into the number under threescore years old"? We also find, from the Acts, that provision was made, from the first, for the indigent widows who belonged to the Christian church. Does he say to Timothy that, from a child, he had known the Holy Scriptures? The Acts tell us that his mother was a Jewess. Do we hear him exhorting the Corinthians not to despise Timothy? We hear him saying to Timothy himself, "Let no man despise thy youth;" and again, "Flee also youthful lusts." Does Paul, in the Epistle to Timothy, refer particularly to the afflictions which came unto him at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra? We find from the history, in the most indirect way imaginable, that Timothy must have lived at one of those cities, and have been converted at the time of those persecutions. Does Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, ask their prayers that he might be delivered from them that did not believe, in Judea? We hear him saying, in the Acts, with reference to the same journey, "And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there; save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me." Do we hear him, in the Epistle to the Romans, commending to them Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrea? We find, from the history, that Paul had been at Cenchrea, only from the following passage-"Having shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow." Of such coincidences Paley has pointed out, perhaps, a hundred, and he has by no means exhausted the subject.*

And not only do we find epistles directed to churches, -the last species of composition that an

* Horæ Paulinæ, passim.

original impostor, whether we suppose that the church did or did not exist at the time, could have thought of fabricating, but we have, in more than one instance, two letters addressed to the same church, the last having all that reference to the first that we should expect. We find it also directed that the letter to one church should be read in another; we find it implied that one of the churches had written to the apostle, and his letter is partly in reply to theirs; we find such points discussed as would naturally have arisen in societies constituted as Christian churches must then have been; and, finally, we find a strength of personal feeling, a depth of tenderness and interest, a promptness in bestowing deserved censure, a tone of authority, and a fulness of commendation, which could have sprung only from the transactions of actual life. Am I not, then, even from this view of their internal evidence, so briefly and imperfectly presented, justified in the assertion that no impostor either would, or could, have fabricated these books?

And now, whether we look at the relations which Christianity must have sustained either to the Jews or to the Gentiles; at the course pursued either by Christ himself or by the apostles; at the connection between the Christian and the Jewish system; or at the impossibility of fabricating the books of the New Testament, I think we may reasonably conclude that this religion, and these books, did not originate with man.

LECTURE VIII.

THE CONDITION, CHARACTER, AND CLAIMS OF CHRIST.

THUS far, we have attended to the system of Christianity, to its marvellous adaptations, and to the impossibility that it should have come from man. We now turn from the system to its Author. Who was the author of this system? What were his condition, his claims, and his character? We have already seen that the object he proposed, and the system he taught, are worthy of God, and correspond perfectly with the nature of man. But, were his condition in life, the claims he preferred, and the character he sustained, such as we can now see ought to have belonged to one who claimed the spiritual headship of the race? Is it possible that he should have been an impostor? Do we not find, meeting in him alone, so many things that are extraordinary, as to forbid that supposition? These questions it will be the object of the present lecture to answer.

And if there is any subject to which we can apply, not only the tests of logic, but the decisions of intuitive reason, and of all the higher instincts of our common humanity, it is the condition in life, and teachings, and proposed object, and character, of one

imitation and forgery, but there is no such temptation to forge the original work. No instance of such a forgery can be adduced.

The strong point here, however, is, that no enthusiast or impostor could have forged these books. This is manifest from the marks of honesty which they bear upon their face. It is with books as with men. Without stating to ourselves the ground of it, we all form a judgment of the character of men from their appearance. There is in some men an appearance of openness, and candor, and fairness, in all they do and say, which can hardly be mistaken. There is often something in the appearance and modes of statement of a witness on the stand, there are certain undefinable but very appreciable marks of honesty or of dishonesty, which will and ought to go very far, with one who has been accustomed to observe men under such circumstances, in fixing the character of his testimony. Now, this is remarkably the case with the writings of the New Testament. We cannot read a chapter without feeling that we are dealing with realities. The writers show no consciousness of any possibility that their statements should be doubted. They have the air of persons who state things perfectly well known. They express no wonder; they do not seem to expect that their statements, extraordinary as they are, will excite any; they enter into no explanations, attempt to remove or evade no difficulties; they speak freely of their own faults and weaknesses; they flatter no one; they express no malice towards any. There is no ambition of fine writing, no special pleading, no attempt to conceal circumstances apparently unfavorable as the agony of Christ in the garden, so

liable to be imputed to weakness; the fact that he was forsaken of God on the cross, that Peter denied him, and that the disciples forsook him and fled. Their narratives are minute, circumstantial, graphic, giving the names of persons and the time and the place of events. At every step they lay themselves open to detection if their accounts are, I will not say fabrications, but false in any respect. Do they give us the Sermon on the Mount? They tell us that multitudes heard it. Do they give an account of the resurrection of Lazarus? They give the place and the family, and state its effects upon different classes of persons. Do they speak of the Roman governor, or of the high priest? They mention his name. There is the Sea of Galilee, and Capernaum, and Jerusalem, and the temple with its goodly stones. There are the Jewish feasts, and their sects, and traditions. Every thing is thoroughly Jewish, and still there is the publican and the Roman soldier. All these seem to stand before us with the distinctness of life - not by the force of rhetorical painting, but by the simple narration of truth.

The chief difficulty, however, in fabricating these books, would not have been in giving them singly an air of truth, however striking and life-like, but in constructing so many of them with such numerous and incidental marks of correspondence as to negative entirely the supposition of imposture. And here it ought to be observed, that the number of books is itself a strong reason for supposing that there was no imposture. An imposture would naturally have appeared in one well-considered and well-guarded account. So have all impostures of

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