of scientific ambition! Infidelity is all speculation. Reduce it to a residuum of inductive reasoning, and you bring it to nothingness. Strip it of its several envelopes of ingenious hypothesis, and bold assertion, and scoffing declamation, and you find nothing left but a man of straw-an ugly shape to keep the hungry from the bread of life, which you need only approach to discover that it is made of rags, and stuffed with

rottenness.

The argument for the divine authority of the gospel is all composed of statements of undeniable facts, and of direct inferences legitimately drawn from them. I defy the ingenuity of the keenest critic to take up the course of reasoning to which you have listened, and point out a single theory, or speculation-any thing, depended on for proof, but plain statements of facts, established as perfectly, and bearing as directly upon the point in question, as any of the observations of Newton's telescope, or of Davy's crucible. Not a word have we said as to what might be supposed or conjectured; what is likely or unlikely; what might have been expected or the contrary; but have simply inquired, what is historically true. Let our opponents do likewise. Whether any thing in christianity appears to them probable or improbable; consistent or in consistent; agreeable to what they should have expected, or the contrary; wise and good, or ridiculous and useless; is perfectly irrelevant. We can by no means consent to make their judgments the standard in such matters. Infidels are thought to entertain very absurd and inconsistent ideas of absurdity and inconsistency, and of what should be esteemed as both good and wise. We ask them to descend from their flights of fancy and speculation, and condescend, in matters of religion, to do what, in those of science, public opinion would force them to, or laugh them out of countenance; to sit down to the plain investigation, on principles of common evidence, of the facts which support christianity, determined to believe what may be collected therefrom, notwithstanding any of their conjectural hypotheses to the contrary. Such

was once the honest demand of astronomy and chymistry upon all the tribes of theorists and conjecturalists, in those departments of science. It is but a short time since our present fundamental doctrines, on those subjects, were opposed by philosophers whose speculations they rooted up, precisely as the great doctrines of the gospel are still opposed by infidels whose lives they condemn. By and by, it became irresistibly evident that there is no way to science but by the slow and humble path of experiment, obtained either by personal observation, or by the credible testimony of others. As soon as men of scientific minds shall learn to be consistent with their own principles, and to reason philosophically, as well when a law of religion, as a law of nature is concerned, then the contradiction will no longer appear, of a philosopher loving to investigate the works of God, but rejecting His word.*

In truth, the evidence of christianity rests upon a basis which cannot be condemned, without the downfall of many of the most important works of science. The main facts and reasonings of chymistry are considered undeniable, because experimental. But who feels it necessary to make all the experiments, or to see them made, before he will believe? Many of the most important, he receives, and must receive, upon the testimony of others. Thus it is also in astronomical calculations. Seldom are the facts obtained from our own observations. Many of them, reported by credible witnesses. by means of a number taken from a table of calculations made to our hands, with as much assurance, and base our reasonings upon it as confidently, as if we had obtained all the elements by our own labour; and yet the very corner stone of our computation is a mere matter of testimony. On such reliance are eclipses predicted, and nautical observations founded; and yet a man of science who should evince any scepticism with regard to events thus ascertained, would

we believe, because they are We come to a certain result,

* On the application of the inductive philosophy to the evidences of christianity, see chapters viii. and ix. of Chalmer's Evidences.

render himself no less an object of ridicule than if he should cavil about the sun's rising to-morrow. What is a page of logarithms, but a page of assertions, the whole value of which is the faith of testimony; and yet upon such data the most momentous calculations in the exact sciences are based without a question.

Pure mathematics are considered as involving complete demonstrations. Mathematical reasoning is regarded as the very perfection of certainty. And yet, in many of its most important operations, elements, on which the whole chain depends, are assumed on a basis not a particle more sure, to say the least, than that on which our belief of the christian miracles is founded. "Who would scruple, in a geometrical investigation, to adopt as a link in the chain a theorem of Apollonius or of Archimedes, although he might not have leisure at the moment to satisfy himself, by an actual examination of their demonstrations, that they had been guilty of no paralogism, either of accident or design, in the course of their reasonings ?"* And yet a result, however important, arising from such an investigation, none would suspect. A philosopher would rest his life upon its certainty. But have we assurance of the accuracy and honesty of such men, to whose testimony we thus implicitly yield, whether they be mathematicians, or chymists, or astronomers, comparable in any degree to our assurance of the competent knowledge and immoveable honesty of those original witnesses of the works of Jesus who have borne such devoted testimony to his miracles? Did Apollonius, or Archimedes, or any philosophers of later times, seal their honesty with their blood? Did they suffer the loss of all things in maintenance of their doctrines? Were they willing to be accounted as fools for the sake of their testimony? Did Galileo brave the torture of the inquisition sooner than deny his astronomical discoveries? We do not require such extreme evidence of integrity even in the greatest questions of scientific testimony. It were folly to expect it. We are

* Stewart's Philosophy, ii. 178.

And yet

satisfied with a far inferior degree of assurance. such, in ten thousands of instances, is the evidence by which we know the honesty of those from whom comes our testimony to the great facts of the gospel history. They did suffer the loss of all things; they did endure to be treated as the offscouring of all things; they did give themselves to the rack, and flame, and wild beasts, for the testimony of Jesus.

I mentioned, in the announcement of this lecture, that besides a summary of the whole previous course, it would contain an application of the argument to the principal objections brought forward by infidels. This, in substance has been exhibited. We know of no objection of any im portance which is not put to silence and buried, by an appeal from what men think to what men have done; from speculation to testimony; from the ideas of objectors to the facts of witnesses. The simple application of the great principle of inductive philosophy, that whatever is collected by observation ought to be received, any hypothesis to the contrary notwithstanding, is the smooth white stone in the sling of David, which no champion of the Philistines, however gigantic in intellect, or learning, or in the boast of either, can stand. I am now speaking of the chief objections. I have nothing to do with the ignorant ribaldry of such an antagonist as Paine. To this man, the purity of the gospel was its chief deformity; and its stern contradiction of his disgusting vices, its most irreconcilable inconsistency. He studied the Bible to defame it, and scraped the common sewers of infidelity for its very lowest and filthiest objections; and then, without honesty even to advert to the thousand answers each had received in its day, served them up with his own dressing of strong assertion and acrid ridicule, and advertised them to the world as his own, and as unanswerable. Such matters we must leave to the writings of those who have had stomach to handle them. In the answer of Bishop Watson, you may see how entirely boasting is their strength. They need but the light, to make all their show of argument

fade away. Their best answer is found in the profligate life and despairing death of the poor, miserable man himself.

The mysteriousness of certain things in christianity is urged as a strong reason for the rejection of its divine authority. Many will not believe the doctrine of the Trinity; the divinity of Christ; his incarnation; his atoning sacrifice; his resurrection from the dead; his intercession in heaven; the influences of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men, and our new creation unto holiness by his converting power, not to speak of many other of the deep things of God, because they are mysteries. Mysteries they are unquestionably, and were intended to be so regarded. So far as we have need to understand them, they are as intelligible as the plain truth that man is the union of body and spirit. So far as we are not concerned to understand them, they are as mysterious, but not more so, than the nature of the union between body and spirit in man. Religion must have mysteries. "Religion without its mysteries is a temple without its God."

Whither shall we flee to get beyond the region of things incomprehensible? They beset us behind and before. If from revealed religion, we go to natural, they are there! The most essential doctrine of all religion, the existence of God, is mystery to the uttermost. What explanation can be given of his self-existence? His presence in all parts of the universe at once? How he inhabits eternity, having no relation to time-and immensity, having no relation to space? If from natural religion, we go to atheism, they are there also! He who denies the existence of God, plunges at once into the most confounding of all mysteries. What in scripture is more incomprehensible than that this world had no Maker? that all its examples of wise and deep design had no Designer? Will you go from thence, to the experimental certainties of natural philosophy? Mysteries are there also ! Explain the attraction of gravitation, the nature of electricity, the elastic power of steam, the secrets of evaporation. What is vegetable, or animal, or spiritual life? In mechan