Evidences of Christianity

fairly the claims of Divine Revelation. To this succeeds Paley's argument, which, in proving the Historical Reality of the Miracles of the New Testament, establishes the claims that the Bible for itself sets forth. The notes to the work are sometimes original, and frequently extracted from the writings of others. I was anxious to add the authority of greater names than my own humble and obscure one to the opinions which these notes embody. The books on the subject of the Evidences, to which I have chiefly referred, are those that are most easily accessible in this country; for, in these days of daring hypotheses and new revelations, it is more than ever necessary that the Christian should be able to give a reason for the hope that is in him, and more than ever desirable that the sciolist and the sceptic should study the credentials of the Sacred Scriptures. Whenever our author deserves commendation he receives it; when censure, it is not withheld. The case of Dr. Paley is one that strikingly illustrates the possibility of a man's being mighty in stating the credentials of Revelation, and most feeble in interpreting the contents of Revelation. I believe that had be executed this work at a later period of his life, he would nave used much more caution than he has done, in speaking of Morals, of Inspiration, of the Old Testament, and of the peculiar object of the Gospel. But, fortunately, the very inferiority of the ground which, on those points, he chooses to occupy, only strengthens the arguments that he draws from them. They become arguments à fortiori. Yet, after all, although, in what he terms the Auxiliary Evidences of Christianity, his sagacious and judge-like faculty of clear and conclusive statement does not desert him, it is the Direct Historical proof that onstitutes the stronghold of the work.

And this is impregnable. It is equally fatal to Deism, which pronounces the Bible false; to Naturalism, which pronounces it fabulous; and to Spiritualism, which pronounces it the production of mere human genius. Deism has had its day. Naturalism is compelled to assume, in spite of Historical fact, that the books were got up as mythical creations during the interval between Christ's death and some fancied epoch at which the books are said to have peen compiled from the popular legends of the church! And Spiritualism maintains that the Great Teacher himself, and his apostles, were not more divinely inspired, and much less extensively informed, than the modern apostles of its own school. The Historical chain, however, is traced up to the very days of our Saviour, of whose life we have no fewer than four distinct memoirs composed by his own contemporaries, besides numerous other documents of the same period, which proceed upon the facts as notorious-the whole constituting a body of proof unequalled, we believe, in any other ancient historical question whatever, while the books themselves, on the ground of the undoubted miracles they record, claim, in every possible form, direct and indirect, to be, in very deed, the WORD OF GOD and NOT OF MAN.

I have endeavored to render this edition as complete a text-book for colleges and schools as my limits would allow. In my own experience I have found Paley's treatise singu larly adapted to this purpose by its perspicuity, precision, and brevity-the three great requisites in such a work; and it is hoped that the notes and additions to the present re-issue will supply, to some extent, what was wanting to make it suitable to the times in which we live.

The text and references are accurately reprinted from the large English edition in two vols. 8vo. Of the notes which I have added, the shorter will be found in the margin, the larger at the close of the chapters.

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