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 infection of their scepticism, and maintained, through the whole process, a caution and a delicacy which they often carry to a 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 investigation 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 independant footing, than many of its defenders would dare to give us any conception of. boldness of argument which the question entitle them to assume.

They want that

merits of the

They ought to

maintain a more decided front to their adversaries and tell them, that, in the New Testament itself— in the concurrence of its numerous, and distant, and independent 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 every thing 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.

If it were necessary, in a court of justice, to ascertain the circumstances of a certain transaction which happened in a particular neighbourhood, the obvious expedient would be to examine the agents

and the eye-witness of that transaction. If six or eight concurred in giving the same testimonyif there was no appearance of collusion amongst them if they had the manner and aspect of creditable men-above all, if this testimony were made public, and not a single individual, from the numerous spectators of the transaction alluded to, stept forward to falsify it, then, we apprehend, the proof would be looked upon as complete. Other witnesses might be summoned from a distance 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 occasion 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 record of the first court could be appealed to by posterity as by far the more valuable document, and far more decisive of the point in controversy.

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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 estimation 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 genuineness of the first record can be established by a much greater weight and variety of evidence, than the genuineness of the second. Yet all the suspicion that we feel upon this subject annexes to the former; 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.

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 truth and establishment of the christian religion, that every prepossession should be swept away, and room left for the understanding to expatiate without fear, and without incumbrance.