placed under all possible circumstances of civilization, knowledge, and form of government, and the result of these united experiments has been a continually increased attestation to her immutable truth and purity. She has, moreover, been called to encounter the secret sap of divisions and corruptions in her own body; she has been dragged into unnatural alliances with all the crookedness and ambition of human policy; she has been stripped at one time of her proper attributes, and been loaded at another with corruptions and superstitions-but from all these transformations she has emerged without injury. The standard of her sacred books has remained the same, the blessing of the Holy Spirit in his sanctifying influence has continued, and a reviving piety in various ages has recalled her wandering family to her pure and divine doctrines and temper.

Open attacks have been, also, made upon the Christian faith by infidels and skeptics. In the last century but one, we experienced in England the assaults of a profligate but insidious band of literary unbelievers. In our own day we have witnessed the conspiracy of the French philosophical school to obliterate the remembrance of Christianity from the earth-and we have witnessed, also, the dignity with which she has risen from the combat, and reared again her standard in the very country which attempted her overthrow.

Never was revelation more honored in the eyes of Christendom, than by the efforts which have been made of late years in the work of Christian missions in various parts of the heathen world. And, perhaps, the single institution of the British and Foreign Bible Society, simple as is its structure, and warmly as it has been opposed, has done more to mark the importance of the Scriptures, and to recall men to this one fountain of truth, than all the other expedients which have been devised.

In short, no other instance can be produced in the history of the world, of a system of doctrines or opinions which has withstood, for so many centuries, a succession of attacks, varying through all the stages between merciless persecution and malicious sophistry, but the instance of Christianity. Paganism fell the instant the secular arm was removed, and she was left to her own resources. Mahometanism was planted by the sword, and is sinking in proportion as the warlike spirit has declined in her votaries. Christianity 20

VOL. I.

blooms in perpetual vigor, and retains, after every trial, the genuine features of truth, sanctity and authority.

Let every candid hearer review these points, and say. whether the propagation and perpetuity of our holy religion. be not a proof of its divine authority. Let him remember the singularity of the attempt, the rapidity and extent of the success, the nature of the doctrine, the peculiar obstacles it had to surmount, and the immense change produced in all the habits of the converts; and let him contrast all this with what his observation suggests in the history of the church and of the world, and close the whole by contemplating the calm and dignified position of Christianity at the present hour. When he has considered these points, let him unite the argument derived from them, with the proofs previously produced from miracles and prophecies, and I think he will confess that the facts of the propagation of the gospel are in themselves an irresistible argument of its divine original.

But this is not all. A great additional force is added to this conclusion, by remembering that all these FACTS OF THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY, incontrovertible as they are in themselves, were further in DIRECT FULFILMENT of the predictions of the Old Testament prophets and of our Lord, repeatedly and most expressly declared. The general argument from prophecy we stated in our last Lectures. Now the one great end of all the scheme which we then developed, was this very establishment of Christianity, this very throwing open the privileges of the church to all nations, this very triumph of the gospel over idolatry and vice. The wonderful success of Christianity was in pursuance of a declared purpose, announced in the earliest ages of mankind, and renewed from time to time in a still more explicit manner. In the case of the propagation of the gospel we see a divine pledge, given centuries before in the word of prophecy, redeemed and fulfilled.

A new confirmation of the two arguments results from this union.

Four thousand years before the times of the gospel, the promised seed was predicted. By the mouth of Jacob, the gathering of the nations to the future Messiah was foretold. Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and all the prophets, predicted the calling of the gentiles, their incorporation into the Chris

tian church, the conversion of the world. We noticed this in our view of the prophecies of the Messiah.

The event, therefore, of the propagation of the gospel, when it took place, had not only all the weight belonging to its separate and independent importance, and all the authority derived from the previous evidences from miracles and prophecies, but, moreover, all the superadded proof of an issue appointed and foretold by Almighty God, all the additional impress of design, and prescience, and arrangement, and sovereignty, in the fact itself. This very propagation was the blessing foretold by "all the holy prophets since the world began." The case is stronger than this. After a series of predictions for four thousand years, our Lord appeared upon earth. The Jewish people had forgotten their spiritual privileges and blessings, had misunderstood their prophecies, had loaded their religion with traditions and the commandments of men, had cherished vain hopes of a temporal Messiah, a political deliverance, an earthly rule over the nations. Faith, and charity, and spirituality had fled. They reject, therefore, the Son of God. They blind their eyes against his miracles, and harden their hearts against his doctrine. They crucify him at last as a blasphemer; but not before he had predicted his own resurrection, predicted the descent of the Holy Ghost, predicted the promulgation of the gospel among the nations, predicted the dissolution of the Jewish economy, and the very apostles who should lay the foundations of a spiritual kingdom; predicted the persecutions of his followers; and the rapid extension, and the "silent and moral manner"* of the propagation of his religion in the world.

With these predictions he sunk into the grave. On the truth of them he ventured his religion. If he had not been the Son of God, if he had not risen, if his religion had not been diffused by the power of the Holy Ghost, Christianity would have expired in its birth. But, lo, he rises triumphant from the grave; lo, he appears during forty days to his disciples; lo, he expounds to them the mysteries of his sufferings, and affirms that he will return to his Father and pour out the gifts of the Holy Spirit. With these prophetic declarations, he ascends in the sight of the apostles, having first given them a solemn commission for the conversion of the nations, and an assurance that he would "be with them always even unto the end,"

* Benson.

The descent of the Holy Spirit, and the propagation of the gospel, therefore, were in express fulfilment of these predictions of the Saviour, and in concurrence with all the ancient prophecies from the first dawn of revelation.

I confess to you, my mind sinks under the accumulated conviction of this combined evidence. I confess to you, that the propagation of the gospel assumes, in my view, a character of moral demonstration which no one but the Almighty God could have given it. I see the wisdom and foreknowledge of God in the predictions of it: and his power, and truth, and mercy in its accomplishment. I can conceive of no higher evidence being proposed to a reasonable creature like man. The divine operations in every part of the Christian revelation demonstrate the immediate hand of God; and, wherever we look, the proofs of this supernatural original break in upon the humble and sincere heart. The proof of Christianity is a universal proof, springing from all its parts, and attending it in every step of its progress. If one topic fail to produce conviction, let the inquirer act as he does in the case of the divine Providence in the works of nature. Let him have recourse to the universality of the evidence, the different classes of proof, the concurring and unexpected marks of divine agency and interference.

I. But in order to the full effect of these demonstrations, a RIGHT STATE OF MIND is indispensable. Nothing can satisfy the proud, the obdurate, the captious.-But why do I thus speak?-I see the doubting mind impressed. I behold the mighty force of truth. I hear the confession of the fickle and conceited youth now awakened to consideration. The new and combined demonstration of the divine origin of the Christian religion, from the rapidity and extent of its propagation, fills him with astonishment. He falls down and worships the God of salvation. He acknowledges his former ignorance and folly. He takes up the New Testament with other feelings than he ever did before. He falls prostrate in penitence at the foot of that Saviour whom he had neglected or despised. He breaks off those sins and habits which made unbelief or hesitation unavoidable; and he admits the purifying doctrine of the Son of God.

Go on, then, young inquirer, in the course of sincere penitence and humiliation on which you have begun. Listen not again to the objections and sophistry of the wicked. Open

Bring

your heart to the full dominion of Christianity. into captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ." Be honest to your convictions. Act upon what you know. Implore the grace of that Holy Spirit in his ordinary operations, whose extraordinary power accompanied the first apostles. The conversion of nations is only the multiplication of the conversion of individuals. You cannot, indeed, witness the miracles of the gospel, but you receive them by authentic testimony; and you behold before your eyes the accomplishment of the prophecies in their effects. The heart of man is the same, the demands of Christianity are the same. foundations of penitence the same. The method of pardon and reconciliation, in the meritorious cross of the Son of God, the same. The renovation of the human heart the same. The resistance of our natural passions the same. The obstacles from the world around you of the same kind. The operations of grace vary not essentially from what they were in the apostolic age.

The

You may tianity now, with the first converts. The evidence may somewhat differ in its form, and vividness, and immediate impression; but it is the same in authority, truth and obligation.

attain a similar conviction of the truth of Chris

II. And the more you thus enter practically into the great question of this Lecture, the more will your CONVICTION BE STRENGTHENED. If the torrent which rolls by you, once relieves your own thirst, you will understand better its virtue and excellency, and the living source from which it springs. We cannot put men into the possession of the full evidence of any branch of our subject, except as they practically obey the gospel. We state, indeed, the argument, and if there be any candor of mind, any feeling of morals and religion, any knowledge of human character, any fairness in weighing evidence, we carry conviction into their inmost soul. However slight their acquaintance with the nature of real Christianity, we have proof enough to show that such a religion could never have been propagated by such instruments, in the face of idolatry, vice, sensuality, authority, habit, persecution; and have subdued the world, without a divine hand.

But how much more forcible and satisfactory is the proof to that man who has understood all the awful doctrines, and experienced and known all the transforming influence o.