in a situation to know the real truth, whether their moral and religious conduct give a pledge of sincerity, whether their temporal interests, previous prejudices and habits, and subsequent conduct throw any light upon their governing motive.

If there are more witnesses than one, we inquire into their number, the agreement or otherwise of their accounts, their conduct toward each other and before the face of the world.

Upon principles like these human life is governed. We act continually in the most important concerns, and in every department of human knowledge, upon testimony. The word of one man whom we know to be of unimpeachable sincerity, determines us a thousand times a-day. But if two persons of undeniable veracity, who have no apparent motive to deceive us, and who are evidently seeking our welfare, bear witness to a specific fact occurring under their own knowledge, we consider it a most reasonable ground of confidence. Testimony may indeed deceive, that is, some testimony under some circumstances may deceive—but the infinitely larger portion of all testimony is true; and it is upon the footing of that immense majority of true cases, that the few-the comparative few-false ones obtain credit. Indeed, the solemn declaration of two or more individuals of character as to facts of which they are competent judges, persevered in under every suffering, sustained by unvaried consistency, and accompanied by a pure, beneficent, and holy life, never yet deceived-no case was ever produced in which such testimony was untrue.

Let us apply these remarks to the sacred writers. We have appealed to the authenticity of their books and to all other accessible sources of information. These prove the credibility of the principal facts of their writings. Let us appeal now to themselves, in order to see whether we may repose that implicit confidence in them, as to be able to rely also upon the whole of their statements in every particular; in other words, whether the external testimony already adduced is supported by the number, character, circumstan

ces, and manner of writing and acting of the witnesses themselves.

We have here twelve separate witnesses of the specific facts of the gospel history-to whom three more (St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul) may be added. Of these fifteen witnesses, eight composed different writings in twenty-seven several works, published within a few years of the events which they record; and works read and examined by their contemporaries, both friends and foes, in every part of the. known world. Such is the number of the witnesses to every one of the facts, all agreeing in their testimony to them, and especially to the fact of the resurrection of their Lord.

2. These persons had a full knowledge of the things they attested. They were eye-witnesses, or the companions of those who were. Of the four evangelists, one wrote his account within six or eight years of the crucifixion; (A. D. 38 or 40;) a second, following his steps, but publishing his history at a distance and under the eye of St. Peter," came at an interval of twenty or thirty years. (About A. D. 61.) The evangelist from whom my text is taken, appeared soon after (A. D. 63) to set in order the things then most surely believed to gather them from those who had been eye-witnesses from the beginning; and having a perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to afford a certainty to Christians of the things in which they had been instructed. After an interval again of about thirty years, (A. D. 97,) the last surviving apostle completes the sacred story.

In the meantime, the history of the first propagation of the gospel is given by St. Luke, a companion of one of the greatest of the apostles, and numerous epistles are addressed to the infant churches. If any witnesses, then, were ever fully acquainted with what they relate, they are these.

3. The testimony which they bear, is to facts of which they were perfectly competent to judge-the life, discourses, miracles and resurrection of their Master-events which passed before their eyes, and were the objects of their continual and most familiar observation. If Plato is deemed

(m) So Papias, Clemens Alexandrinus, Caius, Eusebius, &c. testify.

a competent witness of the events of the life of Socrates, his master; or any modern biographer of the actions of an illustrious person with whom he has constantly conversedBoswell, for instance, of his friend the great moralist, Johnson-then surely the evangelists are competent witnesses of the life of Christ.

It is an extraordinary, but singular fact, that no history since the commencement of the world, has been written by so great a number of the friends and companions of an illustrious person as that of our Lord." One contemporary history is a rarity-two is a coincidence scarcely known -four is, so far as appears, unparalleled.

4. These witnesses were persons of transparent integrity of character: whether you regard the apostles generally, or the eight writers of the New Testament, or merely the four evangelists; simplicity, honesty, good faith are apparent in all they say and do and write. The style and manner of their books have been mentioned, and belong more to the credibility than to the preceding subject. But it is peculiarly appropriate to this place to notice the inimitable artlessness and impartiality which are on the very face of all their testimony. It never enters into their minds to consider how this or the other action may affect their own reputation or appear to mankind. They lay the facts before the world. If the reader will not credit their testimony, there is no help for it; they tell the truth, the whole truth, just as it happened, and nothing else. Who can avoid noticing, for example, the honesty with which they record their own failings, the dulness of their apprehension, their unbelief, their pride, their emulations, their disputes, the rebukes they brought upon themselves, their disgraceful flight and cowardice, the treachery of one of their number, and the denial of his Master by another. Most of them, moreover, were plain, illiterate men, no way qualified by education or habit for attempting an imposture. Their

(n) T. H. Horne.

(0) T. H. Horne.

(p) The aggravated circumstance of the cock crowing twice, as recorded in the gospel, written under the eye of the penitent apostle, is deserving of remark. See

Mark xiv. 66-71.

accounts apparently vary from each other in a thousand respects, as we before observed; but their witness to the broad facts of their Master's life is decided, uniform, conclusive. The urdesigned coincidences, which we have also referred to, between the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the epistles, confirm the credibility of them all." The letters to Timothy, Titus, Philemon, confidential, individual friends, contain no other facts than those to the churches of Ephesus, or to the Christian converts scattered over the whole of Asia." The epistles which abound. with rebukes, appeal as boldly to the same facts, as those which contain commendation.

5. The apostles again were men of sound minds, and by no means credulous or rash. The prominent facts they relate required nothing more than that the witness' mind should be sane and honestly used. And where is any vestige in their accounts of credulity or enthusiasm? Were ever men more calm, deliberative, aware of all they were about, free from any trait of undue excitation of mind? I appeal to their writings. I appeal to every step of their conduct. So far were they from being credulous, that they were reluctant, slow, backward to believe the truth of any thing at all extraordinary. The approach of their Master on the sea, they credited not till he assured them it was himself. At his apprehension by the band of soldiers, they were astonished and fled. His resurrection they could scarcely be induced to believe. And as to enthusiasm, where are narratives so stamped with the character of self-possession, soberness, impartiality? There is not a note of exclamation throughout the history. And what can be more consistent, luminous, unadorned, straight-forward, than their whole account?

(q) The fine remark of Sir Isaac Newton on the traces of local memory in St.

Matthew is well known.

(r) "He who is telling the truth, is apt to state his facts and leave them to their fate; he speaks as one having authority and cares not about the why or the wherefore, because it never occurs to him that such particulars are wanted to make his statements credible."-Blunt, 27.

(s) 1 Peter i. 1.

6. Then, they relate events at the spot where they occurred, and before the multitudes who witnessed them. The gospel narrative does not detail facts which happened in another part of the world, or in the recesses of a wilderness, or concerning a person unknown. They relate at Jerusalem what they assert occurred at Jerusalem. They relate events the most public, occurring to a person whose fame filled the whole country, and involving a charge against their own rulers; these events they relate in the presence of the very multitudes before whose eyes they took place, in the face of enemies the most implacable, and before the tribunals of justice-and they relate them, on various occasions, with the same undaunted boldness.

7. The purity and beneficence of their characters I have noticed, so far as regards freedom from credulousness and rashness. But the unparalleled benevolence and holiness of their whole subsequent lives, their freedom from ambition and covetousness, their self-denying love to mankind, and even to their enemies, their meekness and patience under injuries, their heroic fortitude, their discretion and prudenceall the virtues of a devout, laborious, humane life, taken up in consequence of their belief in the Christian history, proves the credit due to the facts of it. For good men are consistent in virtue, as well as bad men in vice. The same base hypocrisy which would lead men to forge a false account and establish a lie, would infallibly appear also in pride, covetousness, ambition, sensuality, the love of domination, in one form or other of selfishness. This is the brand which Providence puts upon imposture. Unblemished innocency is the seal of truth. This stamps our divine books. It is morally impossible that such men could have imposed knowingly and basely upon mankind.

Lastly, They had nothing to expect for their testimony but temporal calamities and death; which they actually incurred, and incurred without once shrinking from the facts they asserted. What was there to instigate the apostles to falsify the truth? What had they to look for? A miserable life, reproach, contempt, derision, the loss of property, home, country; the being made as the filth of the earth and the