fallacies and the sophistry we have been endeavouring to expose.

Let us, I say, in balancing probabilities, dismiss all other subjects of consideration but the actual effects produced upon the witnesses of the scripture miracles, and how shall we account for these, unless we admit the truth of the miraculous agency? Men do not lightly abandon principles implanted by education, and cherished and strengthened by all their early and later associa tions. Men do not easily dismiss prejudices, which are flattering to their vanity, which are encouraged by their national peculiarities, and which concur with their worldly interests. Men do not lightly abandon sentiments rendered sacred by the institutions of a religion which had stood the test of ages, nor yield up, for a phantom, opinions which had been cherished by the great and the good, and which had been sanctioned by whatsoever was deemed authoritative and venerable. Yet we find that men did yield up all these and, moreover, with the certain prospect of thereby encountering every worldly evil, and of forfeiting every worldly good.-Yea, this change took place upon the minds of thousands who listened to the words, and saw the works, of Jesus, and of his Apostles; and who, forthwith, counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge which they had thus attained.

There must have been a cause- a powerful cause, for the production of such effects as these, -effects which do, indeed, surpass all the ordinary workings of nature, and which, if we deny

the previous miracle, are in themselves miraculous. It is only in the Christian records that we have any reasonable account of the causes of that mighty influence which the first preachers of Christianity exercised over the minds of men; and this account testifies that God did 'bear these heralds of salvation witness, with signs, and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of the holy spirit, according to his will.' Unless we admit the truth of this testimony, we acknowledge an effect without any adequate cause; we do, as it were, assent to one miracle in order to invalidate another. In that estimating of probabilities, therefore, of which the impugners of Christianity speak, the circumstances we have named should be allowed their due weight; and it will be found that they do powerfully concur to establish the truth of apostolical testimony; and attach a probability to the miraculous agency recorded in the scriptures, which far exceeds any improbability arising from man's limited experience of the regularity of nature's laws.

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VI. EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.

PART II.

Of the resurrection of Jesus.-No satisfactory evidence of a life to come, if the declaration of the scriptures, that, now is Christ risen,' be untrue.-No provision in nature for restoring the dead. Inconclusiveness of all analogical proofs.-Without revelation every thing which relates to a future state is conjectural and uncertain. -Heathen testimony to the existence and crucifixion of Jesus.Evangelists' account of the resurrection considered.-Unbelievers' objections stated and answered.-Rules of judgment relating to human testimony applied to the history of the resurrection.-Scripture narzative of incidents connected with this event have all the internal marks of truth.-Exhortation to hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,' and to endeavour earnestly, to attain to the resurrection of the just.'

THERE is no subject of inquiry so deeply interesting to an intellectual but perishing being -to man who cometh forth like a flower, and, like a flower, is cut down; who fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not,-as that which relates to a life beyond the grave, 'If a man die, shall he live again?' shall he awake from the sleep of death, and rejoice in the possession of renewed consciousness and a more perfect being? or shall

he mingle irrevocably with the clods of the valley? These are questions that have been uniformly and anxiously propounded by men of all generations and times. And yet how little satisfaction must result from such inquiries, if the declaration of the scriptures, that now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept,' be untrue? What ground for confidence have we, that man shall live again, if the Apostle and his fellow labourers be found false witnesses of God?' If the Christian revelation be a fable, ́whither shall we flee for information upon a subject so dear to mens' hopes? For nature speaks to us only of the present life: she has nothing to impart respecting any future existence. How anxiously soever we search throughout her wide domain, we discover no provision made for restoring the dead. We ask her for the tokens of permanancy and immortality, but she presents to us only the emblems of fluctuation and decay and dissolution. Her most durable monuments are not exempt from change, while her ordinary productions are the very types of instability. Her order is perpetual motion; and, in her rapid course, she conducts us onward from the morning to the evening of our existence; and then, when we need her aid to save us from destruction, she abandons us to our fate and consigns us to the grave, and the succeeding suns shine upon us no more. We flatter ourselves, that, in some of her operations, nature indicates a restoration of lost existence, whereas she only brings forth a new creation; the race is renewed, but the individual

perishes, and there is no certain token of his future revival. And like the drowning man who catches at the twigs that float upon the surface of the stream in which he is struggling, but which are, nevertheless, insufficient to save him from destruction; so we, being borne along by the current of time, and constantly in danger of: perishing, catch at every thing that appears to hold out the hope of a rescue from the seeming annihilation with which we are threatened.Seeking in vain for any positive natural evidence of a life beyond the grave, we hunt after probabi→ lities, and employ our fancies in tracing remote analogies. Hence the Chrysalis wrapped in its darksome covering is deemed an apt resemblance of the sleep of death, and its escape from its prison-house into the balmy air, an emblem of our own resurrection from the dead: or, the annual revival of the vegetable world, when spring returns with its life-giving power, is considered, as it were, a shadow of the spring-time of man's spiritual existence, when that which was sown in corruption, shall be raised in incorruption, and that which was sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory.'

But alas! how pleasing soever such speculations may prove to the mind of man in its happier moods, they are utterly vain in the hour of anxiety or sorrow. When misfortune sinks the heart, or disease breaks the spirits; or when death invades our social' or domestic circle, or threatens to consign ourselves to the tomb, we need some better consolation than any which can be derived

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