and his early followers. The evangelists have given us a plain and unvarnished narrative of the birth of their Master; the place of his birth; his baptism by John; his manner of life; his discourses; his miracles of mercy, of healing and raising the dead; his prophecies, which have all been fulfilled, except those which relate to the final conquest of his truth and grace; the accusations of his enemies; the purity of his life; his trial before Pilate; his crucifixion; his resurrection, and ascension :-Facts which were publicly known and testified by an immense number of witnesses in Judea, and in a few years spread over the whole Roman empire, though opposed by all the engines of torture which the malice of Jews and heathens could invent: Facts which could not be resisted by reason nor evidence, because attested by thousands of living witnesses, and clearly demonstrated by the miraculous displays of almighty power, the seal of Heaven's approbation! In a word, facts which were acknowledged for centuries, even by the enemies of Christ, and the ablest champions of early infidelity!

These, my hearers, are some of the leading evidences to which your attention has been called, to assist you in judging of the credibility of the gospel history, or history of the Saviour's life: And I appeal to your sober judgment to determine whether this history is not supported by stronger and more ample testimony than that of any other being that ever existed upon the face of the earth: And whether it is not evident beyond all reasonable doubt, and beyond the power of all historical contradiction, that the gospel and mission of Christ were stamped with the indelible seal of divine authority!

After all, will the enemies of revelation still invite and persuade you to renounce the faith of the christian religion? With what pretensions can they attempt to shake your confidence? Do they offer you an equivalent for your hope? Will they pretend that history justifies them in a denial of these truths? They will not; they dare not thus insult your understanding: For they know, (if they are acquainted with history) that their whole system is nothing more than a catalogue of captious objections, supported by nothing but vulgar witticisms and unmanly satire :

And they presume to depend on the ignorance and pride of the multitude, for their success. But the light of reason, truth and science, will break the fatal charm which they are attempting to throw around you, and disappoint all their fond delusive dreams.

There are other, and essential evidences of the truth of the gospel, which remain to be considered; but they will naturally fall into the design of our next lecture, and will therefore be omitted in the present discourse.

In closing this lecture, I feel myself irresistibly inclined to invite your attention to the closing scene of the Saviour's life, and to a few reflections upon the astonishing phenomenon which attended the tragical scene of his death upon the cross, when "he poured out his soul," (his life,) for a guilty world. Besides the occurrence of a tremendous earthquake, evincing the sympathies of nature; for three long hours, the splendors of the king of day were veiled in darkness, for which no natural or astronomical cause could be assigned. For, let it be remembered, that Christ was crucified on the day of the Jewish passover; and that this feast was observed on the fourteenth day of the month, which, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, from the first appearance of the new moon, must have happened precisely at the time of her full, when she was opposite to the sun, and therefore precluded the possibility of an eclipse of the sun for an eclipse of the sun can only take place, when the moon passes between the earth and that luminous body. At the time of the crucifixion, therefore, the earth being between the sun and the moon, an eclipse of the former would be utterly impossible, according to the fixed laws of astronomy. Again, we are informed by the historians, that the darkness continued for the space of three hours: But the total darkness of an eclipse, never continues more than about fifteen minutes, which proves that it must have been a miraculous, and not an ordinary eclipse. To evince or rather strengthen the reality of this phenomenon, I beg leave to quote you the testimony of Phlegon, an able and learned astronomer, who flourished under the emperor Trajan, and who asserted, that "in the fourth year of the 202d Olympiad," the very year of the crucifixion, "there was such a total eclipse

of the sun at noon day, that the stars were plainly visible.' This testimony is preserved in the writings of Origen. In addition to this, Suidas informs us, that Dionysius, the Areopagite, an Athenian of great note, being at Heliopolis in Egypt, at the period of the crucifixion, exclaimed, when he witnessed this surprising phenomenon, " either the Author of nature is suffering, or he sympathizes with some one who does, or the frame of the world is dissolving."

Such, my friends, is the evidence with which we are furnished of the great events recorded in the early history of the religion which we profess: And truly, the sufferings and death by which its divine authority is sealed, ought to excite the liveliest gratitude of our hearts, and awake the slumbering energies of our souls, for its propagation and defence. It is the sacred charter of our dearest hopes, the pledge of God's impartial and unbounded love. Its prospects cheer the abodes of poverty and misfortune, add a sacred and divine enjoyment to all the blessings of Providence, impart contentment and resignation under all the allotments of unerring wisdom, arm the soul with fortitude to sustain the severest trials of life, inspire the mind with exalted conceptions of the great Divinity, and furnish the assurance of a better inheritance beyond the stormy regions of this changeful and imperfect scene of mortal existence! How blissful, how glorious the hope, which this holy religion inspires! Compared with its heavenly prospects, how sinks the earth, with all its boasted joys, to vanity and insignificance ! The one is like the misty cloud, that vanishes before the rays of the morning sun; but the other pours forth showers of salvation, or emits unfading beams of glory and infinite delight! Angels hail with joyful notes, with transports of immortal wonder, the full redeeming power of the Son of God, and swell in strains seraphic, the mighty conquests of his victorious grace !-Be this enrapturing hope our joy in time; our consolation and support in death; and its boundless fruition, our everlasting portion in eternity!

LECTURE XIII.

ST. LUKE i. 1-4.

"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a decla ration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed."

The design of this Lecture is to treat of the evidences by which the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the New Testament are supported, and to notice, as occasion may require, such external and internal evidences of the divine authority and inspiration of the gospel as may present themselves in the progress of our discussions.

I have before adduced the testimony of both the friends and enemies of the christian religion, to establish all the leading and essential facts which are recorded in the gospel history, and which are all-sufficient to place that subject beyond the power of reasonable or historical contradiction. We shall therefore proceed to notice the plain and pointed evidences by which we are induced to believe that the writings of the New Testament deserve the fullest confidence; and which afford the only rational ground of hope for a sinful and guilty world.

The first book in the New Testament, which naturally invites our attention, is the Gospel, which is alleged to have been written by Matthew, surnamed Levi, who was a disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ. This man was an Hebrew by birth and education, and was employed by the Roman authority as a tax-gatherer, and also collected the revenue of such goods as were exported or imported at Capernaum, a maritime town, on the sea of Galilee : He likewise received the tribute of all passengers that went

by water. From this occupation, he was called by the divine Redeemer, to be a witness of his life and a minister of his word.

The fact of his, having filled a public and responsible office under the Roman government, is a sufficient evidence of his respectability and talents. It has never been

denied by any of the early writers, either among the friends or enemies of christianity, that Matthew was a disciple and apostle of Christ: nor has this fact ever been denied by any modern writer of respectable character or talents.

That Matthew wrote the gospel history which bears his name, has uniformly been admitted by christians, from the days of the apostles to the present time: Nor did any of the early opposers of the gospel intimate a doubt on this subject; but on the contrary, quoted it as a genuine production. But the period in which it was written, has been a subject of much inquiry and discussion. All the controversialists, however, are agreed in assigning it a higher antiquity than they give to any other book of the New Testament. No writer on this subject, who has rendered himself familiar with the productions of the early christians, pretends that the narrative in question was written at the distance of more than about thirty years; while the most conclusive evidence assigns for the period of its publicity, from four to eight years after the crucifixion. It would indeed be very strange that thirty years should be suffered to pass away without leaving any authentic account of the life and doctrines of Christ, in such form as to be accessible by the multitude of those who had embraced the christian religion in Judea, and the adjoining regions; for they would require, as a matter of course, to be furnished with the history of the life and instructions of Christ, that they might compare them with the prophecies of the Old Testament, in which they reposed the fullest confidence, and be able to vindicate the principles and doctrines of their religion against the objections of their Jewish opposers. There are so many plain and pointed allusions to the persecutions which began immediately after the ascension of Christ, and which continued for six years, as to render it almost certain that the narrative of Matthew was written during that period. Besides these