:

pline but then it should be remembered, that the same may be said of almost every pursuit and enjoyment which is not strictly religious.

The effects which literary studies are directly calculated to produce, and which they do frequently produce, on a truly pious person, is a more humbling view of human nature, in its present lapsed and imperfect state, and a more ardent attachment to the revelations of the Bible. If a conviction of our own ignorance is

the first lesson that real knowledge teaches, what humility must be found in the breast of a good man, whose information is daily becoming more enlarged, and his faculties more expanded! From the various and contradictory opinions of illustrious men, on almost every topic, what confirmations will he derive of the truth and excellence of the Scriptures, which assert both the degradation of our powers from their original rectitude, and the necessity of supernatural influence to restore them to their former perfection! And, as he advances in the path of literature, and acquires increasingly vivid perceptions of classic excellence; while his enthusiasm is awakened by the songs of Homer, or his principles strengthened by the sublime instructions of Epictetus he will feel more deeply the value of that holy book, which, while distinguished for all the beauties of composition, lays down a system of morals infinitely superior to the wisest theories of antiquity, and sanctioned by the distinct revelation of a judgment to

come.

;

In a word, whatever has a tendency to show us the imbecility of our mental powers, and lead us to seek, with more humility and earnestness, that "wisdom which cometh from above;" whatever is calculated to extirpate our prejudices, and to form in us habits of

clear and correct thinking; or to enlarge our views of the Deity, of the world, or of our own hearts; must be pronounced, in the judgment of every enlightened and im partial man, a blessing of incalculable value. They who object to learning, on the ground of its hostility to religion, are generally themselves destitute of literary advantages; and, therefore, however they may be respected for their piety, they are, in this particular, entitled to little regard. Ignorance of every kind loves the darkness in which it is shrouded. Spenser has very beautifully illustrated this idea in his allegorical representation of error:

"For light she hated as the deadly bale, Ay wont in desert darkness to remaine, Where plaine none might her see, nor she see any plaine."

As we then value truth, which dwells in light, in opposition to error, that broods in darkness, let us show, by our endeavours to unite intellectual excellence with real religion, that while the former is never so pleasing as when joined to the latter, the latter is never more lovely, and seldom so efficient as when associated with the former.

HORATIO.

A STATEMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL EVIDENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

(Continued from p. 19.)

II. THE period occupied by the ministry of Christ and his apostles next demands our attention.

To accomplish this part of our undertaking, it becomes necessary for us to review the principal events of this period, and then, by a statement of the evidence on which their truth is founded, to connect them with the proof arising from the general history of Christianity in support of its claim to a divine original.

1. The principal events of this period are the following: In the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius,

1

emperors of Rome, Jesus Christ was born, lived, and died in the land of Judea. During his life he declared himself to be the Saviour of the world, whose coming had been foretold by the prophets: he promulgated the doctrines of the Christian religion; wrought numerous miracles, delivered many predictions, and collected a number of followers, out of which he selected twelve to be the witnesses of his actions, and the publishers of his doctrines. He was at length apprehended by the Jewish rulers, delivered into the hands of the Roman governor, publicly crucified by his order, and honourably interred by Joseph of Arimathea, a person of distinction belonging to the Jewish nation. On the third day after his death he rose from the grave, was seen by his disciples, continued among them forty days, and at the expiration of that period ascended into heaven in their presence. His disciples, after the departure of their Lord, published his doctrines, and declared the facts of his resurrection and ascension to the world: they wrought miracles, foretold future events, suffered innumerable calamities for their adherence to the cause of Christ, and finally succeeded in converting great numbers of both Jews and Gentiles, and in planting Christian churches in every part of the known world. Such are the events whose truth we are now to contemplate.

2. Upon considering these facts, it evidently appears, that they are of different kinds, and that their results bear differently upon the subject which is before us. The course, therefore, which we shall pursue, in stating their evidences, is to take the least disputable of them first, and to trace the necessary connexion of it with the rest, till we arrive at the conclusion which we seek, viz. that the Christian religion owes its

establishment to the interference of divine power and wisdom. The least disputable of the facts that have been enumerated, is the planting of Christian churches in several parts of the world during this period. From the fact now proposed, the most obstinate scepticism is incapable of withholding its assent. It rests upon the testimony of an unbroken succession of historical narration, extending from the first age of the Christian era down to the present times. Jews, the fiercest and most unrelenting adversaries of Christianity; pagans, sustaining the antient superstitions of heathenism, by all the charms of eloquence, the fascinations of wit, and the formidable powers of the Roman magistracy, are combined with Christian writers in placing this fact beyond the reach of controversy; while the continued existence of Christian churches, during the whole succession of subsequent ages, down to our own days, annihilates every hypothesis which is at variance with it. Such being the evidence, let us see what is the amount of this fact, or what is implied in the planting of Christian churches, because this will assist us to assign its cause, and will point out its connexion with the other specified facts. A Christian church consisted of a number of persons, great or small, who united to perform the worship of God, according to the institutions of Christ, and to afford assistance to each other in all the duties of the Christian life. The members of such a society agreed to watch over each other's conduct, and by fraternal advice, combined with the exercise of salutary discipline, to maintain a character consistent with the high and holy rules of their religion. The contrast which such a society offered, both in form and spirit, to the rest of mankind, is apparent from the well known manners of both Jews

and Gentiles; nor could so marked a discrepance from all that was sanctified by habits most confirmed, and prejudices most inveterate, fail to be visited by animadversions of the severest

kind.

The Christian religion exacted from its followers a total renunciation of the immoral and blasphemous superstitions of the Gentiles, nor would it tolerate a conformity to Jewish institutions: the former it reprobated as the worship of what was not God; the latter it abrogated as a system which, having accomplished its design, was now to cease for ever. The inevitable result of such an opposition to all that the world held sacred, was infamy, proscription, and death. These were the inseparable attendants upon the profession of Christianity at its first establishment. By combining difficulties so formidable, with the restraints upon the passions, appetites, and licentious inclinations of men, which the Christian religion enjoined, and by adding to these the estimation in which Christianity itself was holden by Jews and Gentiles, to the former of whom it was an offence, and to the latter folly, we shall form a just conception of the obstacles which the first publishers of the Gospel had to surmount ere they could plant churches obedient to the faith of Christ. To account for the first existence of Christian churches, we must therefore advert to the other facts which have been enumerated. For we are irresistibly impelled to inquire, by what offers of remuneration could the missionaries of the cross tempt men to abandon the religion of their ancestors, to devote themselves to a purity of principle and conduct, which was at war equally with their own feelings and the customs of all around them, to embrace obloquy, contempt, and death, and meekly to resign the possession of whatever is dear and CONG. MAG. No. 50.

interesting? What was to counterbalance this accumulation of loss? The sole recompense which an apostle of Christ could offer, was the kingdom of heaven; a happiness future, remote, and invisible. This was the substitute for present peace, safety, honour, wealth, liberty, life. For this did thousands of every age, and sex, and rank, and country, addict themselves to a crucified Saviour, and regarded "all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord." By what mighty means did agents so illiterate and friendless as the apostles of Christ, induce a belief that such a felicity was in store for the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth? How did they demonstrate the truth of their assertions, or the certain fulfilment of their promises. They appealed to the prophecies of ancient times, to the characteristics of the Messiah contained in the scriptures of the Old Testament; these they showed to harmonize and concentrate in the Saviour whom they preached : they appealed to his miracles, his virtues, his sufferings, his resurrection from the dead, and his exaltation to the right hand of God; and while, by a display of invincible patience in the endurance of every species of suffering, they proved the truth of their testimony by the performance of miracles of the highest order and most decisive kind, they demonstrated the constant co-operation of the divine power. The authentic records of the Christian church ascribe to such means its first establishment, and in the nature of the fact itself, an argument of irresistible energy is afforded to assure us that such means were actually applied. Nothing less can account for the effect which was produced. "Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God," were churches of believers in Christ established in L

the most celebrated cities of the ancient world, during the period which we are now contemplating. This is the conclusion to which the whole of the argument leads, the proof that Christianity owed its establishment to the interference of the wisdom and power of God. Let atheism then weave its flimsy systems, and employ its blasphemous speculations to discredit the existence of a supreme, intelligent, and infinite mind; let infidelity apply its utmost intenseness of malignant ingenuity to account for facts which it is incapable of invalidating, Christians will still maintain their faith inviolate, in God the creator of the universe, by whose providence all its events are regulated; and in Jesus the Saviour, whose "church is founded upon a rock, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail."

III. We arrive now at the last period of our review, that which has transpired between the establishment of Christianity and the present age.

During this whole period, which exceeds seventeen hundred years, has the Christian church continued to exist. Its fortunes have been various, and in the connexion of its past history, with its present state, we may trace additional proofs of its divine original. As in this part of our undertaking we must refer to the books which compose the volume of the New Testament, it will be proper to state the grounds on which their credibility is sustained. It is an indisputable fact, that the greater part of these writings were universally received as the productions of the persons whose names they bear, and as containing an accurate representation of the facts and doctrines of Christianity by the primitive Christians, who were deeply interested in ascertaining their authenticity, and possessed of ample means for this purpose.

That the genuineness of any of these writings was for a short period questioned by some of the early Christian churches, is a circumstance which serves to evince the care they took to preserve themselves from being imposed upon, in an affair of such transcendant importance; while the general reception which these writings speedily obtained, is a satisfactory proof that their claims needed only to be understood, for the removal of the suspicions which had attached to them. That the whole of the books now included in the New Testament did at an early period experience this general reception, is apparent from the catalogues of the canon to be found in the writings of the fathers, from the numerous citations of them made by the same writers, from the versions of the New Testament into several languages still extant, and from the general consent of the earliest adversaries of christianity to this fact, who in their attacks upon the faith of Christians would not have failed to avail themselves of so powerful an argument, had it been in their power to shew that the authenticity of the New Testament was invalidated by the disagreement of its friends, or its contrariety to the truth of history.

Assuming, on such grounds, the credibility of the statements made by the writers of the New Testament, we proceed to examine what additional proofs of the divine original of Christianity are to be derived from the events which have transpired since its first promulgation.

1. The first of these events is to be sought in the history of the Jews. These people, instigated by various pretenders to the character of their long expected Messiah, indignant at the yoke imposed upon them by the Roman government, and goaded by passions of the most furious and un

governable kind, engaged in a contest with the Roman arms, which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, the demolition of the temple, and the entire dissolution of their polity both civil and ecclesiastical. These events, which took place about seventy years after the birth of Christ, and near forty after his death, were succeeded by the dispersion of the Jews who survived these tremendous calamities among the different nations of mankind. In this scattered condition they still exist, mingled with people of most discordant languages and customs, yet retaining unaltered their attachment to Judaism, and the strong discriminating features which marked them in the first ages of the Christian era. The connexion of this event with the divine original of Christianity, is derived from the predictions of Christ and his apostles, respecting the future fates of the Jewish people. The times in which this event should happen, the means by which it should be accomplished, and the durable consequences which should follow, are stated by the sacred writers in terms so explicit and minute, as to wear the appearance of a narrative of past transactions more than that of a prophetic enunciation of future events. *

2. The apostasy which has taken place in the Christian church, is the next event to which we appeal in support of the divine original of the Gospel. The pages of ecclesiastical history disclose the nature and extent of this apostasy, the vestiges of which are also sufficiently apparent in the present condition of multitudes of the professors of Christianity. Scarcely discernible in its first existence, the revolt of Christians from the first principles and conduct of the

See Matt. chaps. xxiii. xxiv. Mark, chap. xiii. Luke, chap. xvii. Romans, chap. ii.

apostolic churches advanced by degrees almost imperceptible, till in the profound darkness, and in the accumulated superstitions, crimes, and blasphemies, which were associated with the name of Christ, during the period of the middle ages, it attained its utmost growth of impiety. Deriving its origin from the ignorance and credulity of the people, combined with the ever growing pretensions and insatiable ambition and avarice of the priesthood, it perverted the holy institution of the Gospel, into the most powerful means of temporal aggrandizement, and the most formidable engine of fanatical persecution under the operation of which mankind has ever groaned. Upon the promises and declarations of Christ purely spiritual, and tending by the gentlest and most benevolent methods to promote the best interests of the human race, were founded the fantastic hierarchies, and intolerable usurpations of the Eastern and Western churches, and the enormous influence of the popes of Rome. From this mournful instance of human corruption, we are, however, able to deduce an argument of no small force in support of the divine original of Christianity. The commencement of this defection was noticed by the apostles of Christ, and they foretold in express terms, as well as by symbolical representations, the height to which it would arrive, and the overthrow which it would experience. Many ages prior to the final usurpations of the priesthood, and the placing of the triple crown upon the head of the Roman pontiff, had the pen of inspiration declared, *" that the man of sin should be revealed, the son of perdition: who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is

* 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. See also the different parts of the Apocalypse relating to the usurpations of Antichrist,