GOOD." Such is precisely the text of this and the preceding lecture. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" "The tree is known by its fruits," said the Saviour. "Error never can produce good," said the man who denied him. By this, let the comparative merits of christianity and infidelity stand or fall.

How imperative, then, is the exhortation to all professors of the religion of Jesus: "Let your light shine before men!" "Be careful to maintain good works!" "Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ!" To you, is committed the honour; on you, depends the character of christianity among the unbelieving and disobedient. Its most legible and universally imposing evidences are found in the living epistles of those who, under the influence of its saving truth, are seen devotedly "following after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness;" "using the world, as not abusing it;" looking for death, as not fearing it; cheerful in all duty, while they remain on earth; happy when the time comes for them to depart out of it unto the Father? Ah! if all that are numbered among Christians were thus radiant in the beauty of holiness, how soon would the whole earth be filled with the praise of the Lord! Then, indeed, would the church put on strength. Then would the gentiles come to her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising; all they that despise her should bow themselves down at the soles of her feet; and they should call her, "The city of the Lord; the Zion of the Holy One of Israel."*

* Isaiah, lx.

LECTURE XII.

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT, AND APPLICATION TO OBJECTIONS.

In the course of the preceding lectures, I have been enabled, by a kind Providence, blessing me with a more adequate measure of health than I anticipated, to spread before you a comprehensive view of the external evidences of christianity. Although one whole division of our forces, and one of no secondary consequence, has not been brought into the field; and of that which has been employed, several important subdivisions have been held in the back ground for want of room to display them; enough, I trust, has been done to give you an impressive idea of what the strength of the cause must be, when all the immense variety of auxiliaries composing its host are arranged together under command of a mind capable of using them to the best advantage. It would stand like the massive squares of British infantry at Waterloo, to which the boasting enemy rode up again and again, in the full confidence of sweeping them before the impetuosity of their charge. But "their onset and reception was that of a furious ocean pouring itself against a chain of insulated rocks."

Before relinquishing our course, it is important to take a brief retrospect of the ground we have been over; that we may gather into united and co-operating force the several lines of argument which as yet have been employed only in their separate efficiency.

After having divided the whole field of evidence into the two general departments of external and internal, and separated the former, as that to which our course would be con*Scott's Napoleon.

fined, we proceeded to lay the foundation of all our subsequent reasonings by making good the AUTHENTICITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, and the CREDIBILITY OF THE HISTORY contained therein. In reference to the question of authenticity, we instituted an inquiry whether there is sufficient evidence that the several scriptures composing the New Testament were written by the men whose names they bear, the original apostles and disciples of Christ? For an answer to this, we pursued precisely the same method as in determining the authenticity of any other writings. The evidence required in such investigations was shown to be so unaffected by time, that whether a book be ascribed to the christian era or to five centuries earlier or later, a similar description of proof would possess a similar conclusiveness. That for the authenticity of the books of the New Testament was presented under the following heads: They are quoted or alluded to by a series of writers extending, in unbroken succession, from the present to the apostolic age. In the earliest writers of this series, as well as the later, they are treated with peculiar respect, as possessing an authority belonging to no other books, and as conclusive in all questions of religion; they were collected at a very early period into a distinct volume; were publicly read and expounded in the assemblies of the primitive Christians; commentaries were written upon them; harmonies were formed out of them; different copies were carefully compared, and versions were made into different languages, in the first centuries of christianity. Hence it appeared that the agreement of the ancient church, as to what were the authentic books of the New Testament, was complete, and was no more imperfect among the various sects of heretics, than among the orthodox fathers. None of these several heads of evidence attach to any of those spurious writings commonly called Apocryphal Scriptures; while the marks of the spuriousness of these can be asserted with regard to none of those which are esteemed as authentic. In confirmation of the mass of testimony, adduced in support

of these propositions, we exhibited a most important collection of proofs from the writings of the early adversaries of christianity. The style and language of the New Testament were spoken of, as in perfect agreement with the local and other circumstances of its reputed writers; as in perfect harmony with their known character, and with the age and country in which they lived; and such as could not have been produced in any age subsequent to theirs. In conclusion of the whole argument, we endeavoured to show that such was the necessity of detection, in case of a forgery, during the primitive centuries, that had the books in question been deficeient in the evidence of apostolic origin, nothing less than a miracle in their aid could account for their early and universal currency. The whole train of evidence concluded with this result: that to suppose the New Testament unauthentic or even questionable in this particular, is to resign the authenticity of every other book of the least antiquity; yea, and the sufficiency of human testimony, in its most conclusive form, to establish the authenticity of any such work. Having come to this, it seemed no presumption to proceed in our subsequent lectures, as if the question of authenticity were answered in the affirmative with entire satisfaction.

But in connexion with the apostolic origin, it was important to look into the integrity of the New Testament scriptures; for the purpose of ascertaining to what extent they have been preserved without mutilation or corruption. That they have undergone no material alteration since they were first published, was inferred from the perfect impossibility of such a change; from obvious agreement among the existing manuscripts of the New Testament; and from the harimony of our present text with the numerous quotations in the works of early christian writers, as well as with those ancient translations which are still extant.

But in laying the foundation of our subsequent argument, another question remained: Is the history, contained in these

authentic writings, credible? In answer to this, we assumed that the credibility of the gospel history is to be ascertained precisely like that of any other history. It appeared that, in questions of this kind, the two great points to be proved are, a competency of knowledge, and trustworthy honesty, on the part of the historian; did he know enough to write a true account, and was he too honest to write any other account than such as he believed to be true? These points established, the credibility of the history is settled. The first was easily determined by the consideration that the amount of knowledge required for the writing of the gospel history was by no means great; that the narrative is extremely simple and unambitious; and that those who penned it were personal companions of Christ, and eye-witnesses of almost all they related. In reference to the second point to be made out, we took the position that there is abundant evidence that the writers of the gospel history were too honest to relate any thing but what they believed to be truth. Taking the history as written by St. John for a specimen, we discovered a strong internal evidence of the honesty of the writer in the fact that it is in a high degree circumstantial; and another, in the incidental characteristic of the writer, that he takes no pains to convince us of his honesty, and makes no parade about it, as if it were possible to be suspected; and another, in the circumstance, that while he could not have been ignorant that he was relating many extraordinary and wonderful events, he betrays no appearance of wonder in himself, nor any expectation of wonder from his readers, thus evincing that he was conscious of narrating events of universal notoriety. In addition to these striking imprints of honesty; we perceived another, in the minute accuracy which distinguishes all the allusions of this narrative to the manners, customs, opinions, political events, and circumstances of the times.

Having thus exhibited satisfactory evidence of the honesty of one of the writers of the gospel narrative; we produced seven other writers, each entirely independent of the rest, and