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punishment. So in the world, while there are manifold instances of a righteous distribution of good and evil, there is a tendency towards the completion of a scheme which is here but begun.

This view of the government of God, which we have collected from the constitution of human nature and the state of the world, is brought to light by the religion of Jesus Christ. The language of God in his works leads us to his word in the Gospel. All our disquisitions concerning the nature of his government only prepare us for receiving those gracious discoveries, which, confirming every conclusion of right reason, resolving every doubt, and enlarging the imperfect views which belong to this the beginning of our existence, bring us perfect assurance, that, in the course of the Divine government, unlimited in extent, in duration, and in power, every hindrance shall be removed, the natural consequences of action shall be allowed to operate, virtue shall be happy, and vice shall be miserable.

Abernethy on the Attributes.

Cudworth's Intellectual System; a magazine of learning, where all the different schemes of Atheism are combated with profound erudition and close argument. Boyle's Lectures; a collection of the ablest defences of the great truths of religion that are to be found in any language. Having been composed in a long succession of years by men of different talents and pursuits, they furnish an abundant specimen of all the variety of argument that has ever been adduced upon the subject of which they treat. Butler's Analogy, the first chapters of which should be particularly studied in relation to the subjects of this discourse.

Essays on Morality and Natural Religion, by Henry Home, Lord Kaimes. Paley's Natural Theology, the last and perhaps the most elaborate work of this author. He had here his pioneers as well as his forerunners. But his inimitable skill in arranging and condensing his matter, his peculiar turn for what may be called “animal mechanics," the aptness and the wit of his illustrations, and occasionally the warmth and the solemnity of his devotion, which, by a happy and becoming process, was rendered more animated as he drew nearer to the close of life, stamp on this work a character more valuable than originality.

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CHAPTER I.

COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY FROM HISTORY.

THE ground-work which I suppose to be laid in an inquiry into the truth of the Christian religion, is a belief of the two great doctrines of natural religion, that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him. You consider a man as led by the principles of his nature to believe that the universe is the work of an intelligent Being, although wandering very much in his apprehensions of that Being: you consider him as feeling that the government of the Creator of the world is a righteous government, although conscious that he often transgresses the law of his Maker, and very uncertain as to the method in which the sanctions of that law are to operate with regard to him: and you propose to examine whether to man in these circumstances, there was given an extraordinary revelation by the preaching of the Son of God, or whether Jesus Christ and his apostles were men who spoke and wrote according to their own measure of knowledge, and who, when they called themselves the messengers of God, assumed a character which did not belong to them. It is manifest at first sight, that such a revelation is extremely desirable to man; and a closer investigation of the subject may show it to be desirable in such a degree, so necessary to the comfort and improvement of man, as to create a presumption in favour of the proofs that the Father of the human race has been pleased to grant it. But the necessity of revelation is a subject upon which, in my opinion, it is better not to enter at the outset ; because, if the proofs of the truth of Christianity be defective, the presumption arising from this necessity will not be sufficient to help them out; and if they be clear and conclusive, the necessity of revelation will be more manifest after you proceed to examine its nature and its effects.

The truth of Christianity turns upon a question of fact; which, like every other question of the same kind, ought to be judged calmly and impartially-not by the wishes which it may be natural to form upon the subject, but by the evidence which is adduced in support of the fact. We allow the great body of the people to retain all the early prejudices which they happily acquire on the side of Christianity.We allow its full weight to every consideration which is level to their capacity, and which corresponds to their habits; because, what we wish to impress upon them is a practical belief of the truth of religion: and this practical belief may be sufficient to direct their conduct and to establish their hope, although it be not grounded upon critical inquiries and logical deductions. But it is expected that the teachers of religion should be able to defend the citadel in which they are

placed, against the attack of every enemy, and that they should be acquainted with the quarters which are most likely to be attacked, with the nature of the blow that is to be aimed, and the most successful method of warding it off. With them, therefore, belief ought to be not merely the result of early habit, but a conviction founded upon a close examination of evidence; and in this, as in every other inquiry, they ought to take the fair and safe method of arriving at the truth, by bringing to the search after it, a mind unembarrassed with any prepossession.

A person who, in this state of mind, begins to examine the question of fact upon which the deistical controversy turns, will be struck with that support which the truth of Christianity receives from the whole train of history for more than 1700 years. The impartial historians of those times, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny, in passages which have been often quoted and commented upon, and the exact amount of which every student of divinity ought to know, concur with Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, the learned, inveterate, and inquisitive adversaries of the Christian faith, in establishing beyond the possibility of doubt the following leading facts;-that Jesus Christ, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death; that this man during his life founded, and his followers after his death supported a sect, upon the reputation of performing miracles; and that this sect spread quickly, and became very numerous in different parts of the Roman empire. A succession of Christian writers is extant, some of whom lived near enough the event to be witnesses of it, and all of whom published books, which must have appeared absurd to their contemporaries, if the facts upon which these books proceeded had then been known to be false. A chain of tradition can be shown by which the principal facts were transmitted in the Christian Church. The existence of our religion can be traced back to the time and place to which the beginning of it is referred; and since that time, by the institution of a Gospel ministry, by the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and by the observance of the Lord's day, there have continued, in many parts of the world, standing memorials of the preaching, the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

I begin with mentioning these things, because every literary man will perceive the advantage of taking possession of this strong ground. By placing his foot here he is furnished with a kind of extrinsical evidence, the force of which none will deny, which cannot be said to create any unreasonable prepossession, and yet which prepares the mind for the less remote proofs of a Divine revelation.

Grotius de Veritate Rel. Chris.

Macknight on the Truth of the Gospel History.

Addison's Evidences.

Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History.

* Sueton. Claud. cap. 25. Sueton. Nero. cap. 16. Tacit. Ann. l. xv. 44. Plin. l. x.

ep. 97.

CHAPTER II.

AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW

TESTAMENT.

THE whole of that revelation which is peculiar to Christians is contained in the books of the New Testament; and therefore, it appears to me that before we begin to judge of the divine mission or inspiration of the persons to whom these books are ascribed, we ought to satisfy ourselves that the books themselves are authentic and genuine. For even although the apostles of Jesus did really receive a commission from the Son of God, yet if the books which bear their names were not written by them, or if they have been corrupted as to their substance and import since they were written, that is, if the books are not both authentic and genuine, we may be very much misled by trusting to them, notwithstanding the divine mission of their supposed authors. I oppose the word authentic to suppositions; the word genuine to vitiated; I call a book authentic which was truly the work of the person whose name it bears; I call a book genuine which remains in all material points the same as when it proceeded from the author. Upon these two points, the authenticity and genuineness of the books of the New Testament, I am at present to fix your attention. Both the subjects open a wide field, and have received much discussion. All that I can do, is to mark to you the leading circumstances which have been discussed, and with regard to which it becomes you to inform and satisfy your minds.

1. The canon of the New Testament is the collection of books written by apostles, or by persons under their direction, and received by Christians as of divine authority. This canon was not formed by any General Council, who claimed a power of deciding in this matter for the Christian Church; but it continued to grow during all the age of the apostles, and it received frequent accessions, as the different books came to be generally recognised. It was many years after the ascension of Jesus before any of the books of the New Testament were written. The apostles were at first entirely occupied with the labours and perils which they encountered in executing their commission to preach the Gospel to all nations. They found neither leisure nor occasion to write, till Christian societies were formed; and all their writings were suggested by particular circumstances which occurred in the progress of Christianity. Some of the Epistles to the Churches were the earliest of their writings. Every Epistle was received upon unquestionable evidence by the Church to which it was sent, and in whose keeping the original manuscript remained. Copies were circulated first among the neighbouring churches, and went

from them to Christian societies at a greater distance, till, by degrees, the whole Christian world, considering the superscription of the Epistle, and the manner in which it came to them, as a token of its authenticity, and relying upon the original, which they knew where to find, gave entire credit to its being the work of him whose name it bore. This is the history of the thirteen Epistles which bear the name of the apostle Paul, and of the First Epistle of Peter. Some of the other Epistles, which had not the same particular superscription, were not so easily authenticated to the whole Church, and were, upon that account, longer of being admitted into the canon.

The Gospels were written by different persons, for different purposes; and those Christian societies upon whose account they were originally composed, communicated them to others. The book of Acts went along with the Gospel of Luke, as a second part composed by the same author. The four Gospels, the book of Acts, and the fourteen epistles which I mentioned, very early after their publication, were known and received by the followers of Jesus in every part of the world. References are made to them by the first Christian writers; and they have been handed down, by an uninterrupted tradition, from the days in which they appeared, to our time. Polycarp was the disciple of the Apostle John; Irenæus was the disciple of Polycarp; and of the works of Irenæus a great part is extant, in which he quotes most of the books of the New Testament, and mentions the number of the Gospels, and the names of many of the Epistles. Origen in the third century, Eusebius and Jerome in the fourth, give us, in their voluminous works, catalogues of the books of the New Testament which coincide with ours, relate fully the history of the authors of the several books, with the occasion upon which they wrote, and make large quotations from them. In the course of the first four centuries the greater part of the New Testament was transcribed in the writings of the Christians, and many particular passages were quoted and referred to by Celsus and Julian, in their attacks upon Christianity. From the beginning of the Church, throughout the whole Christian world, the books of the New Testament were publicly read and explained to the people in their assemblies for divine worship; and they were continually appealed to by Christian writers as the standard of faith, and the supreme judge in controversy. The Christian world was very far from being prone to receive every book which claimed inspiration. Although many were circulated under respectable names, none were ever admitted by the whole Church, or quoted by Christian writers as of divine authority, except those which we now receive. And it was very long before some of them were universally acknowledged. When you come to examine the subject particularly, you will find that we stand upon ground which we are fully able to defend, when we admit the Epistle to the Hebrews, the smaller Epistles, and the book of Revelation, as of equal authority with any other part of the New Testament. At the same time, the hesitation which, for several ages, was entertained in some places of the Christian world with regard to these books, is satisfying to a candid mind, because this hesitation is of itself a strong presumption, that the universal and cordial reception which was given to all the other books

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