Most of them, moreover, denial of his Master by another?* were plain, illiterate men, no way qualified by education or habit for attempting an imposture. Their accounts apparently vary from each other in a thousand respects, as we before observed; but their witness to the broad facts of their Master's life is decided, uniform, conclusive. The undesigned coincidences, which we have also referred to, between the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the epistles, confirm the credibility of them all. The letters to Timothy, Titus, Philemon, confidential, individual friends, contain no other facts than those to the churches of Ephesus, or to the Christian converts scattered over the whole of Asia. The epistles, which abound with rebukes, appeal as boldly to the same facts as those which contain commendation. 5. The apostles, again, were men of sound minds, and by no means credulous or rash. The prominent facts they relate required nothing more than that the witnesses' minds should be sane and honestly used. And where is any vestige, in their accounts, of credulity or enthusiasm! Were ever men more calm, deliberative, aware of all they were about, free from any trait of undue excitation of mind? I appeal to their writings. I appeal to every step of their conduct. So far were they from being credulous, that they were reluctant, slow, backward to believe the truth of any thing at all extraordinary. The ap proach of their Master on the sea they credited not till he assured them it was himself. At his apprehension by the band of soldiers, they were astonished and fled. His resurrection they could scarcely be induced to believe. And as to enthusiasm, where are narratives so stamped with the character of self-possession, soberness, impartiality? There is not a note of exclamation throughout the history. And what can be more consistent, luminous, unadorned, straightforward, than their whole account? * The aggravated circumstance of the cock crowing twice, as recorded in the gospel, written under the eye of the penitent apostle, is deserving of remark. See Mark xiv. 66-71. The fine remark of Sir Isaac Newton on the traces of local memory in St. Matthew is well known. "He who is telling the truth, is apt to state his facts and leave them to their fate; he speaks as one having authority, and cares not about the why or the wherefore, because it never occurs to him that such particulars are wanted to make his, statements credible.". Blunt, 27. § 1 Peter i. 1. 6. Then, they relate events at the spot where they occurred, and before the multitudes who witnessed them. The gospel narrative does not detail facts which happened in another part of the world, or in the recesses of a wilderness, or concerning a person unknown. They relate at Jerusalem what they assert occurred at Jerusalem. They relate events the most public, occurring to a person whose fame filled the whole country, and involving a charge against their own rulers; these events they relate in the presence of the very multitudes before whose eyes they took place, in the face of enemies the most implacable, and before the tribunals of justice—and they relate them, on various occasions, with the same undaunted boldness. 7. The purity and beneficence of their characters I have noticed, so far as regards freedom from credulousness and rashness. But the unparalleled benevolence and holiness of their whole subsequent lives, their freedom from ambition and covetousness, their self-denying love to mankind, and even to their enemies, their meekness and patience under injuries, their heroic fortitude, their discretion and prudence—all the virtues of a devout, laborious, humane life, taken up in consequence of their belief in the Christian history, proves the credit due to the facts of it. For good men are as consistent in virtue, as bad men in vice. The same base hypocrisy which would lead men to forge a false account and establish a lie, would infallibly appear also in their pride, covetousness, ambition, sensuality, love of domination-selfishness in one form or other. This is the brand which Providence puts upon imposture. Unblemished innocency is the seal of truth. This stamps our divine books. It is morally impossible that such men could have imposed knowingly and basely upon mankind. Lastly, They had nothing to expect for their testimony but temporal calamities and death, which they actually incurred, and incurred without once shrinking from the facts they asserted. What was there to instigate the apostles to falsify the truth? What had they to look for? A miserable life, reproach, contempt, derision; the loss of property, home, country; the being "made as the filth of the earth, and the offscouring of all things;" till a shameful and lingering execution delivered them up to posthumous ignominy and scorn. men of such holy characters should, in the face of such sufferings, persevere unto death in their testimony to certain broad and intelligible facts, before an enraged world-when they had That only to hold their peace, and abstain from bearing their testimony, in order to enjoy tranquillity like other men-can only be accounted for on one supposition, the truth of what they asserted.* In short, this branch of our argument may be summed up in the nervous lines of one of our greatest poets :† Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts, Weave such agreeing truths? Or how or why Two considerations of some additional weight strengthen all these proofs of the credibility. Not one of the apostles or of their numerous converts ever came forward to complain of any imposition having been practised upon them. Now it is the obvious dictate of common sense, that if our history be a forgery, and the events did not really take place, some one, out of the many thousands and tens of thousands who followed the religion, under some circumstances or other, must have exposed the deceit, and have totally discomfited the enterprise. But where is the individual? Who has charged our books with falsehood? Did Judas, who, stung with remorse, threw back his guilty gain, and declared he had betrayed the innocent blood? Or did the apostate of a later age, Julian, who admits every one of the gospel facts? Our religion stands without an accuser. Again, if our accounts are false, where is the true one? Our narrative gives an account, a natural, an adequate, and nothing more than an adequate, account of the facts. And where are the traces, where the vestiges of any other? What is the opposite statement? What the counter hypothesis, that we may decide between them? All is silent as death. Every whisper of past tradition confirms our narrative. All accessible information falls in with it. Our account, therefore, is true. Nothing but a perverseness of mind, hardened against the force of moral evidence, can withhold us from reposing an entire confidence, a full acquiescence of the whole rational faculties of man, on the veracity of the evangelical history. This would be the place for entering upon the authenticity * Paley. VOL. I. 11 + Dryden. and credibility of the Old Testament, in order that this branch of our whole subject being completed, we might pass on to the divine authority of the Christian revelation. But this point is so involved in the truth of the New Testament, and so immediately follows from it, that I shall confine myself to an observation or two upon the connection. For it is impossible to open the New Testament without perceiving that the Christian religion is the accomplishment of the Jewish, that our Lord and his apostles constantly appealed to the books of the Old Testament as acknowledged scriptures, quoted them as of unquestionable authority, and publicly professed to accomplish the prophecies which they contain. If, therefore, the New Testament be genuine and credible, the Old Testament is so likewise. The two are indissolubly linked together. The moment you open St. Matthew, the genealogy brings in an appeal to the whole history of the Old Testament; and the distinct references to Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah, as well-authenticated prophets, whose predictions were to be accomplished in the Messiah, seal the truth of the Old Testament, if that of the New is admitted. In like manner our Lord appeals, in his instructions, to these writings as a well-known volume of authentic records: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." He recognizes also the three divisions of the sacred books: "All things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the Psalms and the prophets concerning me." The history of the chief persons of the Old Testament is distinctly confirmed by St. Stephen, in his address to the council,* and by the sacred author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. These contain summaries of the Jewish history agreeing in every part with the Old Testament records. About one hundred and forty times do the solemn expressions, "Scriptures," "Holy Scriptures," "Scriptures of the Prophets," ," "It is written," occur in the New Testament, in attestation of the Old. But I need not dwell on so plain a point, and one so universally admitted. I will content myself with appealing to St. Peter for the authority of the whole compass of the prophetical parts of the Old Testament :- "The prophecy came not of old time by the will of men; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." * Acts vii. + Chapter xi. And to St. Paul for the truth of the ancient scriptures generally :-" All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." With regard to the fidelity of our English translation, it will be sufficient to say that the singular care with which it was executed by forty-seven of the most able and learned divines, who had the advantage of consulting all the previous * Some notice may, perhaps, be required as to the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament, after what we stated as to those of the New. The Apocryphal Books, then, of the Old Testament, differ from those of the New in several respects.-1. They were admitted into the sacred canon by the council of Trent in the sixteenth century, and declared to be scripture.-2. They are intermingled with the canonical books both in the Septuagint and in the Roman Catholic editions of the Old Testament.-3. The Protestant Reformed churches, though they deny their inspiration and divine authority, yet read them, or parts of them, (as St. Jerome expresses it,) for "example of life and instruction of manners."-4. Though devoid of divine authority, they are highly valuable as ancient writings, which throw light upon the phraseology of scripture, and upon the manners of the east ; and which contain much important historical matter, and many sublime, moral and religious sentiments. Whereas the Apocryphal Books of the New Testament were-1. Never admitted into the canon even by the church of Rome ;-2. They were never allowed to be read either in that or in the Protestant churches;-3. Nor do they contain any really valuable matter, either historical or moral. The Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament, however, though thus superior to those of the New, are yet unanimously rejected by Protestants from the sacred canon, for the following reasons: 1. They were never received into the sacred canon by the Jewish church.-2. Not one of the writers, in direct terms, lays a claim to inspiration.-3. None of them is extant in Hebrew.-4. They were chiefly written by Alexandrian Jews, subsequently to the cessation of the prophetic spirit at the time of Malachi.-5. No part of them is sanctioned by our Saviour or the apostles, or referred to by them.6. They were not admitted into the canon of scripture by the Christian church during the four first centuries.-7. When they were allowed to be read, in the fifth century, it was with an express mark of degradation, to distinguish them from the inspired books. After this conclusive testimony of the whole church of God, Jewish and Christian, against them, it is not necessary to detail the internal marks of non-authenticity and non-credibility. We will only observe that they state many things which are fabulous, contradictory, and directly at variance with the canonical scriptures; and that they contain many passages which are in themselves false, absurd and incredible; which are so inconsistent with the relations of all profane historians, that they cannot be admitted without much stronger evi dence than belongs to these books.t †T. H. Horne, vol, i. 706, &c. |