LECTURES.

LECTURE I.

LUKE XXIV. 46.

Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.

HE universal Church has set apart this season

THE

of the year to remember the first advent, and to look forward to the second. An effort has, however, been lately made to rob us of the ground of our rejoicing. A foreign critic has recently attempted to show that the gospel narratives, as being mere legends arising out of the circumstances, the religious opinions, and mistaken piety of the early Christians, are devoid of all historic value. He pretends that the conclusion at which he has arrived is the result of scientific investigation. But his principal argument-which is, that an allusion to miracle or supernatural interposition necessarily stamps the record in which it occurs as fabulousshows that his conclusion was attained, not only before the termination but before the commencement of the inquiry, and is founded in hostility to

the idea of all revealed religion.* He is, however, mistaken, if he thinks that the rejection of the gospels would necessarily involve the overthrow of Christianity. The history of the world, as open to our own daily inspection, compared with predictions which certainly existed before the beginning of the Christian era, is quite sufficient to prove the truth of its main facts and doctrines, and the certainty of divine revelation. It is a fact of which the most sceptical cannot doubt, that many, and those the most civilized, nations of the world worship and acknowledge as their Lord and their God an individual of the Jewish nation, who has been and still is despised and rejected by his own people, and further, that His doctrine has been the means of dispelling from amongst those nations the darkness of heathenism, and bringing them to faith in the Creator of heaven and earth. It has been shown in the preceding lectures that a series of predictions, beginning at least 2600 years ago, have announced this state of things, and have led the world to expect a descendant of the tribe of Judah, who should thus deliver the nations from idolatry, and be himself acknowledged as the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father. The inevitable consequence is, that these predictions are themselves divine revelations, and that Christianity is true. If, therefore, there were no gospels in existence, the common tradition of the Christian Church and

* Strauss, Vol. I. pp. 30, 31, p. 75 especially.

the Jewish nation respecting Jesus of Nazareth, and the range of facts within the compass of our daily experience, are sufficient to prove that our faith is well founded, and that the fact of miraculous interposition cannot be denied. The knowledge of futurity is as much an exception to the laws of nature as the power to stay the sun in the firmament, or to raise the dead. An additional argument for the confirmation of our faith was offered in the fulfilment of a prophecy of the New Testament also. It was shown that a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth also possessed the gift of prescience, which enabled him to foretel the destinies of Imperial Rome, and that history and our own observation pronounce him to have been a true prophet. If, however, we could fill up the bold and striking outline traced in the few predictions already considered, and show that all, even the minutest features of the picture, had been exactly portrayed, every succeeding particular would furnish an additional argument for the confirmation of our faith in Christ and in Christianity. The gospels supply these particulars, and this should lead us to-day to the second class of prophecies proposed for consideration— those, namely, the fulfilment of which is related in the gospels.

We desire, however, first to show the security of the Christian faith, and the utter futility of attempting to overthrow the gospel-narrative. We have proved already that if there were no gospels in the

world, the religious history of Christendom at this present moment, as compared with the prophecies of the Old Testament, is sufficient to command the belief of every man who acknowledges that prescience is the prerogative of Deity. We assert now, that if there were no gospels, the particulars of our Lord's history to be collected from the undisputed epistles of St. Paul, furnish such additional proof of the fulfilment of prophecy, as, when added to that derived from our own cognizance of passing events, constitutes a defence of Christianity impossible to be shaken. The most strenuous effort of modern infidel criticism has never been able to affix a doubt upon the genuineness of thirteen of these epistles— even that author who pronounces the gospels to be a complication of legends, asserts that these epistles were written by St. Paul. This one concession is sufficient to prove the truth of Christianity. Paul is an unexceptionable witness, and he furnishes particulars of our Lord's history by which to test his claims to be considered the deliverer announced by the Hebrew prophets. St. Paul, in the first place a cotemporary, and, secondly, an inhabitant of Jerusalem about the time of our Lord's crucifixion; and, besides, a pupil of Gamaliel, who was Nasi or Prince of the Sanhedrin which condemned our Lord, had every opportunity of knowing the truth which he relates. Possessed of learning and acuteness, and having been once a bitter enemy, he was not likely to be deceived, nor lightly to be per

St.

suaded. Gaining nothing, but suffering loss of all things for his testimony, it is utterly improbable that he would deviate from that which he believed to be true. The sceptic to whom we have referred, casts no imputation upon his integrity or his ability, but simply supposes that Paul was deluded by a phantom of the imagination, when he thought that he saw the Lord Jesus Christ. If therefo 'e we can show that here there was no possibility of mistake, we remove the only objection made to his testimony. To answer our opponent's arguments is impossible, simply because there are none to be answered. Excepting that sweeping one, which, by denying any possibility of miracle, takes for granted the matter in dispute, he has absolutely nothing to offer but a string of suppositions. He does not attempt to prove that Paul was mistaken, but only endeavours to assign natural causes which might have led the apostle to believe that he had seen the Lord, and to change the persecutor into the Apostle. 'The momenta, which were sufficient in a natural way to produce this revolution in the man's mind (were these): The favourable impressions, which he had at various times received concerning Christianity, concerning the doctrine, the life and conversation of those who professed it, especially by Stephen's martyr-death, which must have produced in his mind a state of doubt and struggle, which he might for awhile suppress even by double zeal in persecuting the new sect, but which was sure to end