teen hundred years after their own times? Still less did Tacitus and Suetonius imagine the important purposes to which their admissions of all the chief facts of Christianity would be turned, after the indignant contempt of the historians themselves had become harmless. What did Julian or Porphyry foresee of the value of those incidental notices of the facts connected with Christianity, which escaped them in the warmth of their invective against the religion? When Celcus, in his enmity against the gospel, overwhelmed Origen with his sophisms and cavils, little did he imagine that, the arguments on either side being disregarded, the facts which were admitted in common, would form a bulwark of the Christian faith. Still less did the Jewish writers conceive that, in attributing the Christian miracles to the powers of an occult magic, they were acknowledging facts on which, we should build our faith, ages after the hypothesis of a false philosophy had been exploded.

In the mean time, the Christian religion marched on,-in the midst of the scorn of the learned, the force of the powerful, the hatred of governments, the malignity of the Heathen and Jewish priesthoods-and, sustained by an invisible hand, made good its cause, till Constantine mounted the throne, and the empire assumed the name of Christian. All was natural, unpretending, honest truth.

Proofs, however, began imperceptibly to be collected. The authenticity of the sacred books was examined; the records of martrys were searched into; the tradition of ancient facts was investigated; ecclesiastical memoirs were composed; controversies arose; the numbers on each side are mentioned; the councils which assemble are enumerated; the condemnation of heretics is placed on record. Thus, facts and doctrines are incidentally ascertained. Things come out by occasions, by circumstances unforeseen and unplanned. It is only after a lapse of centuries that men's attention is directed to the collecting into a series the successive proofs. The tide of time rolls down, and bears on its surface the various materials, from which diligent observation culls here and there a particle of unexpected and important evidence; as the wild American gathers from the

bed of his magnificent rivers the minute but valuable particles of gold and silver. As literature widens, the scattered elements of proof are brought in-coins, medals, inscriptions, antiquities, re-written manuscripts discovered in monasteries, contribute their unexpected testimony.

Not only the first occasions are unlooked for, but the subsequent reasons for bringing out and detailing the proofs, are equally incidental.

m

A literary age abounds with infidelity. The credibility of the gospel history is, after seventeen hundred years, reduced into regular proof, for the purpose of meeting the new circumstances of the times. It is shown that the early fathers cite almost all the New Testament; and that the heretics never call in question the authenticity of the books.

Yet further, multitudes of individuals are employed in these works who have given no evidence of personal piety, or of any firm faith in the peculiarities of the religion which they defend. Some from literary curiosity; some from the irritation of controversy; some from professional studies are led to contribute their quota, who yet avow a disbelief in some of the characteristic doctrines of redemption.

How much these points increase the force of the whole. argument in favor of Christianity, I need not say. They do this in several ways.

They show that there has been NO EFFORT IN CHRISTIANITY TO MAKE OUT A CASE; no provision for petty difficulties; no timidity in passing through the succession of ages and nations. No: Christianity walks on her way, strong in her native authority, and conscious that, on whatever side she is contemplated, there is evidence enough for every sincere inquirer.

They also demonstrate the secret CARE OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE Over the religion, which, in ways unseen by man, and over which he had no control, laid up these materials of proof. Enough has been preserved of the earliest Christian writers-enough of other kinds of evidence, to

(m) By the labors of Lardner and his contemporaries.

furnish us in these latter days with abundant sources of testimony.

It likewise shows that we are in a SERIES OF CONTINUAL ACCESSIONS to the evidences of religion. The case is not closed. New incidents may arise, as they have done in every preceding age, to confirm the proof; new manuscripts may be found; new notices in heathen authors; new series of quotations in the fathers; new monuments of antiquity; new lights from the actual state of mankind.

III. But let us contemplate the stream of evidence IN ITS ACTUAL MASS AND VOLUME BEFORE OUR EYES, AND PRESENTING THE HOPE OF ITS BEING ABOUT TO VISIT AND FERTILIZE THE WHOLE EARTH.

Let us view the present flow and course of the stream; let us see how far it is now more unimpeded than in former periods; more cleared of obstructions; more ready to burst out into new regions, and bless the most distant shores.

Yes; never was the great Christian argument so disembarrassed from extraneous matter; never did it bear so directly upon the consciences of men; never was there a period of the world when all seemed waiting for those secret operations of the divine mercy, to which all argument is subordinate, and without which no evidences can convince. or persuade.

1. For, do we not stand on the ELEVATION OF EIGHTEEN CENTURIES, or rather of SIX THOUSAND YEARS? Does not what we have noticed of the incidental manner in which the Christian proofs were collected, and the immense aggregation of them, place us on a vantage-ground for the further prosecution of the argument? Does not all past experience, all past history, all the divisions and heresies in the visible church, all the noble virtues in the invisible, all the changes and alterations in the attacks of the great spiritual adversary, all the exhausted effects of infidelity on individuals and nations, give us means of observation now, far beyond all preceding periods of time? And if we use these facts of actual experience with humility, will they not materially

aid us in our cause?

2. And do not THE VARIOUS METHODS OF TREATING THE EVIDENCES in former times, furnish us with lights for our guidance in the present? We trace the excellences and defects of our predecessors, in order to learn wisdom ourselves.

The first apologists formed a PRIMITIVE school of writers on the evidences of Christianity. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Gregory Nazianzen, Arnobius, Lactantius, Augustine, poured out the simple complaints of a persecuted and despised people, at the feet of the reigning heathen powers. Direct details of proofs they gave not: they saw, they felt, they exhibited the virtue of Christianity. They had chiefly to repel the unheard-of calumnies which rested on the new religion. Their apologies are personal vindications of a

deeply-injured cause.

The dark ages were sunk too low in a petty scholastic theology, to pay much regard to a species of argument which was not wanted, when the human mind was struggling with other evils-superstition, ignorance, spiritual tyranny.

At the reformation, apologies were again produced, more to defend the protestant doctrines, than to establish the general Christian authority. The rise of Deism was not immediate; and the demand for regular defences of Revelation not directly made.

The school of what we may call the LITERARY defenders of Christianity, arose with Plessis du Mornay," and was followed up by Grotius, Huet, and others, who, with too little regard perhaps to the inward blessings of Christianity, attempted to demonstrate its divine authority by learned arguments, references to heathen authors, and a deduction of inferences little level to the understanding, and less addressed to the hearts of man.

The THEOLOGICAL class of writers on evidences, arose in our own country towards the middle of the seventeenth century, from the host of eminent divines and pious and devoted Christians which that age produced. Baxter, Owen,

(n) Born 1549.

(0) Born 1583.

(p) Born 1630.

Halyburton, Turretin then wrote, and rested their cause chiefly on the character of the Scriptures, the infinite excellency and glory of the matters revealed, the testimony of the Spirit to the human heart.`

The revulsion of this order of reasoners produced the METAPHYSICAL class of the same period, or a little later, in which far too much was conceded to the Deist-he was met on his own ground far too courteously, and was refuted indeed, but refuted laboriously on the footing of metaphysical reasoning. Chandler, Jenkins, Leland, Stillingfleet, and perhaps Doddridge, and Beattie, may be ranked in this series.

The

The unsatisfactory results of taking this ground, at length led to a simple exposition of the facts of Christianity in the HISTORICAL School, in which Paley stands pre-eminent, from his skill in conducting his argument. Lardner, Leslie, West, are of this class in our own country; as Michaelis, Less, Bullet, Bonnet, Stoch, are on the continent. omissions of these apologists lay in an undervaluing or concealment of the internal evidences-in a secular tone of ratiocination-an intellectual effort to make men Christians, without sufficient reference to the divine Saviour in his death and sacrifice, and the divine sanctifier in his influences and grace.

The CHRISTIAN writers-for so I must call them-have arisen of late years; who, noting all that seemed good in the former schools, have been careful to carry out Christianity into its practical consequences and appeal to the conscience and heart. Pascal led the way to this kind of writings a man who was in advance of his age in this, as in other points. Butler followed in his steps, and laid the foundation of the complete overthrow of infidel objections, by a consideration of the ignorance of man. The present

Bishop of Durham has aided, by his exposition of the History of Infidelity. Soame Jenyns contributed many valuable thoughts. But the Bishop of Chester is confessedly the leader in this school, and has given the first com

(q) Bishop Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures. (r) Bishop John Bird Sumner.