of correspon- dence with the needs and the fears and the aspirations of a nature which they know to be undone. And thus it is that faith standeth not in the wisdom of man. That power of de- monstration which might make us converts to the philosophy that he expounds, will not make us converts to the Gospel that he preaches. Conversion to the truth as it is in Jesus, does not lie in the understanding being reached by a train of deductions ; but it lies in the conscience being reached by the naked asser- tion of the truth. To go and preach the Gospel is not to go and argue it, but it is to go and proclaim it. The bare proclama- tion of it has often been followed up by an immediate belief of it — and it may be so still. The mere utterance of what the gospel is, has frequently of itself prompted the firm conviction that the gospel is true. The moment that it was apprehended as to the meaning of it, has it bidden, by the authority of an evidence that was instantly and powerfully felt, an acquies- cence in the truth of it. There may be a something in the doc- trine without that so responds to the moral constitution within, and this respondency may be so close and so complete in all its adaptations, as to impress, and impress most rationally, the be- lief of its being a true doctrine. This is the grand engine of Christian proselytism. It is not we think either by wielding the arguments of subtle controversy, or by plying the analogies of skilful and varied illustration, that any effectual conviction is carried. It is by simply promulgating the doctrine, and con- fiding the acceptance of it to the way in which it meets and is at one with the knowledge that a man has of his own heart, and the sense by which he is touched of his own necessities. He cannot but award his confidence to a statement, which, however unaccompanied it may be with reasoning, reveals to him the intimacies of his own bosom — and thus it is that Chris- tianity commends itself to the acceptance of its disciples, not through the medium of lengthened argument or lofty erudition, but simply through the word brought nigh unto them and the manifestation of its truth unto their conscience. 37. III. The proof on which we are now to enter is more strictly entitled to the appellation of experimental than either of the two former. It differs from these very much as experience differs from observation. We are but engaged in the business of 330 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE observation, when attending to the accordancy which sits on the aspect of a professed revelation between what we perceive to be its statements, and what we feel to be the state of our own hearts ; and, in particular, when attending to the joint testimony given by conscience and by Scripture to the great moral depravation of our nature. And it is as much a work of observation, when attending to the accordancy w 7 hich obtains between the offered provisions of the gospel and the felt wants of humanity ; or, in particular, when attending to the way in which our natural fears of guilt are met by a remedy of most exquisite skilfulness — so that, while a free channel is opened up for the clemency of God to the most worthless of our kind — still the mercy thus lavished upon the world, instead of undermining that throne whereof jus- tice and judgment are said to be the habitation, is a mercy that serves to vindicate and exalt the w r hole character and perfections of the Deity. In both these instances we but take an observa- tion. But in the instance now to be given we undergo an ex- perience. An event takes place of which ourselves are the subjects, an event in our own moral and spiritual history — by which, no doubt, a new scene of observation is opened to us ; and we become the observers of an evidence that was before hidden from our eyes. But in the event itself there is an evi- dence, which of all others might well be denominated u experi- mental' 7 — that event being a change in our mental state which proves in a direct manner the agency of God, and carries in it His attestation to the truth of that Scripture which professes to have come from Him. 38. To understand the nature of this event, we may remark, that long before it has taken place, we may, if not convinced by the verity, at least be impressed by the verisimilitudes of the Chris- tian revelation. The most unlettered peasant, with no other elements than a conscience and a common sense, is capable of being thus impressed. And his attention may be powerfully interested long before his conviction has been gained — or long before he has reached that faith which is unto salvation. For anterior to this, he may feel all the urgencies of fear, and of de- sire, and of a strong personal interest in a question which involves the favour of God and the fate of eternity. He may long for the repose of settled convictions on the subject; and for this purpose may cast about for a more overpowering light and a more satisfying evidence than any which he has yet found, in the course of his anxious and repeated endeavours FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 331 after the solution of his everlasting destiny. It is very con- ceivable, that, as the Father of his spirit is the great object whom in all this process of desire and of strenuousness he is in quest of, he may, in addition to the perusal of that which claims to be His word, lift the aspirations of his soul towards Him for guidance and aid, in a pursuit which so deeply interests himself. In other words, he may add prayer to those other mental exer- cises by which he is labouring after the settlement of that ques- tion upon which hinges his eternity ; and it were interesting to know how the Christianity that results from such a process, instead of a reverie or a fanatical imagination, might be indeed the conviction of a manly and rational and enlightened piety. 39. We have already explained the way in which an answer to prayer may be given — and yet without violence to the opera- tion of any visible and secondary causes* — how the accomplish- ment that is wanted may be brought about, not against, but with the use of the ordinary means — how in this way neither a special providence nor the answer to prayer may imply any in- vasion whatever on the generality or the constancy of Nature's processes : and thus it is, that, if the object of our earnest and persevering entreaty, be a right belief and an adequate know- ledge of all that relates to the friendship of God and the well- being of our eternity ; the answer may be given, and yet not one sequence connected with the phenomena of the human under- standing be at all deranged or intercepted. More particularly, that sequence by which it is that a sound belief comes in the train only of a sufficient evidence, may be most fully and scru- pulously observed. And the terminating conviction, instead of some deceitful or visionary glare, may, in fact, be the result of certain manifested proofs, that could both be appehended by the intellect of the inquirer, and could be alleged and vindicated by him in the hearing of his fellow-men. 40. A miracle is an event that is at variance with the regular and ascertained processes of nature ; and the conviction which is thus awarded to an inquirer, in answer to prayer, is not a miracle. It is not borne in upon him like a resistless and inde- scribable impression. There is not the visitation of a preterna- tural light, or the whisper of a preternatural voice. It is not given to him like the prophetic inspiration of old — nor is there in it that gleam of illumination, which would almost assimilate the belief of a Christian to the spectral and superstitious fancy * See our “ Natural Theology,” Book V., chap. iii. 332 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE of those who take counsel of dreams, and are credulous of appar- itions. There is, we are persuaded, an efficacy in the humble prayer for light, of him who has been visited by a moral earnest- ness to do as he ought and to believe as he ought ; but just as the answer of other prayer is accomplished, not against the use of means, but by the use of means — so the belief that issues from the prevailing suit of him who hath mingled his prayers with his perusal of the word, is not a belief that is without the light of evi- dence, but a belief that is purely and legitimately the effect of it. 41. To be convinced how it is, that one may be made to be- lieve in answer to his prayer, and yet that the belief may be rational and upon evidence — let us only think of the effect, were a tenfold power given to the faculty of sight. Then a whole world of novelties, that had before escaped all notice, might at once be ushered into observation — new objects altogether, and new appearances and shades of colour in objects, that before, in a gross and general way had been quite familiar to us. New convictions of things would instantly spring up in the person who had thus been visited ; and, instead of any lack of evidence, it would be evidence at first hand — strong at least as that of ocular demonstration, and impressing a confidence upon the mind as well warranted as that which we repose in the intimations of our senses. There would on this supposition be the revelation of many new facts and new objects ; but our belief in their reality would be as distant as possible from a rash or misguided fana- ticism. It would be vision with the eye of the body, and not the vagary of a heated imagination at all. Neither would the belief now engendered, be the fruit of any new facts or pheno- mena, now for the first time brought near to him. It would be solely the fruit of a now clearer and more penetrating inspec- tion, cast by the medicated eye upon old objects. It would be the simple result of a look upon pre-existent nature, but of a look more powerful and perspicuous than we had ever been able to cast upon it before. 42. Now the same renovation that we have just supposed to take place on the eye of the body, may take place on the eye of consciousness — on that eye whose office it is, to look inwardly upon the tablet of the heart, and to take notice of the various characters and lineaments that are thereupon engraven. In virtue of our moral earnestness, and as the fruit of those efforts and of those prayers to which this earnestness hath given rise, some film of pride or of prejudice that had FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 333 before obstructed the view of our own character might now be cleared away. We might, in consequence, be now favoured with a reach of discernment that we never before had among the arcana of our own spirit. We see nothing that was not there before ; but we see what to us was invisible before. It is to the pre-existent nature within his breast, that he now looks to certain antecedent realities, from which the veil that was for- merly upon his heart is now taken away. Let the power of con- sciousness but be augmented ; and there is nought of phantasy whatever in those new truths which now address themselves to the faculty of internal observation. They are not new in respect of existence ; they are only new in respect to our knowledge of their existence — recognised by the mental eye now purified and made more powerful than before, and to the reality of which, therefore, we may have in every way as good evidence as we have to the reality of our own thoughts. 43. All this might take place, and as yet there be no evidence evolved in behalf of a professed revelation. But only let us conceive that the same mental eye which can now look with more full and accurate discernment on the internal tablet of the heart, can also look with better discernment than before on the tablet of a written record. Just let us conceive one of its own prayers to be answered — u Open mine eyes to behold the won- drous things contained in the Book of thy law.” We do not ask for any revelation of new things. We only ask for the power of a clearer discernment as to the things that are already written. Many of our general readers must be sensible of a certain re- pulsive obscurity, that overspreads, more especially, the doctrinal pages of the New Testament — a kind of mysterious or hiero- glyphical aspect, through the disguises of which they have not yet been able to penetrate — a most singular phraseology, alike remote from the language of common life, and from the language of general literature — a sort of obsolete and exploded nomencla- ture, that bears upon it the stamp of centuries, as unlike as pos- sible to the phraseology in which those truths are conveyed that command an intellectual homage from the philosophers of this lettered and cultivated age — an impracticable jargon, they may even feel tempted to call it, that is music to the popular ear, and behind which there lie certain recondite doctrines that can only be addressed with effect to the credulity of the vulgar or popu- lar understanding. This is the actual film of prejudice that obstructs the mental eye of many, the most enlightened in science 331 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE and in all liberal accomplishments. Now grant but the removal of this film, so that the weight and the significancy of such things as are written in Scripture, might become palpable to the eye of the understanding. In its own language, let the under- standing be opened to understand the Scriptures ; and still there is nothing perceived by the thus clarified eye of the mind, but such matters as were antecedently spread out on the field of this professed revelation. There might be nought of illusion and of imagination in this process ; and the only change of which the man is at ail conscious in reference to this book, is, that he now apprehends the sense of it — a matter of which he may have just as good title to be confident, as he has when altogether sensible whether he understands or not any of the compositions of ordi- nary authorship. 44. Now, let us attend to the effect of this simple change. If there be any truth in the first and second of the experimental evidences that we have attempted to explain, it will instantly make them manifest. For the purpose of being impressed by these evidences, there must be a comparison of two tablets — one the inner tablet of the heart, and the other the outer tablet of a professed revelation. If we have no distinct perception of either, then we have not the materials before us on which a comparison can be made. But suppose, that, by our increased faculty of vision, each becomes visible, and then the accordancy between them, if such an accordancy do really obtain, becomes visible also. The one might now stand forth to our newly enlightened discernment as an accurate counterpart of the other. And this perception, coming to us not in the train of any logical process of reasoning, not as the fruit of human argument or human ex- planation, but simply and directly from the more penetrating con- sciousness that we now have of our own heart upon the one hand, and from the more powerful intelligence wherewith we now view the positions of the written record upon the other ; such a per- ception arising in this way, after a season perhaps spent in the prayers and the efforts of great moral earnestness, might pass, not merely into a vivid and instantaneous, but also into a most warrantable conviction, that the great and unseen Being who all the while has been the object of our many aspirations : that He whose eye is upon all the characteristics of that microcosm which is within the heart of man, that it was He alone who constructed that volume in which we now behold so minute and marvellous a reflection of it. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 335 45. We must here observe as formerly, that by this process the caprice and the variety of unbridled imagination are alto- gether precluded. The man who is the subject of it, only sees better than he did before, those permanent and indelible cha- racters that stand out in the written record ; and he sees better than before the stable identities of human nature. It is not among allusions, but altogether among realities that he is con- versant ; and it is out of the comparison between one set of these realities and another that the evidence in question emerges. Out of such a process as this, it is not a fantastic but a sober and intelligible Christianity that is evolved — a Christianity restricted to the things which are written in a now unalterable book ; and to those enduring attributes of the heart and of the will, by which abiding and universal humanity is characterized. We believe that in all ages and nations there have been specimens of Christianity formed in this way ; and, so far from that inter- minable and fantastic variety which is apprehended in the pro- cess of sentiment that we have now endeavoured to explain, we believe, that the thus originated Christianity of a genuine con- vert in the farthest outskirts of the species, whether at Green- land or in the Islands of the South Sea, will be found by enlightened observers to be in substantial agreement with each other, and substantially the same with the Christianity of the Archbishop Fenelon, or of the profound and philosophical Pascal. 46. But to satisfy us that at every step the evidence is valid, and that there is no delusion at any one point or turn of the process — let us have recourse to a parallel in nature. We have seen a distant land on the other side of a bay or arm of the sea, stretching along the horizon, and too remote for the observation of its scenery. But the power of vision may be strengthened by a telescope ; and they are not allusions surely, but stable and antecedent realities, which we are made by the telescope to per- ceive. Suppose different individuals to have the advantage of this help to their vision, — still each would behold the same things, and, instead of the phantasmata of an aerial imagina- tion, the eyes of all would rest upon and recognise the very same objects — the actual houses, and spires, and fields, and forests of a landscape that had now for the first time started into sudden, yet sure and satisfactory revelation. But this is not enough to complete the analogy. We know the power of that chemical preparation which receives the name of a sympa- thetic ink. By it the impression of lines, and characters, and 336 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE pictures may be made on paper, but an impression which in the first instance shall be invisible, and shall remain so, till, by the application of a certain chemical agent, it can be made to stand ostensibly out in the proper form and colouring that belong to it. Let this be done on the apparent blank of some tablet which we have in our hand ; and only suppose that what is evolved in consequence, is the accurate representation of that very landscape which the telescope has just disclosed. Let the picture now made manifest for the first time by one agent, be the precise counterpart, in all its features and lineaments, to the distant scene now made manifest by the other ; and the conclusion is irresistible, that he who drew the picture had his eye upon the landscape, or copied from him who had direct and original ob- servation of the scene. The conclusion is truly a sound one ; but not more sound than that of him, who, in virtue of some new power of discernment, can perceive in the book of a pro- fessed revelation, an accurate reflection of the character of his own heart — who, a stranger before both to the characters of the outer and to those of the inner tablet, now beholds them standing out in visible manifestation, and can note their perfect respondency the one to the other. The inference is valid, and such as to stamp entire rationality on the faith of many an unlettered Christian — when he feels how that He who constructed the Bible had preternatural insight into the mysteries of his own spirit — that the Architect of this wondrous volume was no other than the Architect of man’s moral economy, and who alone could portray the hidden man of the heart, and bring out to view the secrets of that mechanism which He Himself did frame. 47. Now it may be thought that, by this process, however real, there is nothing gained additional to the first and the second experimental evidence, which we have already endea- voured to expound — that by it we are only made to see the accordancy between the now understood statements of the Bible, and the now felt or perceived state of our own hearts ; and also to see the accordancy between the provisions which are addressed to us there, and those moral or spiritual necessities of which we have now been made sensible : that still we have not advanced any further than to these two kinds of evidence ; nor is it seen immediately, how a third evidence can be founded on that pecu- liar method by which it is that men are conducted to the former ones. 48. But the truth is, that this peculiar method bears upon FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 337 itself another impress of the Divinity. And that, not merely because light hath been made to arise in the mind by a way altogether distinct from any of the processes of human teaching, but also, in the very way that is specified and laid down in the book itself. Being 44 renewed in knowledge being 44 called out of darkness into marvellous light having the 44 eyes opened to behold having the 44 secrets of the heart made manifest being struck with the conviction of inward want and worthless- ness on the one hand, and also, on the other, with the efficiency of the proposed application ; — these all point to a great event at the outset of a man’s real and decided Christianity : and should the event happen to any individual, there is to him a corre- spondence between the announcements in the book, and what to himself is a most interesting passage of his own history, which might serve still more to evince the powerful and the presiding intelligence by which it is animated. What it affirms is, not a something which is within us, but a something which will befall us — not, as under the first and implicitly too under the second evidence, not a description of our present state, but the actual prediction or rather fulfilment of a promise in our future history. The divination in fact is heightened into a prophecy. 44 He that seeketh findeth” — this, if at length verified upon us, and verified in the very peculiar way that we have already explained, will lead us to the view of another coincidence than any which we have yet specified. Not a coincidence between the state- ments of the book and the state of our own moral economy ; not a coincidence between the provisions which it offers and the felt necessities of our actual condition — but a coincidence between what to us is a most interesting prophecy or promise, and the living or actual fulfilment of it in our own persons — a proof most effective individually to ourselves ; and which, multiplied as it is in the frequent and unceasing repetitions of it through- out all the countries of Christendom, might furnish a general and enlightened observer with the very strongest materials for the demonstration of the reality of our faith. 49. The event which we now suppose to have taken place in the mental history of an inquirer, supplies him with a great deal more than a mere introduction to the first and second experi- mental evidences. It is in itself a distinct and additional evi- dence. There is even more in it than another species of accord- ancy beside either of those which come under the two former heads of this argument — not an accordancv between what the VOL. VI. Y 338 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE Bible says we are, and what we discern ourselves to be ; not an accordancy between what the Bible offers as a remedy, and we feel that we require ; but an accordancy between what the Bible says will happen to its disciples, and what they experience in themselves to happen actually. But over and above this, we behold, in this great spiritual transaction, the characters, not merely of the Divine prescience, but of the Divine agency. For it comes as the fulfilment of a promise, and in answer to prayer; and so gives the irresistible conviction, that the power, and the will, and the knowledge, and the faithfulness of the living God are all concerned in it. It bears every mark of a special inter- position on the part of Him who “ commands the light to shine out of darkness,” who hath promised to “ draw near unto those who draw near unto him,” and tells the sinner who awakens at His call that a Christ shall give him light.” And yet special though the interposition be, if by a miracle we mean a contra- vention to some known sequence or law of nature, it stands dis- tinguished from an ordinary miracle. The change is too far back for being a miraculous one, in the commonly understood sense of that term.* It takes place, not among the known pro- cesses of the intellect, but in the powers of the intellect — at the margin of separation between the known and the unknown, if not behind it. We are made conscious, by this mental change, of brighter perceptions than before ; but all our trains of percep- tion and reasoning proceed in their wonted order ; and our facul- ties, now gifted with a clearer discernment of Scripture than before, are nevertheless similarly exercised in the study of this book to what they are in the study of all human authorship. If by a miracle be meant that by which a different consequent emerges from the same antecedent as before — then we have not the means of detecting a full miracle in that gracious change, by which transition is made from the darkness of nature to the light of the gospel. For the change takes [dace on the first or remotest term of the progression that is visible to us. With the senses of the mind made clearer ; and our first perceptions, whether of the Bible or of ourselves, more luminous than before, we may be said to start from new antecedents — while after this, all the mental phenomena, observable by 11s, strictly conform to the laws of the mental philosophy. Neither is there any new creation of objective light, for the purpose of making the convert see. The change is an organic one on his seeing faculties ; or * See “ Natural Theology," Book V. Chap, lii Art. 26. FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 339 rather, the removal of an obstruction which prevents its ingress into the soul. God, in this work of illumination, does not com- mand the light to exist; but He commands the light, the pre- existent light, to shine out of darkness, or to shine through the veil by which it was before intercepted. 50. But he who is the subject of this visitation may be alto- gether unable to philosophize on the grounds of that conviction in which it has issued, or on the steps by which he has been led to it. The conviction, however, is not the less clear or warrantable on that account.* He who has thus been made to see, sees upon evidence as sound as to himself it is satisfactory ; and could we by any means be made to know what passes in the minds of others, as intimately as we know and feel what passes in our own minds — we might, from the history of every mani- festation, gather a strong argument, of a peculiar but very con- clusive kind', for the truth of Christianity. Such a general observation as this, however, were not very practicable ; and therefore it is the more fortunate, that this evidence, which it were so difficult to collect from the history of others, gathers in brightness every day along the line of the individual history of each real Christian. And this experimental evidence is perpe- tually growing. There is not merely an agreement between the declarations of the book and his own experience, in the great event that marks and that constitutes in fact the outset of that new moral career upon which he has entered ; but there is a sustained agreement between its declarations, and the evolutions of his mental or spiritual history in all time coming. There is a busy interchange of correspondence and of mutual confirmation going on, between what he finds and what it says. There is thus a growing confidence that he attaches to this book — -just as he would attach a growing confidence to the prophet who had adventured himself on the futurities of his own personal story ; and, in favour of whom, every new day of his life had brought round some accomplishment or other. And so it is, that even the unlettered peasant may receive an impression of the truth of this book, from the truth of its manifold agreements with his own intimate experience. He may recognise throughout its pages, not merely the shrewd discernment of what he is, bur the pro- phetic discernment of what he will be along the successive stages of his preparation for heaven. And, with every new experience * See, in Book I., the distinction made by us between the direct process, and the retlex view (hat might he luken of it in the act of reasoning. 340 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE of the way in which its descriptions tally with the details of his own history — as in the account, for example, that it gives of the exercises of the spirit, whether under the afflictions of life or the assaults of temptation — or in the fulfilments of prayer — or in the facilities that open up, for a still more prosperous cultivation of the heart, along the path of an advancing excellence — or in the light which it casts over the ways and the arrangements of Pro- vidence in the world — there redounds from all these, and from many more which cannot be specified, the glory of an increasing evidence for the truth of that volume whose insight not only reaches to the penetralia of the human character, but lays open the secrets and the dark places that lie in the womb of futurity. This is truly an accumulating evidence. It brightens with every new fulfilment, and every new step in the journey of a Chris- tian’s life ; and, amid the incredulity and derision of those who have no sympathy either with his convictions or his hopes — still we hold that the faith, thus originated and thus sustained, is the faith not of fanaticism but of sound philosophy ; that his experi- mental Christianity rests, in fact, on a basis as firm as experi- mental science ; that there is neither delusion in the growing lustre of his convictions through life, nor delusion in the con- cluding triumphs and ecstasy of his deathbed. 51. In these various ways, then, might Christianity manifest its own truth to the conscience of every man. When making demonstration of human guilt, there might be such an accord - ancy with all that nature felt of its own guiltiness — when mak- ing demonstration of the offered atonement, there might be such an accordance with all that nature felt of its own necessities, as first to draw the attention, and then to compel the belief of all who were thus arrested. The felt force of the disease on the one hand, and the felt suitableness of the remedy on the other, might land them, and rightfully land them, in such a consummation. It is not that, viewed as two naked propositions, they can evince or establish the general truth of the system which contains them. But they are variously and repeatedly set forth in the sacred record ; and this gives rise to innumerable touches of descriptive accuracy, to a multiple and sustained harmony between the in- ward tablet of the heart and the outward tablet of a professed revelation. There is an evidence afforded by the agreement between a complex tally and its alike complex but accurately resembling counterpart ; and there may be a like evidence in the countless adaptations which obtain between a supernal applica- FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 341 , tion from heaven, and the human nature beneath, upon which it has descended. And beside these, there are so many other symptoms or signatures of truth which the conscience can lay hold of. It can discern the apparent honesty of any communi- cation. It can take cognizance of all that marks the worth or the simplicity of its bearers. It can feel and be impressed by its aspect of undoubted sacredness. It can distinguish the voice of a God, or of an ambassador from God, in its promulgation of a righteous law, and in the sustained dignity and effect where- with it challenges a rightful authority. It can perceive all which is in and about the message to be in keeping with the high original which it claims ; and, whether it looks to the pro- foundness of its wdsdom or to the august and inviolable purity of its moral character, it can perceive when these evidences are so enhanced and multiplied on a professed embassy from heaven, as to announce its descent from a God of knowledge and a God of holiness. 52. We may now understand what is meant by the self-evi- dencing power of the Bible. It is that in virtue of which it announces its own authority to the understanding of the reader. It is not only the bearer of its own contents, but is the bearer also of its own credentials. It is by the external and historical evidences of Christianity that we are enabled to maintain its cause against the infidelity of lettered and academic men. But it is another evidence that recommends it to the acceptance of the general population. Their belief in Scripture, and we think all saving belief whatever, is grounded on the instant manifesta- tion of its truth unto the conscience. And thus, without the aid of sensible miracles in the present age, and without even the scholarship which ascertains and verifies the miracles of a past age, do we hold that the divinity of the Bible may be read and recognised in its own pages, and that in virtue of an evidence which might be addressed with effect to the moral nature of man in any quarter of the world. 53. But what gives complete and conclusive effect to this evi- dence is the revelation of the Spirit. For the understanding of this there is one thing of prime importance to be attended to. The Spirit, when He acts as an enlightener, presents us with no new revelation of His own. He only shines on that revelation which is already given in the Bible. He brings no new truths from afar, He but discloses the truths of that word which is nigh unto us. It is true that He opens our eyes ; but it is to behold the ♦ 342 ON THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE wondrous things contained in this hook. It is true that He lifts up a veil ; but it is not the veil which hides from our view the secrets of any distant or mysterious region. He taketh away the veil from our hearts, and we, made to behold that which is within, and also to behold that which is without — become alive to the force and fulness of that evidence which lies in the mani- fold adjustments between them — convinced at once of the mag- nitude of our own sin, and of the suitableness and reality of the offered salvation. In this process there is no direct announce- ment made to us by the Spirit of God. There is neither a voice nor a vision ; no whisper to the ear of the inner man — no gleam either of a sensible or spiritual representation. There is light, it is true, shining out of darkness ; but it is the light of the Bible, now made luminous, reflected from the tablet of con- science, now made visible. It is not a light shining direct upon us from the heavenly objects themselves ; but it is a light shin- ing on a medium of proof by which we are made sensible of their reality. He who has been visited by this manifestation can say, I was blind, but now I see. He may remember the day when a darkness inscrutable seemed to hang over those mystic — those then unmeaning passages of the Bible, which he now perceives to be full of weight and full of significancy. He may remember the day when, safe and satisfied with himself, he neither saw the extent and the purity of God’s lofty commandment, nor his own distance and deficiency therefrom — though now, burdened with the conscious magnitude of his guilt, he both sees the need of a Saviour, and feels His preciousness. He is now brought within full view of the argument that we have laboured to unfold ; and the transition, the personal or the historical transition, which him- self has undergone, is tohis own mind a most impressive argument. It forms to him an experimental evidence of the truth of Chris- tianity — and may be regarded as another appeal to his conscience or to his consciousness in its favour. He has become a Chris- tian in the true sense and significancy of the term. The gospel hath entered his mind in the demonstration of the Spirit and with power. He rejoices in the hope of its bright fulfilments ; and, untutored though he be in the scholarship of its literary or argumentative evidences, he, though of humble education and humble circumstances, can give a reason of his hope. 54. It should not be difficult to understand, how, under this process of spiritual illumination, men, in all ages or parts of the world, the most widely distant from each other, are nevertheless FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 343 introduced to one and the same Christianity. The Spirit does not make known a different religion to each ; but He manifests the same great truths to every understanding — the stable cha- racteristics of human nature, and the no less stable doctrines of revelation, fixed and handed down to us in an imperishable written record. This will explain the mutual recognitions, the felt affinities, the perfect community of soul and sentiment that obtain between the truly regenerated of all countries and all periods. A Christian peasant of Scotland, were the barrier of their diverse language removed, could enter into fullest sympathy into the feelings, and the views, and the mental exercises of a Christianized Hottentot in South Africa. On the same principle, he would feel the consent of a common intelligence and common sensibility with his author — when reading the pages of Augus- tine, or any other writer on practical Christianity, who, like him, underwent a transition from the darkness of nature to the mar- vellous light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Were the materials for the observation within our reach, it were most interesting to compare the converse between two devoted Christians brought together from the remotest places of the earth, and that, for ex- ample, of a Mahometan Moor with a Mahometan Persian — the first two having the Bible as a common subject of reference ; the second two the Alcoran. Each would sympathize with the other of his own kind ; but a mighty lesson might be educed from the extent and the character of their respective sympathies. In the one, we should behold a community of the same ablutions, the same abstinences, the same external observations. In the other, we should behold a community of a far higher kind — of soul with soul ; a coalescence between the thoughts, and affections, and principles of the inner man. The votaries of other religions may have one baptism. They are the votaries of the Christian religion alone who have one Lord, that dwells in them and makes them one both with Himself and with each other; one faith, that, working by love, has the entire mastery over both their intellectual and their moral nature — and, subordinating the whole heart and history to the same great principle, begets that likeness or identity between all the members, however scattered, of Christ’s spiritual family, which is expressed in our theological systems by the communion of the saints. They are bound together by the tie of their common sympathies and their common hopes; and, in the topics of converse suggested by these, they have an interest which never fails. 344 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF CHAPTEK IV. ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF THE EVIDENCE FOR THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. The epithet of portable, though alike applicable to the moral, the experimental, and the doctrinal evidence for the truth of Christianity, we should not have ventured to adopt in this place, had it not been previously sanctioned by our admirable friend, Joseph John Gurney,* whose writings have contributed so much to the defence and illustration of our common faith. 2. The meaning of it is, that, unlike to the historical or liter- ary evidence, which, as requiring a higher amount of scholar- ship and education than is found to obtain throughout the general mass of society, can only be addressed to a limited class of readers — the portable evidence, on the contrary, may be borne to every door, and find an opening for itself to the heart and the con- science even of the most unlettered of our species. Yet it is not by a reflex or philosophical exposition of this evidence — it is not by such an exposition of it as we have attempted to give in the two previous chapters, that it is made to obtain an entrance into the minds of the common people. It works a way for itself there, and there achieves its main triumphs through the direct preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is while the minister unfolds the contents of the Christian message, though without one word from him on the credentials of the message, that the best and weightiest of these credentials do of themselves find access to the popular understanding. It is thus that the subject- matter of Christianity, instinct in itself with evidence, may, when simply told and explained, be left to vindicate its own authority ; and does in fact carry its own proper weight, amount- ing to absolute and entire ascendency, over the convictions of the most ignorant and unlearned hearers. And this mental consent of theirs is not fancy but faith — the real substance of belief, and not the semblance of it only — the result of a process as legitimate and as logical as any of those by which philosophy has been led to her soundest conclusions — a belief resting upon evidence presented in the message, though not pointed to or once named to them by the bearer of the message — an evidence * See his interesting little work on the “ Portable Evidence of Christianity." THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 3*15 recognised by the people, though perhaps never reasoned on by the minister. 3. And this self-evidence which lies in the matter of revela- tion and makes it so applicable to the unlearned within, makes it equally applicable to the rudest and most unlettered tribes without the limits of Christendom. In the power and effect of the internal evidence, we behold the rationale of a missionary enterprise — the agents of which, with but the Bible in their hands, and the spirit of prayer in their hearts, are in a state of full equipment for operating on the moral nature of man in every quarter of the globe. They are in possession of a key to all con- sciences ; and, without the pow T er either of working present miracles or of demonstrating to the apprehension of savages the certainty of past miracles, they nevertheless are in possession of vouchers to authenticate their mission, and by which to make full proof of their apostleship. 4. Before expatiating further either on the one or the other ap- plication, the evidence itself may again be shortly stated, even that evidence by which the messengers of the gospel might pioneer an access for Christianity to the consciences of the men of the whole earth — whether to the most sunken in the depths of ignor- ance and poverty at home — or to the furthest removed in the wilds of distant and yet unexplored barbarism. 5. Each entire man has a conscience within his breast which tells him of the difference between right and wrong, and tells him somewhat of the God who planted it there ; and each has a consciousness which tells him of his own delinquencies against this law of moral nature, and that, in the eye of Him who or- dained that law, he himself is an offender. Let the word which tells him the same things lay hold of his attention, and the re- cognised harmony between the lessons of the one and of the other — the felt echo in his own heart to the intimations of a message thus brought nigh unto him — the response given from within to the voice heard from without — will fix and perpetuate his attention the more ; and all the discoveries made by this process of a joint or double manifestation, will have, at least, the authority of two witnesses to confirm them. Let us conceive that the ministrations of the Spirit are superadded to the ministrations of the word, and that he who is the subject of these, obtains, in consequence, a clearer and fuller view both of himself and of the Bible. Under such a discipline as this, all his convictions, and with his convictions, his fears, must grow apace ; the feeble and 346 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF incipient notices which first drew his regards, might now he to him the loud denunciations of terror ; all that is said of the evil of sin, and of the vengeance which awaits the sinner under a holy and unchangeable lawgiver, might have tenfold greater weight and significancy than before ; and he be haunted in con- sequence, by the thought of an angry God and an undone eter- nity. In the midst of these disquietudes which so agitate and engross his soul, let us further imagine that the same Bible which told him of sin, now tells him of salvation ; and that the same Spirit from on high which irradiated the one revelation and made it stand forth as if in illuminated characters of greater dread and majesty than before, casts a bright but pleasing irradiation over the other also. In answer to the prayers of this tossed and tem- pest-driven supplicant, seeking for rest, but hitherto finding none, let the revelation of grace be at length made as palpable as be- fore was the revelation of terror. Let him now be helped to take a view of redemption, in its characters and in its footsteps — of that great movement made from heaven to earth, and the object of which was to reconcile the outcast world and recall its wandering generations to the family of God. Let the law have acted its part as a schoolmaster in bringing him to Christ ; and, in the history of Him who came, charged with the overtures of peace, and went about doing good continually, let him learn the possibility at least that there is an outlet of escape from con- demnation — that there is still a refuge from despair. Let this dawning hope ripen more and more towards a full assurance, as he becomes more intelligent in the doctrines of the Saviour, and listens to His repeated declarations of good will to the children of men. Above all, let him be made to know the purposes of His death ; and his mind be opened to behold the great mystery of the atonement, the union of heaven’s justice with heaven’s clemency. It is then that the scales fall from his eyes ; and in the propiti- ated pardon of the gospel, blending the honours of a vindicated sacredness with the freest and fullest proclamations of mercy, he at length finds that alone remedy by which the misgivings of his guilty nature can be met and satisfied. By one and the same manifestation, even the spectacle of the Cross, his confi- dence, though a transgressor of the law, is restored; while his reverence for the law’s authority is exalted — and, in the transi- tion which he now makes to peace and holiness, he learns what it is to mix trembling with his mirth, to combine with the secu- rity of the Christian faith the diligence of the Christian practice. THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 347 But his experience does not stop at this great event of his his- tory, which might well be termed the turning-point of his salva- tion. It rather only begins here ; and, along the career of the new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord, with the power of sin broken; and a constantly increasing delight in that law which was for- merly his terror, the descriptions of the book so tally with the findings of his own heart and his own history, as to multiply the evidence upon him that Christianity is divine. Under the teach- ing of the Bible which he daily reads, and of the Spirit which he daily prays for, these signatures of heaven in the whole religion of the New Testament become every day more legible and more convincing — till a belief, never to be shaken, be fully established within him, that verily God is in it of a truth. 6. Now throughout the whole of this schooling, we never once come into converse with the historical or the literary evidence for the truth of the gospel. The aids of a critical and controversial authorship, with its scientific apparatus of polyglotts, and gram- mars, and lexicons, are never called for. These mysteries of a higher scholarship are beyond the reach of our common people — who yet, with no other apparatus than that of a Bible and of a conscience, are capable of being introduced to the mysteries of a still surer and more satisfying revelation. There is a process by which the things that are hidden from the wise and the prudent might be abundantly made known to the veriest babes in the learning of this world. Let them have but Bibles in their hands, and consciences in their bosoms — then, with that power from on high which operates on these and is given to our prayers, we are in possession of the adequate means for the saving illu- mination even of the humblest and homeliest of men. In other words, without either the gift of miracles or of profound erudi- tion or philosophy, we might be in a state of full equipment for the Christianization of the world. 7. There is a twofold application that might be made of this subject. First, the encouragement derived from it to efforts in behalf of the education of our own countrymen — secondly, the like encouragement to efforts for the civilisation of the nations beyond the limits of Christendom. The philosophy of missions in their two great branches, the Home and the Foreign, receives its best vindication on the ground of the self-evidencing power of the Bible — as portable, therefore, as the truths of the Bible are portable ; and we hope it will not be deemed an unreason- 348 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OB' able digression if, at this stage of our argument, we now advert to the likelihoods of both. 8. — I. In the gospel then there is a sure testimony, u making wise the simple” — the line whereof goeth out “through all the earth,” and its u words to the end of the world.”* This diffu- sive property signifies more than the property of stretching to a far distance. To overspread implies a filling up, as well as an expansion. That Christianity go completely through all the earth, it must not only be carried forth to its remotest extremi- ties — there must be no intermediate vacancies left, else the knowledge of the Lord does not cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. For a thorough fulfilment of missionary work, we must not only expand, we must also pervade. The object is not merely to enlarge the borders of Christendom ; it is to reclaim the interior wastes of Christendom itself — and, for this purpose, we must visit the desolate places that are within as well as those that are without the territory. When we hear of a missionary enterprise, our thoughts would carry us afar to the remotest isles of Paganism, or to those vast and yet unexplored continents which have not been penetrated by the light of reve- lation. It is not recollected, that, beside these unvisited regions at a distance, and still under the shadow of death, we have unassailed fastnesses at home — whole masses of irreligion and deepest spiritual apathy, whether in the putrid lanes of our cities or in the remote hamlets and villages of our country parishes — thousands of imperishable spirits of men living at our own doors, who personally are within the sight of churches, and the hearing of church-bells, yet morally are at as great a distance, not from the spirit and power only, but from the knowledge of the gospel, as if they had been born and lived all their days in the wilds of Tartary. In the splendour of the distant enterprise, we are apt to overlook these ; and, with imaginations fired by the project of an attack on the primeval seats of idolatry in other countries and other climes, the claims of our own kindred and our own country- men are apt to be forgotten. 9. Now, when we speak of the portable evidence of Christi- anity, we mean that evidence by which it can reach the con- sciences and the conduct even of the unlettered multitude. We distinguish it from that other evidence, the understanding of which requires a science and a scholarship that are confined to the few. It is that in virtue of which we are placed in circum- * i'salm xix. 4. THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 340 stances for addressing with effect the hitherto most untutored of our own population, though sunk in deepest ignorance — as well as those rudest of nature’s children, those wanderers of the desert, where the sound of the gospel was never heard. All men have in them the common faculty of a conscience that suggests the same notions of right and wrong — the same sense of their moral want and their moral worthlessness to all. And Christi- anity has in it the property of an adaptation to the conscience by which it might commend itself to all, and so find proselytes for itself in every quarter of the globe — it is this self-eviden- cing power of the Bible which makes its doctrines portable to every understanding, and its lessons portable to every heart. And it not only explains the full and final entrance of Christi- anity into the mind, when, in the moment of conversion it is at last admitted as the settled belief of the inquirer — it also ex- plains the welcome of its first approaches ; for the same charac- teristics of this religion which seen fully at the last secure for it the full conviction of the mind, though seen but dimly at the first, give it a certain creditable aspect even at the outset — so mat, though not received all at once, it may still be entertained even at the very first ; and we have no doubt that this operates most powerfully, as an ingredient in that facility of access, which the bearers of Christianity experience, when, passing from nouse to house, they make offer of their Christian services, and announce the errand on which they have come, of doing all which they can and are permitted to do, for the moral and Christian good of the families. 10. And accordingly, what is the experience of those who make this attempt — who go forth among the households of the poorer classes, not with the offer of silver and gold, for of such they may have none, but with the offer of their devotions through tlm week, and of their Christian advice upon the Sabbath — whose only eirand is as the messengers of Christianity — the bearers of its comfort to their sick and dying, of its lessons whether of warning or encouragement to themselves and to their children? The pleasing discovery, of which every day is now multiplying the instances, is, that, with the exception perhaps of not one in a hundred, the religious philanthropist finds a cordial admittance at every door — that, generally and almost universally, there is a welcome and a good-will attendant upon his footsteps, a grate- ful response to the overtures wherewith he is charged ; and, though he comes in what might be held a somewhat invidious 350 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF capacity, as a reformer of their habits and a reformer of their lives, that nevertheless he makes good his entry, not into their habitations only, but into their hearts ; and that, if he but con centrate his attentions on a territory small enough for becoming the acquaintance of all the families, he will earn, as the fruit of his moral and benevolent assiduities, the confidence and the af- fection of all. We do not say that he will gain over the con- victions of all, but, by dint of his fidelity and honest friend- ship in the midst of them, he will very nearly gain over the kindness of all. He may not secure a full acceptance for Chris- tianity. But to a great extent he will secure at least a hearing for it. Such at least is the common finding of those who have attempted, in a sustained way, to make a lodgment for the minis- trations of the gospel in the churchless villages and before un- entered city recesses of our own land — teeming with unknown and hitherto neglected myriads of immortal creatures, among whom Christianity has been suffered to wane into extinction ; but who, nevertheless, have still the human feelings and the human consciences by which to find a way to them. There is a natural cordiality almost with all, in virtue of which the bearers of the truth are welcomed, when, in the prosecution of this their moral and benevolent enterprise, they make their descent upon the families.* But this alone would not suffice, but for that credibility in the truth itself, which introduces it first to the attention, and then wins for it the full and final acceptance of the mind ; and to meet this, there is a natural conscience in all, which, made awake and intelligent by the Spirit of God, can take knowledge of the word that is spoken, and do homage to the Divinity which is therein manifested. Both these, the na- tural cordiality and the natural conscience, may be regarded as parts of human nature by which provision is made for the access of Christianity to the people ; or, by which Christianity is ren- dered so portable — both throughout the habitations, and into the hearts of men. The conjunction of these two forms a mighty encouragement to all missionary work. It is with the second of these that the consideration of the internal evidence has properly * We speak of Scotland. We have not had much experience of the people or towns in England; but there is certainly a more general impression in that part of the island, that, to secure a general welcome among the families of the working classes, the offered services of Christianity must be accompanied with the gifts of ordinary kindness. VVe apprehend that there is a fatal incongruity between these two ministrations ; and that every scheme for the Christian education of the people, should stand dissevered from all ostensible mea- sures for tire relief of poverty. THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 351 to do. But the first, as not having been much adverted to, is what at present we shall most dwell upon, as furnishing the most important facility to the great enterprise, if not of carrying Christianity abroad among the distant wilds of paganism, at least of obtaining entry for it among the families of our own population. It is a glorious achievement to plant the gospel in other lands. But, if reckoned less glorious, it is surely not less useful to fill up the blanks and lighten the dark places of our home territory. 11. There is a barrier at the outset of the foreign which does not obtain in the home enterprise. In the former we go forth as bearers of a hostile religion. We come into conflict with the prejudices of a hereditary faith. We encounter the hazard of impassioned resistance, often of personal violence. In the latter we experience the reverse of all this. We go forth among the people, not to root out a hostile but to revive a decayed religion — transmitted to them from their fathers ; and which, though extinct in power, is not unknown to them by name, and is in harmony with all their remaining associations of sacredness, how- ever feeble or almost forgotten these might be. It is thus that, in the very first movements from house to house of the home- missionary, there is often a certain reverential feeling awakened ; and, at all events, as kindness is the moving principle of the operation, there is throughout a very general sense of that kind- ness, that is both warmly felt and gratefully acknowledged, and which secures, not a decent only but a welcome reception to our adventurer on this new walk of benevolence. At the very least, encouragement enough is given and a way is sufficiently opened for announcing his errand to them as their Christian friend or Christian adviser, who will preach in their immediate neighbour- hood on the Sabbath, and is willing to render through the week all those attentions and services of which they may choose to avail themselves. There is often a promise to attend on the public, and still oftener an invitation to repeat the personal visit — and so the profession of a willingness to accept of the private or the household ministrations. If this process be steadily per- severed in, if to these stated movements oft repeated among the people, there be added a frequent occasional movement, when- ever the call of sickness, or of death, or of any sort of family distress shall -have opened the hearts and the houses of the afflicted to the entry of Christian kindness — the result of these assiduities through the week, is the gradual building up of a Congregation on the Sabbath. The people even of the most 352 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF outlandish district, in places the most destitute and depraved, may thus he gathered into a parochial family, and trained to parochial habits. Children, of all others, may be made to par- ticipate most largely in this improvement. Under the moral ascendency of the pastor, who has assumed their territory for his vineyard, and earned, as the fruit of his daily and weekly labours, the confidence and attachment of the people, education will grow apace among them. Even by the time when only perhaps a few are converted, many will be at least humanised — for such is the savour of Christianity, that, over and above its own proper influence on the individuals whom it sanctifies, it has a secondary and wide-spread influence over the community, whose standard of morals it exalts, and whose general habits it refines and civilizes. Altogether, with the power of that kind- ness which the messengers of Christianity might bring to bear upon human feelings, and the power of Christianity itself over human consciences, there never was so effective an instrument as the one which we now describe, for reclaiming men from what might appear even the most hopeless and impracticable degener- acy. For the latter power, Christianity stands indebted to its own evidence, to the aspect of likelihood which it wears even at the first, and its perpetually growing claims on the attention and moral earnestness of every inquirer — till at length the con- clusive revelation is made to him of such credentials as satisfy his mind that the religion is true. For the former power it is indebted to that peculiarity in the human constitution by which it is that the manifested good-will of one man tells so immedi- ately and with such subduing effect on the heart of another man. As a pioneer or a precursor to the ministrations of the gospel, this principle is invaluable — though till of late but scarcely adverted to; and far too little use has been made of it. It of itself forms no part of the evidence for the truth of the Christian religion ; but it is the avenue by which the portable evidence of Christianity finds its way to the population — not that which carries the belief, but that which gains the attention that precedes the belief — not the proof, but the means for the conveyance of it. 12. Hitherto we have not enough availed ourselves of those strong affinities which bind one man to another, and extend the brotherhood of our nature far beyond the limits of kindred or previous acquaintanceship. It may be experienced on the mo- ment of our entrance within the threshold of a family which wc THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 353 never before saw. The character of the reception is almost in- variable — that of genuine and entire cordiality. The errand on which we go announces itself to be one of kindness ; and, in almost every instance, it calls forth the sense and the spirit of kindness back again. By the very act of coming under the roof of one of the common people, we in a manner throw ourselves upon his kindness ; and scarcely ever, in one instance, does this confidence deceive us. Insomuch that we have often felt as if to enter the house of a poor man or a labourer was the readiest method of finding our way into his heart. Certain it is that nothing can be more companionable, and if not courtly at least courteous which is far better — nothing can be more polite in the best sense of the term, for it is nature’s politeness under the spontaneous impulse of nature’s honesty, than that which is habitually experienced in these rounds of pastoral or missionary visitation. If we want to taste the amenities of human inter- course, let us go, not in the capacity of an almoner but in the higher capacity of a Christian philanthropist, either to the country hamlet or to the city lane — let us carry our proffers of beneficence either to the peasant in the one situation or to the man of handicraft and hard labour in the other — let it be the prospect of a Christian benefit to themselves, or of an educa- tional benefit to their children — we do not say that the consent will be gotten all at once to the practical arrangement whatever it may be ; but, from the very first, both the visit and the object of it will be well taken ; and such is the charm of these house- hold attentions, that a great and effectual door is opened by them to all those results, which the manifested friendship and the moral suasion of one man have power to effectuate in the purposes and the doings of another. 13. We can well imagine here a certain suspicion or in- credulity, as if our picture was over-coloured — or as if there was more of the imaginative than of the experimental in our repre- sentation. But our shrewd and sceptical antagonists do truly confound the things which differ, when they liken these every- day findings with which we now deal to the visions of Arcadia. Those cordialities of human intercourse, and the results which come out of them, have nought in them whatever of the romance or the extravagance of poetry. What Howard, on the walk of general benevolence, realized in prisons, any other, if he is but a man of heart and genuine piety, will realize in parishes. Those triumphs of kindness which the one achieved in the VOL. VI. z 354 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF malefactor's cell, the other will with still greater facility achieve in the ploughman's cabin and the workman's lowliest tenement. If the moral desperadoes of a jail can be made to own the omni- potence of charity, it surely will not be more difficult to earn the same ascendency over the commonplace men and women of our general population. It is true that, even among these, in- dividuals are to be found, who, though not yet convicted of crime, have all the hardihood and all that aspect of stout and resolute defiance which belong to criminals— whose hearts are hearts of steel — whose houses are houses of riot, intemperance, and shame. Yet even they, it is often found, might be melted into a sort of grateful reverence, and that on the first apostolic entry ever made within their doors ; and what might be deemed singular yet is really not so, though sheathed in hopeless obdur- acy themselves, so that their own reformation is by all despaired of, yet there is enough of remaining conscience and human affec- tion within them, to make them seize on the proposal of meetings, and sermons, and Sabbath- schools for their children. But more, though at the outset house and heart should both be barri- caded against the approaches of Christian benevolence, neither yet must all prospect of good, even in these cases of rare and monstrous exception to the general law of our nature, be given up as conclusively at an end. The determined agent of this benevolence is on the highest of all vantage-ground. He has only to keep his post and to watch his opportunity. Events will work for him. Providence will at length open a door for him. Calamity, or sickness, or death will in the course of months or years break in upon the household of this family of aliens; — when our resolved visitant of mercy will be no longer scowled upon, and the sound of his footsteps will be welcome to their ears. His presence will solemnize them. His prayers will soften them. His sympathies and well-timed services will awaken the humanity that has long been dormant but not ex- tinguished within them. Even their gratitude, all ungainly as they are, will be found not beyond the power and the persever- ance of charity like his ; and if theirs, he may be sure of a general if not a universal conquest over the affections of his whole territory. We do not say that he will convert all ; but nearly, he will humanize all. We do not say that, even at the end of a period of years, he will have gotten all or even many to believe. But he will have gotten very many to attend. He may not have lodged in the heart of each the truth which is THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 355 unto salvation ; but he will at least have congregated a goodly number within reach of the hearing of it. And, even at this early stage of his proceedings, though he may have only esta- blished the footsteps of a few in the way of life — he may have raised the standard of civility and morals throughout the general multitude. Though preparing the way for it, he may yet be far short of having consummated the object of the Christian. Yet already, in the service of having formed a humanized and orderly population, he may have fulfilled the great object of the statesman and the patriot. 14. So important is this process, that one cannot be at too great pains in explaining the essential steps of it. And the most essential, for recalling a population who have degenerated, is a system of week-day attentions within the limits of a district, small enough to insure their sufficient frequency, and to make an acquaintance possible with one and all of the families. A church, not so related to a given territory, but meets the demand which already exists for the lessons of the gospel — drawing within its precincts the attendance of those who have lost the habits and observations of a Christian land, and amongst whom the sense of religion is in a great measure extinguished. It is not by any spontaneous movement of theirs, that the wished for condition will be accomplished. The movement must begin at the opposite quarter, with the dispensers of Christianity and not with its recipients — not on the part of men seeking after the gospel of Jesus Christ, but on the part of men who go forth charged with its overtures and press them on the attention and acceptance of others. Had the world been left to itself, it would have settled or sunk still farther in the midst of its own degen- eracy, and made no aspirations after God ; and so a movement had to be made, not from earth to heaven, but from heaven to earth — when Christianity made its first ingress among men. Even after it was made known to a few in Judea, had the sur- rounding nations been left to themselves, they would still have persisted for ever in the darkness and the depths of their idolatry ; and so a movement was called for, not from the nations to Jeru- salem — but, the other way, from Jerusalem to the nations ; and the order of procedure was, to go and preach the gospel to every creature, beginning from Jerusalem. And still, after Christianity has thus been planted in any land, it must not lay aside its mis- sionary character — but keep by it still, for its own further and fuller diffusion. For let the people of any locality be left to 356 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF themselves ; and they will lapse into irreligion, be it in the neglected outfields of a country or in the neglected streets of a city population ; and still, whether to re-establish Christianity or to sustain it, the movement must be made not from them but to them. Nature has no appetency for that bread of life which came down from heaven ; and which, after it has so come, must still be carried forth throughout the earth — and that, not from country to country only, but from house to house, so as to attempt a lodgment within every heart, and to knock at the door of every habitation. It is not only true in reference to the people of other regions and of distant climes — how can they believe except men be sent to them ? It is true in reference to the people of other streets, and at the distance of but a few steps from us — how can they believe except men be sent to them ? Each parish church of a religious establishment should be a missionary station, or the centre of a missionary process that bears on all the houses of its definite and assigned vicinity. And so of every new church, every distinct and additional edifice that is raised for the services of the gospel — it will lose its efficiency as a further propagator of that gospel in the land, unless it assumes a missionary charac- ter and enters on a missionary operation. Instead of waiting to be filled by a movement from without, it should itself originate the movement, and best, if possible, when among the families in a state of immediate juxtaposition around it — holding out all facilities for their attendance, and exciting to the uttermost their demand or their desire for Christianity, by presenting it to their notice, and bringing if possible its urgencies and its awakening calls within reach of their consciences. It is thus that each may reclaim its own district ; may take possession and cultivate its own little territory ; and, by the ligament which binds to- gether the week-day attentions of the minister on the one hand, and the Sabbath attendance of the people on the other, may gather into adjacent parochial communities those immense city multitudes, whose amelioration in the bulk looks so chimerically hopeless, but in detail and by fragments or sections, is really so practicable. We know of no other instrumentality by which this greatest of all problems can be resolved. It is only by a separate operation on each district, and then the apposition of one district to another — it is only thus, we apprehend, that, as by the apposition of farm to farm, a moral fertility can be made to overspread a whole territory, or a whole country be re- claimed. i THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 357 15. How then is it that philanthropists and patriots, those who have the amelioration of humanity constantly in their mouths, nay, perhaps, are honestly intent on it, how is it that they so little avail themselves of this patent and practicable way ? There is not a fonder speculation of theirs, than the like- liest method by which to regenerate society — to regenerate the world. We can imagine no other method of doing it than to do it piecemeal ; or to do it in parcels. But like all those who say much and do nothing, they seem to be dreaming of some expedi- ent or other by which to do it in bulk — so that, all at once, and on the back of their yet undisclosed, and we may add, yet undis- covered specific, the human species might instantly start into a moralized and happy family. They are waiting till some new ingenuity be devised in education, or, perhaps, some new adjust- ment in politics — on which, as if by the lifting up of a magical wand, the earth is to emerge into a state of life and of enlarge- ment, and the millennium of their fancy and their hopes is to be suddenly realized. The real millennium that is awaiting our world, if to be introduced by miracle or by a preternatural visi- tation from without, which it very likely will, may come sud- denly. But in as far as dependent on human effort, or even on grace attendant as it commonly is on the footsteps of a human process, it must come gradually. It must be with the moral or the spiritual as with the natural agriculture. To speed forward the one we must laboriously do the work of each furrow and of each field ; and thus pass onward from farm to farm, till the whole earth is brought into its utmost possible cultivation. And so, for the purpose either of civilizing or of Christianizing the world, we must pass onwards from one family and from one dis- trict to another. Every whole is made up of parts — nor can we see how the whole is to be overtaken, but by each labourer or each distinct body oflabourers acquitting themselves of their part, till at length the deed universal is made out, by a separate ful- filment and then a summation of the deeds particular. The way to reform a neighbourhood is just the way to reform a nation, or a quarter of the globe, or the great globe itself and all who in- herit therein. This great achievement may be talked of in the lump ; but it must be executed in detail. The thing must be gone about inductively. Our men of sublime and speculative genius, who have no patience for the drudgery of execution, may engross the ear of the public for a time with their generalized and magnificent way of it ; but we must come to this way at 358 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF the last — after that the schemes and the systems of our modern theorists have had their course ; and the world has at last become tired of the conceits, and the crudities, and the thousand vacillating projects, and the as many abortions of our modern legislators. 16. But, recalling ourselves from, this more extended survey to the means and the likelihoods of success in one little territory not half a mile from home — depending first on the power where- with the kindness of those who are the messengers or the bearers of Christian truth operate upon human feelings, and secondly, on the power wherewith the self-evidence of the truth itself oper- ates upon human consciences. On these we need expatiate no further ; but we might at least remark how precious, we had almost said how proud an achievement it is, when, by dint of these, the people of one district, nay, but one family or one in- dividual, is transformed. Apart from the consideration of im- mortality, we know not a spectacle of greater worth, and we may add of greater tastefulness and beauty, even beauty of the high- est order as belonging to the moral picturesque, than a Christian peasant — whose virtues are seen in all the greater lustre that they are arrayed in homely garb, or have taken root in a tene- ment of poverty — like the enhanced loveliness of a picture, made to stand out all the more strikingly by the darkness of the ground on which it is projected. Perhaps it is this contrast between light and shadow which causes it to be so fine an exhibition, when deep and thorough religious principle takes up its abode in the heart of an ordinary workman. But, however this may be, certain it is, that, as there is no one event that serves more to strengthen the foundation, so there is none which serves more to grace the aspect of human society — whether we look to his well- ordered household through the week, or to his well-filled family pew upon the Sabbath. If there be one sound more like the music of paradise than another, it is when the simple voice of psalms arises in morning or evening orisons from the lowly cot- tage ; or one spectacle more rich in promise, even the promise of fruit for immortality, it is when a cottage family is seen in full muster at the house of God. There is altogether such a re- freshing moral healthfulness in the Christianity of humble life, that we feel for it, for the Christianity of artificers and tradesmen, a pro- founder homage than for the Christianity either of accomplished men of affluence, or of profound and learned theologians. The greatest of all national blessings, certainly the greatest national THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 359 reform, were to bring within reach of all, the means of this best and highest education. Herein lie the true dignity of man, the proudest rights and investitures of humanity. This is the genu- ine majesty of the people — unknown to mock patriotism, that seeks for the hosannahs of the multitude in another way and by other promises, which, never, realized, only serve to flatter and deceive them. 17. They who incredulously regard the people as beyond the reach of this achievement, must be ignorant of that evidence in our religion which is addressed to the consciences of men — which evidence indeed is the great, if not the only instrument of Chris- tianization, both in and out of Christendom. To this evidence in fact we owe the great bulk of our home Christianity. We on this subject make our confident appeal to the ministers of the gospel, and bid them tell what that is which originates and which fashions the Christianity of their own people. Was it a series of lectures on the deistical controversy? Was it the arguments of Paley, or of Leslie, or of Butler, that germinated their faith? Whether was it the doctrine in the book, or the history of the book, that was the instrument of their conversion ? That the people might see the truth of the gospel, had they to plant an historic ladder, ascending from the present age to that of the apostles — or, by the lights of criticism and erudition, had they to guide them by a series of indices along the historic pathway, till they could lay their hands on the authenticity of the books of the New Testament ; or the certainty of the narrative con- tained in it? If they have faith at all, they have a reason for their faith. They do see the truth of the gospel — and the ques- tion is whether they see it immediately, in the light of Scripture doctrine ; or mediately, in the light of historical demonstration. When we enter the house of one of our cottage patriarchs, and examine the library which lies in little room upon his shelves — we may there find what that is which has begun, and what that is which aliments his Christianity. They are not books on the external history of the Bible. They are the Bible itself, and books on the internal substance and contents of the Bible. They are the Flavels and the Guthries and the Bichard Baxters of the puritanic age who are his favourites — men who say little or nothing on the argumentative evidence of Scripture ; but who unfold the subject-matter, and who urge, and urge most impres- sively, on the consciences of their readers the lessons of Scrip- ture. In a word, it is by a perpetual interchange between the 360 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF conscience and the Bible that their Christianity is upholden — l>y a light struck out between the sayings of the one and the findings of the other. It is not a light which is out of the book, but a light which is in the book, that commences and sustains the Christianity of our land — the Christianity of our ploughmen, our artisans, our men of handicraft and of hard labour. Yet not the Christianity theirs of deceitful imagination, or of implicit adherence to authority ; but the Christianity of deep, we will add, of rational belief, firmly and profoundly seated in the prin- ciples of our moral nature, and nobly accredited by the virtues of our well-conditioned peasantry. In the olden time of pres- bytery — that time of Scriptural Christianity in our pulpits, and of psalmody in all our cottages, these men grew and multiplied in the land — and, though derided in the heartless literature, and discountenanced or disowned in the heartless politics of other days, it is their remnant which acts as a preserving salt among our people, and which constitutes the real strength and glory of the Scottish nation. 18. Yet, however sufficient for the practical object of conver- sion that evidence may be as addressed to the consciences of the people, let none on that account detract from the importance of the external, or rather what may be termed the literary and argumentative evidence for the truth of Christianity. Without this last, Christianity would soon forfeit the respect and confi- dence of the enlightened and upper classes of society; and their influence, the infection of their example, would speedily descend among the people, among whom at length the ordinances of the gospel, and more especially the hearing of it, would fall into general neglect and desuetude. Even were it possible that our religion could have had its present experimental and popular, without its historical and scientific evidence ; yet, wanting the latter, the former would cease to be operative, simply by its ceasing to be attended to. Whatever evidence may lie enve- loped, like some pearl of great price in an unopened casket, in the subject-matter of Christianity — it must be altogether fruit- less, without an earnest and persevering regard on the part of conscience-stricken inquirers, and, who in general too, are only so stricken in the act of reading their Bibles or of listening to the friends and the ministers of religion. But if in any country, Christianity should become the object of general contempt to the higher and more intellectual orders of the community, both ministers and Bibles would in process of time become the ob- THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 361 jects of general abandonment by the multitude at large. It is therefore well that Christianity possesses that which, on justice being done to its credentials and its claims, must command for it the homage of the most exalted whether in rank or in scholar- ship; and accordingly in Britain, where perhaps the aristocracy both of wealth and of talent is more virtuous than in most other nations, the erudite or academic demonstration of the truth of Christianity has been most studied ; and it is well, we repeat, that Christianity is so firmly based on this species of argument, as to have kept its ground among the reasoners. It is not the power or the triumph of this argument which works among the multitude a general faith in the Christian religion; but it has helped, it has greatly though it may be indirectly helped, to maintain their general respect for it; and whatever the influ- ence may be, whether it is hereditary attachment, or the me- chanical operation of habit, or the testimony of their superiors in favour of the established religion, which keeps up their adher- ence to Bibles and to the pulpits of the land — it is in virtue of that adherence, that their minds are kept in a state of conti- guity with the subject-matter of the gospel, and that the self- evidence which lies in the gospel itself is brought to bear upon them, so as to work in many that faith which is unto salvation. Distinction should be made between the initial and the final in this operation. It is not the learned argument that converts the unlearned, but the respect of the learned in society leaves undisturbed the respect and attention of the unlearned to the lessons of the gospel ; and it is by the power of these lessons upon their consciences, that the unlearned among the people are converted. But what is more, it is not the learned argument that converts even the learned of the community. It may con- ciliate them so far as to command their acquiescence or their intellectual homage for the truth of revelation. It may satisfy their understandings as to the critical and historical credentials of the book ; but to experience the truth in its power, or in its sav- ing efficacy, they must become experimentally acquainted with the contents of the book. Their satisfaction with the credentials will, on the one hand, but aggravate their indifference to the contents of the Bible ; and, on the other hand, it is only wdien they pass from the study of the one to the earnest and prayer- ful and conscientious study of the other — it is only after they have opened their Bibles and are devoutly and diligently em- ployed in exploring its pages, that they are in likely circum- 362 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF stances for obtaining that faith, which enters alike into the mind of the philosopher and peasant, and prepares them alike for heaven. Both are admitted to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven in the same way and upon the same footing at the last. The light which shines out of darkness, shines in the very same way on the mind of the most accomplished savant , and on the humblest of the common people. It is the light of its moral or experimental or doctrinal evidence manifested to the conscience which Christianizes them both ; and even the proudest of rea- soners must thus humble themselves and become as little chil- dren, ere the truth of the gospel becomes theirs — even that truth which is hid from the wise and the prudent, and is revealed only to babes. 19. The external evidence for the truth of Christianity is such as to leave infidelity without excuse, even though the remaining important branches of the Christian defence had been less strong and satisfactory than they are. “ The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.” “ And if I had not done the works among them which none other man did, they had not sinned.” But the study of the historical evidence is not the only channel to a faith in the truth of Christianity. How can it, in the face of the obvious fact, that there are thou- sands and thousands of Christains, who bear the most undeniable marks of the truth having come home to their understanding “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power?” They have an evidence within themselves, which the world knoweth not, even the promised manifestations of the Saviour. This evidence is “ a sign to them that believe ; ” but the Bible speaks also of another evidence, which is “a sign to them that believe not;” and should it be effectual in reclaiming any of these from their infidelity, a mighty object is gained by the exhibition of it. Should it not be effectual, it will be to them “ a savour of death unto death ;” and this is one of the very effects ascribed to the proclamation of Christian truth in the first ages. If, even in the face of that kind of evidence which they have a relish and respect for, they still hold out against the reception of the gospel, this must aggravate the weight of the threatening which lies upon them : “ How shall they escape if they neglect so great a salvation?” It were well, then, if the effect of having studied the historical evidence should be a stronger determination than before to take our Christianity exclusively from the Bible. It is not enough to entitle a man to the name of a Christian, that he THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 363 professes to believe the Bible to be a genuine communication from God. To be the disciple of any book, he must do some- thing more than satisfy himself that its contents are true — he must read the book — he must obtain a knowledge of the con- tents. And how many are there in the world, who do not call the truth of the Bible message in question, while they suffer it to lie beside them unopened, unread, and unattended to ! 20. But if, on the one hand, the evidence which tells upon the people, should not lead us to undervalue that evidence on which Christianity makes its appeal to the science and the scholarship of the most enlightened in society — on the other hand, no evi- dence, whether external or internal, or with whatever truth and ability it may be expounded, should lead us to forget our entire dependence on the Spirit of God. All the powers and all the activities of nature will be of no avail, .without the visitation of this preternatural influence from heaven. There is nothing to supersede the utmost diligence in the use of means — when told what that is which gives to means all their efficacy. It should not slacken the workman’s hand, it should rather put him on all his strenuousness — when told that the high capacity in which he labours, is that of a fellow-worker with God : But still, if God be not recognised in the process, all human labour will be vain, and all human wisdom a mockery. In other words, if we want to insure success, prayer must be added to performance. The building of churches — the gathering of congregations — even the preaching of the word, with whatever eloquence of talent — all will turn out the unmeaning noise and bustle of an empty preparation, without the effectual invocation of a blessing from on high. The apostles, in the first ages of Christianity, seem to have been abundantly sensible of this — when they said, u We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”* It was not enough to have preached the word, even with the purity of an apostle. It must be preached, not with purity alone but with power — even that power, given only to prayer, which opens the gate of heaven, and “ moves him who moves the universe.” There is not a more delightful occupa- tion than the prosperous management of human nature — when schemes of education and Christian philanthropy have so far a successful issue ; and the boyhood of a before-neglected locality are now assembled in schools ; and the people at large, obedi- ent to the sound of the church- bell, are now to be seen Sabbath * A ?,te vi. 4. 364 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF after Sabbath in the house of God. But even this spectacle, inexpressibly pleasing as it is to the eye of taste, and full of pro- mise and expectancy to every lover of his species, will terminate in a mere civil or economical reformation, and without any fruit for immortality — unless the windows of the upper sanctuary be opened, and living water* shall be made to descend upon us. We might build our churches — we might chalk out our parishes — we might open our seminaries of learning ; and raise, in the midst of some favourite and selected territory, a full complement of busy and well-ordered institutions, by which to send forth a moralizing influence upon the families. But, in the first place, to work aright this moral apparatus that our hands have reared, we are altogether dependent on the Spirit of God for the men ; and, accordingly we are told, not merely to send labourers our- selves, but to pray that God would send them, who might enter on the plenteous harvest of our large and teeming population. And then for the efficacy, for the real saving and spiritual effi- cacy of their labours, we must continue to knock at that door which we cannot open — that light and grace may descend on this busy scene of human endeavours, and God may revive His own work in the midst of us. Could anything exceed the labour and the locomotion of Paul ? — the fervour and constancy of his ministrations ? — the w r eight and variety of his multitudinous cares ? And yet what a life of supplication was his, as well as of sustained diligence and activity ; and how he cast himself on the intercessions of his own converts — imploring the benefit of their prayers. And it holds true, not in the first age only, but in all ages of the Church. It is only by the union of devout hearts with diligent hands, that Christianity will either be planted firmly or propagated widely in the midst of us. Prayer and per- formance must go together. We should be as diligent as if men did all. We should be as dependent as if God did all. Our painstaking of itself will do nothing without prayer. And it is just as true that our prayers of themselves will do nothing without pains. It is the recorded experience of one of the most zealous and successful of Christian missionaries, that it is in the power of pains and of prayers to do anything. 21. — II. This reasoning on the means and the likelihoods of Christianization at home, is applicable, in many leading respects, to the question of Christianization abroad. The true philosophy of missions is comprehensive of both — resting on this basis, the * John vii. 38, 39. THE EVIDENCE FOK CHRISTIANITY. 365 identity of human nature in all the climes and countries of the world. He who made of the same blood all the nations that be on the face of the earth, hath also made them of the same spirit, planted within the breast of each and of every man the same mental economy ; and, since the original formation of our first great parent, all have undergone the same degeneracy, and are universally smitten with the same moral disease — so that the gospel, whether in the house of our next-door neighbour or among the farthest wilds and on the most distant confines of humanity, meets with the same adaptations, the same sense of guilt, the same apprehensions of a coming judgment, the same felt need of a Saviour — in a word, the same fears and feelings and principles, which, similarly called forth by the Spirit of God, will give the very same response, and the very same reception to the truths of Christianity all the world over. We must not wonder at the uniformity in the result — seeing that the same doctrine meets with the same consciences everywhere. There is no difference in the objective truth, when we preach the same doctrine to every creature under heaven ; and no such difference in the subjective minds on which we operate, as to make the re- ception of Christianity an event that might take place in one country, and be impossible in another. In a word, there are the same minds and the same consciences in both ; and there is the same instrumentality brought to bear on both — even the one and unchangeable doctrine of the New Testament. And there is the same agent for giving effect to that instrumentality — even the Spirit of God, in whose demonstration and by whose power it is, that the truth is made palpable and efficient. So that by preach- ing alike in all countries the same truth, even the truth as it is in Jesus ; and by praying alike for the same blessing, even for an illumination from on high — this truth is made manifest to consciences everywhere ; or, in other words, the gospel of Christ may be carried with acceptance to all tribes and nations and languages. 22. It is thus that the philosophy of missions might be vin- dicated. It is an axiom in philosophy that we should look for a like effect from like causes — a like manufacture from like mate- rials. In the work of conversion the materials on which we operate is the same, whether at home or in India — the identical human nature, that is characteristic not of tribe or of nation, but is characteristic of the species. The instrument by which we operate is the same — the identical doctrine of the Bible, the 366 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF identical message from heaven to all the people that be upon the earth. The power which gives the instrument its efficacy is the same — even that Spirit who bloweth where He listeth, and who with but the Bible to pioneer His way, disowns all the distinc- tions of savage or civilized life, and all the barriers of geography. In the prosecution of this cause, we transfer to other lands the. very machinery which is at work in our own parishes. We trans- late the Sacred Volume, and circulate it amongst them. We, send schoolmasters who might teach them to read this verna- cular Bible. We send ministers who expound it. We knock at the door of heaven’s sanctuary, that a virtue may descend from on high, and God may add the grace of His Spirit to the testi- mony of His word. We cannot overthrow the sufficiency of this process, but by an argument that would nullify all the Chris- tianizing processes of our own land. We cannot put down this cause without passing sentence of extinction on the religious light of all Christendom. We cannot rightfully charge the work of missionaries beyond this limit with fanaticism or folly, without fastening the brand of these very imputations on the work of ministers within. If no Christianity can be formed there with- out the power of working present miracles, or the power of evincing to the belief of savages the reality of past miracles — then no Christianity can be formed here throughout the mass and great majority of our own population. But if Christianity can be formed here by the simple power of truth upon the con- science, this is the principle which opens the world to the enter- prise of missionaries. Wherever there is a human being there is a conscience ; and on this ground alone, the message of salva- tion might circulate around the globe, and be carried with ac- ceptance through all its nations, and tribes, and families. 23. When the first missionaries went to Greenland, we may be sure that they had the ignorance of a most raw and unfur- nished population to contend with. They thought they would go systematically to work — and before presenting them with the Christian message in the terms of the message, that they would give them some preparatory ideas on natural religion. For this purpose they expatiated in formal demonstration on the existence and unity, and the attributes, and the law of God. The Green- landers did not comprehend them ; and the missionaries were mortified to find, that, after years of labour, they had not gained a single proselyte to the truth. On this they resolved to change their measures — and, as a last desperate experiment, they gave THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY. 367 up all their preparatory instructions, and made one great and decisive step onward to the peculiar doctrines, and these too couched in the peculiar phraseology of the Gospel. When simply told in Scripture words of sin and of the Saviour, the effect was instantaneous. There was something in the hearts of these un- lettered men, which responded to the views and tidings of the New Testament. The demonstrations of natural religion fell fruitless and unintelligible upon their ear ; but they felt the burden of sin and of death ; and pleasant to their souls was the preacher's voice, when it told that unto them a Saviour was born. They live on the very outskirts of population — and be- yond them there is nothing seen but a wilderness of snow, and nothing heard but the angry howling of the elements. Who will say that the enterprise is chimerical, now that a Christian people have been formed in a country so unpromising, that the limits of the visible Church have been pushed forward to the limits of human existence, and the tidings of good-will to men have been carried with acceptance to the very last and outermost of the species? 24. The discovery that was made by the Moravians was con- verted by them into a principle which they carried round the globe ; and which ever since has been the fertile source of their marvellous success in the work of evangelizing the heathen. They now learned that it was impossible to antedate the message of the gospel in any land, and they availed themselves of this Greenland experience in all their subsequent operations — among the Esquimaux of Labrador, among the Indians of North America, among the negroes of the Danish, and the Dutch, and the British colonies, and lastly among the Hottentots of South Africa. As the effect of their peculiar yet powerful moral regi- men, villages have arisen in the wilderness ; and we now behold men of before untamed and savage nature, as if by the touch of miracle, completely, because radically transformed — living in gentleness together, and tutored in the arts and the decencies of a civilized people. Many there are, who nauseate the peculiar evangelism which lies at the root of this great moral and spiri- tual change, yet are forced to admire the beauteous efflorescence which proceeds from it — just as there are many who can eye with delight the graces of a cultivated landscape, yet have no taste for the operations of the husbandry which called it into being. Certain it is that Moravians have become the objects of a popular and sentimental admiration among men, who could 368 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER OF not tolerate the methodistical flavour, as they may term it, of a Moravian Report — a thing just as possible, as that they might feel a most exquisite relish for their music along with a thorough distaste for their hymns. The fruit and the flower are both pleasing to the eye of nature, with many to whom the culture is offensive, and who could not look upon it without the revolt of nature’s enmity to the truth as it is in Jesus. And therefore it is, that they look only to the one, and contrive to overlook the other. And accordingly Moravians have, of late, become the objects of very general request, as well as general admiration. Their services are everywhere sought after. It was a most sub- stantial testimony in their favour, when the West India planters found the best results from their preaching and discipline, in the good order and fidelity of their slaves— proving of the most de- graded and oppressed of our species — that still there was a moral nature within, which felt the adaptations of the gospel, and could respond to them. 25. This seems the best plan for the adjustment of the ques- tion, whether the first attempt should be to Christianize or to civilize — or which of these ought to have the precedency of the other. The Moravians themselves have innocently given rise to a delusion on this subject. The result in their converts has now become so striking and so palpable — they have at length succeeded in raising so beauteous a spectacle, as that of Chris- tian and well-ordered villages, in what were before the frightful haunts of prowling and plundering barbarians — there is some- thing so inexpressibly pleasing in the chapel services, and the well-attended schools, and the picturesque gardens, and the snug habitations and prosperous husbandry of reclaimed Hottentots, that Moravians are now extolled by sentimental travellers and eloquent writers as an example, nay, as a reproach to all other missionaries. And they have supposed, perhaps naturally enough, that what w r as foremost in exhibition was also first in time — that the Christianity, in short, was a graft upon the civi- lisation, and not the civilisation a graft upon the Christianity. There were none more hurt and scandalized by these eulogies than the Moravians themselves — and they have actually penned a vindication of their method, not against the censure of malig- nant enemies, but against the praise of mistaken admirers. The whole history, in fact, of their success, we may add, the whole history of Christianization since the days of the apostles, goes to prove, that wherever the faith of the gospel arises in the mind, THE EVIDENCE FOE CHRISTIANITY. 369 it is rooted and has its deep foundation in the workings of that moral nature which is common to all the species — and that it springs not from so thin a layer as that surface-dressing of civi- lisation, by which one part of the species is distinguished from another. And so it is, that they begin with the topics of sin and of the Saviour at the very outset of their converse, even with the rudest of nature’s wanderers — and they find a con- science in them which responds as readily to their sayings, and with less of presumption and prejudice to obstruct their efficacy, as in the lettered Mahometan or demi-civilized Hindoo. It is true they also attempt, as all other missionaries do, to initiate into the arts and industry of Europe from the very beginning of their enterprise — and the two educations of religion and humanity go on contemporaneously together. It may, in some instances, be difficult to assign what the precedency is in the order of time — but as to the precedency in the order of nature, or in the order of cause and effect, there is no difficulty. It is not the previous civilisation which makes way for the Christi- anity — it is the previous incipient Christianity which makes way for the civilisation. This is the strict philosophy of the process. Christianity does not wait for civilisation — it is civilisation that waits and follows with attendant footsteps on Christianity. In a word, the message of God to man may be delivered immedi- ately to all men. It is a message alike to the barbarian and the Greek — and here, too, as in everything else, there is the fullest harmony between the declarations of the gospel itself, and the findings of experience. 26. This explains that very prevalent misconception, in virtue of which it is, that while in the West Indies more especially, and indeed throughout a great portion of British society, there was such demand and admiration for Moravians, there was along with it some years ago so strong a remainder of dislike and even of derision for all other missionaries. The reason was simply this. The Moravians were the oldest of all our modern Protestant missionaries — and they had time to work up a more conspicuous result as the evidence of their labours. They also went through the very ordeal of contempt and of bitter calumny which other missionaries had still to undergo, and must continue to endure so long as the Christianity of the attempt stands out more nakedly to the eye of worldly observers ; and the mantle of civilisation is not yet sufficiently thickened to cover it from their view. There may be even still a rawness in the more recent VOL. vi. 2 A 370 ON THE PORTABLE CHARACTER, ETC. village of Bethelsdorp, which is now most comfortably and completely seasoned away, in the older establishments of the Moravians. The one is just as solidly and deeply founded as the other, in the sacredness of the enterprise which led to it. But there may not yet be that secondary luxuriance which catches the eye and calls forth the homage of sentimentalism. The honey-suckle has perhaps not fully grown at each cottage door — nor may the picture yet be completed for the enraptured traveller to gaze upon, and at which he kindles perchance into strains of sweetest poesy. So meagre, so utterly superficial and ignorant and meagre, are the conceptions of those, who, while they would exalt the Moravians, do it at the expense of the Methodist and of all other missionaries. There is in it the mere finery of sentimental prettiness, without the depth of Christian principle, without the substance or the depth of philosophic observation. BOOK IV. ON THE BOOKS OF THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REVELA- TION, AND THE DEGREE OF AUTHORITY WHICH BELONGS TO THEM. CHAPTER I. ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, AND MORE ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 1. The term u canon ” has long been employed to distinguish the real or authoritative books of revelation from all other hooks, whether they pretended to this high character or not. The origin and significancy of the word in this particular appli- cation of it seem not very clear. In the primitive use of it, it denoted the tongue of a balance — whence, by no very distant transition, it came to mean a rule or standard. Every book that is the genuine work of an inspired man, is an absolute rule of faith or life for all who are addressed by it. St. Paul, in Gal. vi. 16, speaks of those who “ walk according to this rule,” toutuj ; and in Phil. iii. 16, he says, “let us walk by the same rule,” rw a'jruj z.aw/. To walk according to the canon of certain doctrines or precepts, is to walk according to the rule and direc- tion of the Scriptures which contain them — which may be well therefore termed canonical, because of their prerogative to rule, or because of the authority which belongs to them. Certain it is, that the term, in this sense and application of it, was very early, and at length very generally made use of in the Christian Church. It appears in phrases of constant recurrence throughout the works of Irenaeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Athanasius, Epi- phanius, Jerome, Augustine, Eusebius, and others. 2. We may be well assured that all those books which were admitted into the canon, obtained this high distinction because 372 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, of the peculiar respect and confidence in which they were held at the time, and which signalized them over all other books. But the testimony of these other and inferior books is regarded by many as the main, the fundamental evidence for the canonical rank of our present Scriptures. In the treatment of this ques- tion, we are liable to the same delusion as that which we have already attempted to expose. We are apt to look on the Bible, the whole Bible, as one book ; and, instead of admitting its evidence in favour of itself, to search for the testimonies of writers external to the Bible — as if these constituted the only external evidence for the canon which can anywhere b® found. It is forgotten that the Bible consists of no less than sixty-six separate compositions, all of them possessing the highest autho- rity in ancient esteem — else they would never have been pre- ferred to the place which they now occupy. The very circum- stance which has caused their testimony to be overlooked, is that which gives the greatest possible weight and value to it. When a scriptural writer is deponed to by an ex-scriptural, this is a testimony of some account in favour of the former. But of far higher account surely, as generally the more ancient, and cer- tainly the most trusted at the time by the best and most compe- tent judges, must be the testimonies of the scriptural writers in favour of each other. These last testimonies have certainly been much overlooked, as if hidden from observation, by being placed within the four corners of the Bible. If so, they are a hidden treasure — nor have we been made aware of the whole richness and power of the argument in behalf of Scripture, till we have collected all the rays of evidence which pass and repass from one independent part of this great collection to another. There is a descending stream of light in the testi- monies of subsequent writers; and these have drawn the prin- cipal attention of inquirers. But there is, in our estimation, a surpassing radiance of primitive and central light in the testi- monies of the original writers ; and so at least as to furnish the strongest internal evidence for the canon of the Old Testament. The later Scriptures must of course participate less in this ad- vantage — as they depend more on the citations and references of succeeding authors. But it is truly fortunate, that, for the greater distance at which the more ancient record stands from the present age, and so the less satisfactory evidence by which it is either followed or encompassed, we should enjoy so full a compensation in that evidence which it harbours within the re- ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 373 ceptacle of its own bosom. We propose, therefore, that our chief attention should be given to this peculiar evidence for the canon of the Old Testament — as illustrative of a principle for which we have the highest value ; and which we have stated and enforced in another place.* It will afterwards appear, how much the establishment of the canonicity, if it may be so termed, of the Old Testament prepares the way for the inspiration both of the Old and of the New. 3. We are not to imagine, however, that the ex-scriptural evidence for the canon of the Old Testament is either weak or scanty. We have much of this evidence in the Apocrypha, from which also we gather, as we do abundantly from other history besides, the zeal and tenacity of the Jewish nation on the sub- ject of their own sacred writings. In the first book of Maccabees, written, it is generally thought, about a century before the birth of Christ, and, as the best judges hold, by a more authentic his- torian than even Josephus, we have a vivid description of the sufferings of the Jews, under the persecution which they sus- tained from Antiochus Epiphanes. Among other cruelties we are told that “ when they (the persecutors) had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire. And wheresoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any consented to the law, the king’s command- ment was that they should put him to death.” -j- This is con- firmed by Josephus, whose history indeed of this period is very much taken from the book that we are now quoting. u If there w T ere any sacred book of the law found, it was destroyed, and those with whom they were found miserably perished also.”;); This zeal of the Jews for the books of their religion forms a guarantee for their safe custody, and gives a confidence in their received catalogue of genuine and authentic Scriptures which we should not have felt, had the people been indifferent to the possession or the preservation of them. With such a national character as theirs, there lies immense evidence for the canonicity of the Old Testament, in the one circumstance alone, that its books were generally received and acknowledged by the Jews as their Scriptures, or the books of their religion, to the exclusion of all others. The state of their Bible, in the days of our Saviour, carries an evidence in itself, for its being indeed the true and the right state of it ; nor can we imagine how that * See Book II. chap. iv. sec. 16, 17. + 1 Mac. i. 56, 57. I Jos. Ant. Book XII. chap. v. sec. 4, 374 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, evidence could be made stronger than by the disruption which took place between the Jews and the Christians ; and yet the common recognition which both continued to make of the same Old Testament. Even could no express written testimonies have been adduced in favour of the books which compose the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a firm monumental evidence for them in the general use and esteem of their own people ; and more especially as authenticated by the actual agreement be- tween these two hostile bodies of witnesses, the Christians and Jews, who, though in the fiercest controversy against each other on the most vital questions, nevertheless unite in the homage which they render to our present Old Testament. This is an evidence patent to all eyes, and perhaps undervalued on that account — though, in our estimation, of tenfold greater weight than all the array of those testimonies which can be produced by the learned from Jewish authors, and also from the earlier of the Christian Fathers. It is well, however, that such an array can be exhibited. It is well that we are told by Josephus — u We have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have], but only twenty-two * books which contain the records of all the past times, which are justly believed to be Divine. And of them five belong to Moses which contain his laws, and * We now number thirty-nine books in the Old Testament; but these are all comprised iu the twenty-four or twenty-two books, their estimated number in earlier times. Ezra and his Jewish colleagues are understood to have made out an enumeration of twenty -f-iur books, comprehending, however, all the present books of our received Old Testament, and including none other. Their enumeration stood thus: — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Num- bers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel (our two present books in one), Kings (a similar reduction). Chronicles (again two in one), Ezra /which included Nehemiah), Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and lastly the twelve prophets (being the minor prophets — Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Mala- chi), in one book — making iu all twenty-four books of our present thirty-nine. The later J ews reduced this number to twenty-two, so as to correspond with the Hebrew alphabet — not, however, by abstracting from the canon any of its parts, but by combining in two instances two books into one, appending Ruth to the book of Judges, and the Lamentations to Jeremiah. This method of classifying the books of the Old Testament variously has semewhat obscured the distinctness of the testimonies in their favour In the general divisions, too, there was a want of uniformity. Josephus, it will be seen, enumerates five Mosaical or Legal Books, thirteen Prophetical, and four Poetical or Preceptive. Whereas with many of the Hebrew doctors, perhaps the most general reckoning amongst them was that of five legal, eight pro- phetical books, and eleven books termed by them Holy writings or Hagiographa. Still later the whole number of books was estimated at twenty-seven — not hy the addition or abstrac- tion of any of the parts from the whole, but by a variation in the reckoning of the parts. See Buxtorf’s “Tiberias” for further information on this subject. ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 375 the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time from the death of Moses till the reign of Arta- xerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact suc- cession of prophets since that time : and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by that we do ; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one hath been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them ; but it is become natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them. For it is no new thing for our captives, many of them in number and frequently in time, to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be obliged to say one word against our laws and the records which contain them ; whereas there are none at all among the Greeks who would undergo the least harm on that account, no, nor in case all the writings that are among them were to be destroyed ; for they take them to be such discourses as are framed agree- ably to the inclinations of those that write them ; and they have justly the same opinion of the ancient writers, since they see some of the present generation bold enough to write about such affairs, wherein they were not present, nor had concern enough to inform themselves about them from those that knew them ; examples of which may be had in this late war of ours, where some persons have written histories and published them, without having been in the places concerned, or having been near them when the actions w r ere done ; but these men put a few things together by hearsay, and insolently abuse the world, and call these writings by the name of Histories It is further well * Josephus against Apion, Book I. sec. 8. — Had Josephus not chanced to bequeath this passage to posterity, ought the evidence for the Hebrew Scriptures to have been sensibly weaker in consequence? Should not the faith of the whole nation of the Jews, accredited by the like faith of the whole body of Christians as to the books deemed sacred, and more especially when accompanied by such a mass and amount of evidence as can be educed from the Scriptures themselves — should not this have compensated for the want of the ex-scriptural testimony of Josephus? 37 0 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, that on this subject we have such a galaxy of evidence in the authors whom Josephus refers to in the foregoing passage — who wrote the Jewish history since the days of Artaxerxes ; and who, though not esteemed of like authority with the canonical writers, might nevertheless (at least some of them) be confided in as faithful historians. Josephus intimates, as the reason why they were not so esteemed, that the nation was not so privileged as formerly with the visits of prophetical men. In other words, these authors did not rank with the sacred writers, and yet might rank very high as authentic narrators of the state and affairs of the Jewish people. The truth is, that most of them have incurred an undue discredit in consequence of the extrava- gant pretensions which have been made in their behalf, to an equal place with the writers of the Old Testament. But for this they would have been more generally appealed to — for the Apocrypha too contain a great amount of ex- scriptural evidence in favour of the Jewish Scriptures — such evidence as is ex- hibited in favour of the Christian Scriptures by Lardner, in his Credibility ; where he makes a collection of citations and refer- ences to the New Testament from the works of the Christian fathers, who stood in the same relation to the New that the Apocryphal writers did to the Old Testament. It were well, if from these Apocrypha, along with the works of the earliest Jewish authors not canonical,* there could be presented to the world such a digest or enumeration of testimonies in favour of the Hebrew Scriptures, as Lardner has made for the Christian Scriptures from the writings of the Fathers as well as of the Jews and heathens. The common reader will find it a confirma- tory and profitable exercise, to read those Apocrypha which are well provided with marginal references — whence he will be able to collect a body of evidence both for the books of the Old Testament and for the history contained in them.-j- Ere we * More particularly Josephus and Philo. The latter has expressly quoted or referred to almost all the books of our present Old Testament as authoritative Scriptures — and to none others. t Were a Lardnerian collection made from the Apocrypha in favour of the Old Testa- ment, the following articles would find a place in it. among many others of the same cha- racter : — 2 Esdras i. 39. 40. — “Unto whom I will give for leaders, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Oseas, Amos, and Micheas, Joel, Abdias. and Jonas, Nahum, and Abacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zachary, and Malachy, which is called also an angel of the Lord ” The twelve last named, associated with the three ancestral patriarchs of the Jewish people, include all the minor prophets, whose books were bound up in one volume. It is difficult to imagine that the author of Esdras should ha v-e derived these names from any other quarter than from ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 377 conclude this brief notice of the ex-scriptural evidence for the Old Testament, we would advise those readers who might wish to attain a complete view of this department, to make them- selves acquainted with the express written testimonies of the Christian Fathers — who, in innumerable instances, depone to the canonical authority of separate books, and sometimes pre- sent us with catalogues of the whole. Of these, one of the most full and distinct is the catalogue by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, who flourished a little after the middle of the second century. He travelled into Palestine on purpose to learn the number of the books of the Old Testament. Eusebius says of his catalogue that it contains those Scriptures of the Old Testament which are universally acknowledged. The only dif- ference in it from our present Old Testament, is, that he does not mention the Book of Esther. The difference, however, it is probable, is only apparent. The likelihood is that Esther was appended to some other book, as Ruth was to the Book of Judges; and that neither could be named therefore in those catalogues which observed that particular kind of distinction. At all events, the Book of Esther has abundance of other evi- dence to rest upon. 4. But without dwelling any further on the ex-scriptural evi- dence which there is for the canon of the Old Testament, let us now attend to the evidence which might be found on this subject in both the Old Testament and the New — which, instead of Scripture speaking for itself, is one part of Scripture composed perhaps by a different author and in a different age speaking for another part of it. We behold a succession of authors in the Old Testament, and a large contemporaneous group of authors in the New ; and who, on every principle by which we estimate the credit and the confidence due to written testimonies, is each this volume, or that his collection should have quadrated so accurately with the biblical one, but on the hypothesis of its anterior and separate existence — confirming therefore our other evidence for the ancient existence of these books — while, associated as these authors are with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it proves at least the degree of veneration in which they were held by the author of this Apocryphal writing. Tobit ii. 6. — “Remembering that prophecy of Amos, as lie said, ‘Your feasts shall be turned into mourning, and all your mirth into lamentation.”’ An express quotation from Amos viii 10. And like quotations may be had from the Apocrypha, of Jeremiah, Malachi, J oshua, J udges, Samuel — besides a large body of evidence scarcely less effective for most of the other books of the Old Testament. We may add, that most invaluable confirmations are to be found in the Book of Ecclesi- astious — of which I shall only instance the attestations of its author, in favour of Ezekiel and Nebemiah. — Ecclus. xlix. 378 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, of them tenfold more valuable, than if, instead of being ranked as a sacred, he had been ranked as an Apocryphal or profane writer. The circumstance of his being reckoned worthy of such a distinction in ancient times, is the very reason why in modern times we should place all the firmer reliance on him. The Bible is not one book, but an aggregate of many ; and if, viewing it as such, we were to compute aright the force of that argument which lies in the concurrence of distinct and independent wit- nesses — we should find, not only for the facts of Scripture history, but for the deference and respect in which the various writers, particularly of the Old Testament, were held, a stronger chain of testimony, and on the whole, a brighter galaxy of light and evi- dence, than can be exhibited in any collection or credibility which might be framed of the best extracts from all other authors. 5. But before considering in detail, the scriptural evidence for each particular book of the Old Testament — there is a cer- tain general evidence, of this very species too, that is applicable to them all; and which attaches to these Hebrew writings such proofs of genuineness and authority, as are quite unexampled of any other documents that have been transmitted to us from ancient times. 6. First — there can be no doubt in respect to the Jewish nation, that one of their most resolute and characteristic princi- ples, in every family where principle had the ascendency, was a respect for their law 7 ; and by consequence, for the books which contained that law, as well as for all other books received by their nation as of Divine authority. We cannot imagine a greater security for the faithful transmission of these books, than the obligation under which every conscientious Hebrew felt him- self to lie, of diligently instructing his children both in the ob- servances and history of his own people. For this being the general habit of the well-principled among them, we have the concurrent evidence of many different writers, not the less dis- tinct from, and therefore not the less corroborative of each other, that they happen to be placed side by side within the limits of one volume. They were placed there, because of the respect held for them in former ages; and they should not therefore suffer on this account in the estimation of later ages. Even so early as the days of Abraham, the father and prototype of the Jewish nation, we find this religious training of his own family singled out as the habit that most recommended him to the ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 379 favour of God. “ For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment ; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.”* It is solemnly enjoined that the words of God, not as handed from one to another by oral tradition, but as committed to writing, and so forming the words of the book of a law,-}- should be taught by parents to their families. u And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou best down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” | u And lie said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your chil- dren to observe to do, all the words of this law.”§ This habit of transmission from father to son was not confined to the statutes and books of the nation ; but it extended to their monuments, and the remarkable passages of their history. The stones of Gilgal may quoted as a distinct example of this. “ And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.” || “ As for me and my house,” says Joshua, “ we will serve the Lord.”^[ The stress laid on house- hold or family tuition among the Jews, may be traced downward through the succeeding books of the Old Testament; and in passages greatly too frequent for the exhibition of them all. The tremendous destruction that came upon Eli's house is re- presented, in the first book of Samuel, to have been the conse- quence of his neglect of this duty. “ And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house ; when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him, that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knoweth ; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. And therefore I have sworn unto the * Gen. xviii. 19. f Deut. xxviii. 61 ; xxix. 21 ; xxxi. 26. t Deut. vi. 6-9. § Dent, xxxii. 46. 8 Joshua iv. 21, 22. II Joshua xxiv. 15. * 380 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not he purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.”* In short, we may notice throughout the Old Testament everywhere, the indications of that parental tuition in the knowledge of their national religion, which seems to have been quite a habit and a principle among the Jews. That “ which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us, we will not hide from their children, show- ing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children ; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children.” -}- There was thus what might be termed a general family habit among the Jews, which made them all the more effectual keepers of the Divine oracles — this being one great purpose of their selection by God as His peculiar people. It formed a great security, not for the diffusion alone through the innumerable and unseen privacies of domestic life, but along with this for the certain preservation of their sacred writings — no decree of extermination, by the fiercest persecutors, being able to reach all the copies of a work so spread and multiplied, both within Judea and beyond the con- fines of it. It is true, there were seasons of general defection ; but, in many instances, the books would remain in families, while the families themselves had fallen away from the worship and observation of their forefathers. And besides, there never was a universal defection. There were no less than seven thousand true worshippers, at the time when Elijah thought that he stood alone in his adherence to the ancient faith ; and to them their Scriptures would be all the dearer, as the choicest relics which remained to them of the religion they loved — treasures not the less precious in their eyes, if, as in the days of cruel Antiochus, they were hidden treasures, because it was death to be found in the possession of them. Even then, when the book had so far disappeared from the Jewish court as to be there unknown — insomuch that to have found a single copy of it in the days of Josiah was tantamount to a discovery j — even then, it must, * 1 Samuel iii. 11-14. t Psalm lxxviii. 3-6. See further in confirmation of this argument-^Exod. xii. 26, 27. Deut. iv. 10 ; v. 29 ; xii. 28 ; xxix. 29; xxx. 2 ; xxxi 13. Josh. iv. 6; xxii. 24-28. 1 Kings ii. 4; viii. 25; ix. 6. Psalm lxxxix. 30; cxv. 14, cxxxii. 12. Prov xxii. 6: xxix. 15. Joel i. 3. J 2 Kings xxii. 8. ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 381 though lurking in privacy, have existed in great numbers among the recesses of Jewish society : And this forms our first general argument for the Hebrew Scriptures which were acknowledged as such in the days of our Saviour, being the identical Scriptures that had been acknowledged all along, throughout the successive generations of the children of Israel. 7. But again, never was such an apparatus instituted in any nation for the maintenance of a religious polity, as among the Jews. A whole tribe was set apart for things sacred ; and we may be assured, that a principal care would be those sacred writings of which they were the special depositaries and guard- ians. Never did there exist such a number of professional men, whose appropriate business it was to watch over the books of their faith — such an agency for their transcription, so as to multiply their copies, whether for selling them out or for teach- ing them to the people. In like manner, as each father was the constituted instructor of his own family — so were their priests and Levites everywhere, who acted the part of instructors to the population at large. And accordingly, we read of this as their peculiar employment in those days of reform and restora- tion — when, after the suspension of these their ordinary engage- ments, they were again set to their accustomed work — marking what the established habit was in good and peaceful and pros- perous times. In the days of Jehoshaphat, we are told that u he sent Levites and priests; and they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.”* We read of a similar great reform in the time of good king Hezekiah ; and also of Josiah, who, after having made dis- covery in the temple of the book of the law, took care that its contents should be made known to the people. “ And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small ; and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord.”J And the like was done by Ezra on the return of the people from the Babylonish captivity, who, from the pulpit of wood, read the book of the law of Moses to a large assembly of men and women ; and appointed priests and Levites who might cause the people to understand the law — and u so they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, * 2 Chron. x?ii. 8. t 2 Chron xxix.-xxxi \ 2 Chron. xxxiv. 30 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, 382 and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the read- ing.”* We might well imagine that with so large an ecclesias- tical body, there must have existed an immense number of safe and authentic repositories for the sacred writings ; and, though it is only of one such repository that we are distinctly told in Scripture, yet the intelligent reader will not fail to perceive, by the history of that single instance, how perfect a security we have for the incorrupt transmission of the Old Testament, from the time of its original composition to the days of our Saviour. We meau the deposition of the book of the law of Moses in or beside the ark of the testimony.-j- u And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather thy people to- gether, men, and women, and children, and the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law ; and that their children, which have not known any- thing, may hear,* and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.” “ And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the cove- nant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” J These passages * JSTeh. viii. 8. — It has been well observed on this passage that it clearly proves of the Israelites, that they must have had copies of their sacred writings during as well as subse- quent to the Jewish captivity — seeing that when the people requested Ezra to produce the law of Moses, they did not entreat him to get it dictated anew to them (Neh. viii. 1) ; but that he would bring forth the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had commanded to Israel. t It has been much disputed, both among Jewish doctors and Christian fathers, whether the book was deposited inside or outside the ark — and whether in a chest close to the ark of the covenant, or in a little cell annexed to it. Our own inclination is for assigning it an exterior place within the Holy of Holies, but without the ark of the covenant. + Deut. xxxi. 9-13, 24-2C. — We would further direct the attention of the reader to 2 Caron v. 4, 5, where is recorded the transference of the ark and of all the holy vessels to the temple. We cannot doubt that on that solemn occasion, when the tabernacle and all that was in it was brought up, the book of the law would be similarly deposited as before. ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 383 are of immense value, as demonstrative of the care taken for the diffusion of religious knowledge among the people ; and the latter particularly so, as affording a most signal demonstration of the safe keeping of their sacred records. For there is great reason to believe, that, after the book of the law of Moses was de- posited in the ark, copies of all the other canonical writings, when once their authority was established, were placed there along with it. Certain it is, that, over and above the Pentateuch, we read of words written by Joshua,* in the hook of the law of God ; and which would therefore in all probability have the same high place of memorial assigned to it — and more especially as they were the words of a solemn and enduring covenant between God and the people. It is true that when the temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, all the autographs that had been deposited there were most probably destroyed along with it. But there is every likelihood that, when the temple was rebuilt, and the canon of the Old Testament was established by Ezra and his colleagues— an ark was constructed for the reception of a copy of it, and placed in the Holy of Holies. It forms a strong con- firmation of this, that, in the triumph of Titus at Eome, of which Josephus was both the historian and the eye-witness, the Book of the Law was carried in procession along with the other spoils of the temple. “ But for those that were taken in the temple of Jerusalem, they made the greatest figure of them all ; that is, the golden table of the weight of many talents ; the candlestick also, that was made of gold, though its construction were now changed from that which we made use of : for its middle shaft was fixed upon a basis, and the small branches were produced out of it to a great length, having the likeness of a trident in their position, and had every one a socket made of brass for a lamp at the tops of. them. These lamps were in number seven, and represented the dignity of the number seven among the Jews ; and the last of all the spoils, was carried, the law of the Jews”\ This book of the law, Josephus informs us, was not deposited in the temple which Vespasian built to Peace, along with the golden vessels and instruments that were taken out of the temple at Jerusalem. This book, along with the purple veils of the holy place, the emperor reserved for him- self, and kept in his own royal palace. And accordingly, it is a very general faith among learned men, that an authentic copy of all the canonical and authorized Scriptures was placed as they * Josh. ]Lxiv. 26. t Josephus, Jewish War, Book YU. v. 5. 384 ON THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE were successively written in the sanctuary ; and which copy could be appealed to, if indeed there ever was occasion for it, in every question of doubtful or different readings — and that thus a palpable distinction was kept up between the sacred and the apocryphal writings. Epiphanius says of the Apocrypha, that, “ though useful and profitable, they were not taken in among the Scriptures. And therefore they were not placed in the ark of the covenant ” * Damascenus also testifies of the apocryphal writings, that, “however good and beautiful, they were not ranked with the canonical writings, and not deposited in the ark.” -j- So that, though offered by their authors to the church, they were not thought worthy of a place beside the canonical and authorized writings, and therefore were not laid along with these in the ecclesiastical repository or ark. It is doubtless from this circumstance that the fathers termed the canonical writings svd/adsroi — because they understood that, when admitted into the canon, they were at the same time admitted into the sanctuary, and placed by the ark of the covenant ; whereas, on the other hand, the acro^upo/ may have received their name, because they were restrained dno rrjg dying xgvvrrjg, from that holy crypt, that sacred repository in which the canoni- cal writings were preserved. This, then, is thought to have been the practice, both before and after the Jewish captivity ; and it does seem a very formal and distinct acquittal of the trust which had been laid on that people, to whom, in the lan- guage of Paul, “ had been committed the oracles of God.” Irre- spective, however, of the evidence that exists for this especial observance, it is obvious that both in the general habit of Jewish families, and in the institution of so numerous and well-appointed a body of ecclesiastics, there did obtain among the Jews the most ample and efficient means for the fulfilment of this great purpose. The likelihood, at the same time, of this method of custody and preservation, is, we think, well made out, both by the quotations from Scripture, and the other testimonies which we have now exhibited ; and receives moreover a certain con- firmation from the practice in Jewish synagogues at this day — where a copy of the law is still deposited in a sacred receptacle, called by Tertullian Judaicum armarium , a little chest or press termed armoire in French, and thence transformed into aumory * * E v ry Tv; 'Sio.Qyix'/is xificvrto. t j?4*a££