16 Lord. One contemporary history is a rarity-two is a coincidence scarcely known-four is, so far as appears, unparalleled. 4. These witnesses were persons of transparent integrity of character: whether you regard the apostles generally, or the eight writers of the New Testament, or merely the four evangelists; simplicity, honesty, good faith, are apparent in all they say and do and write. The style and manner of their books have been mentioned. But it is peculiarly appropri ate to this place to notice the inimitable artlessness and impartiality which are on the very face of all their testimony. It never enters into their minds to consider how this or the other action may affect their own reputation or appear to mankind. They lay the facts before the world. If the reader will not credit their testimony, there is no help for it; they tell the truth, the whole truth, just as it happened, and nothing else.1o Who can avoid noticing, for example, the honesty with which they record their own failings, the dulness of their apprehension, their unbelief, their pride, their emulations, their disputes, the rebukes they brought upon themselves, their disgraceful flight and cowardice, the treachery of one of their number, and the denial of his Master by another ?17 Most of them, moreover, were plain, illiterate men, no way qualified by education or habit for attempting an imposture. Their accounts apparently vary from each other in a thousand respects, as we before observed; but their witness to the broad facts of their Master's life is decided, uniform, conclusive. The undesigned coincidences, which we 16 T. H. Horne. 17 The aggravated circumstance of the cock crowing twice, as recorded in the gospel, written under the eye of the penitent apostle, is deserving of remark. See Mark xiv. 66–71. 18 The fine remark of Sir Isaac Newton on the traces of local memory in St. Matthew is well known. have also referred to, between the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the epistles, confirm the credibility of them all.19 The letters to Timothy, Titus, Philemon, confidential, individual friends, contain no other facts than those to the churches of Ephesus, or to the Christian converts scattered over the whole of Asia.20 The epistles, which abound with rebukes, appeal as boldly to the same facts, as those which contain commendation. 5. The apostles again were men of sound minds, and by no means credulous or rash. The prominent facts they relate required nothing more than that the witnesses' minds should be sane and honestly used. And where is any vestige in their accounts, of credulity or enthusiasm? Were ever men more calm, deliberative, aware of all they were about, free from any trait of undue excitation of mind? I appeal to their writings. I appeal to every step of their conduct. So far were they from being credulous, that they were reluctant, slow, backward to believe the truth of any thing at all extraordinary. The approach of their Master on the sea, they credited not till he assured them it was himself. At his apprehension by the band of soldiers, they were astonished and fled. His resurrection they could scarcely be induced to believe. And as to enthusiasm, where are narratives so stamped with the character of self-possession, soberness, impartiality? There is not a note of exclamation throughout the history. And what can be more consistent, luminous, unadorned, straightforward, than their whole account? 6. Then, they relate events at the spot where they 19" He who is telling the truth, is apt to state his facts and leave them to their fate; he speaks as one having authority, and cares not about the why or the wherefore, because it never occurs to bim that such particulars are wanted to make his statements credible."-Blunt, 27. 20 1 Peter i. 1. occurred, and before the multitudes who witnessed them. The gospel narrative does not detail facts which happened in another part of the world, or in the recesses of a wilderness, or concerning a person unknown, They relate at Jerusalem what they assert occurred at Jerusalem. They relate events the most public, occurring to a person whose fame filled the whole country, and involving a charge against their own rulers; these events they relate in the presence of the very multitudes before whose eyes they took place, in the face of enemies the most implacable, and before the tribunals of justice-and they relate them, on various occasions, with the same undaunted bold ness. 7. The purity and beneficence of their characters I have noticed, so far as regards freedom from credulousness and rashness. But the unparalleled benevolence and holiness of their whole subsequent lives, their freedom from ambition and covetousness, their self-denying love to mankind, and even to their enemies, their meekness and patience under injuries, their heroic fortitude, their discretion and prudenceall the virtues of a devout, laborious, humane life, taken up in consequence of their belief in the Christian history, proves the credit due to the facts of it. For good men are as consistent in virtue, as bad men in vice. The same base hypocrisy which would lead men to forge a false account and establish a lie; would infallibly appear also in their pride, covetousness, ambition, sensuality, love of domination-selfishness in one form or other. This is the brand which Providence puts upon imposture. Unblemished innocency is the seal of truth. This stamps our divine books. It is morally impossible that such men could have imposed knowingly and basely upon mankind. Lastly, They had nothing to expect for their testimony but temporal calamities and death; which they actually incurred, and incurred without once shrinking from the facts they asserted. What was there to instigate the apostles to falsify the truth? What had they to look for? A miserable life, reproach, contempt, derision; the loss of property, home, country; the being "made as the filth of the earth, and the offscouring of all things;" till a shameful and lingering execution delivered them up to posthumous ignominy and scorn. That men of such holy characters should, in the face of such sufferings, persevere unto death in their testimony to certain broad and intelligible facts, before an enraged world---when they had only to hold their peace, and abstain from bearing their testimony, in order to enjoy tranquillity like other men---can only be accounted for on one supposition, the truth of what they asserted."1 In short, this branch of our argument may be summed up in the nervous lines of one of our greatest poets:22 Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts, Weave such agreeing truths? Or how or why Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie? Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice; Two considerations of some additional weight strengthen all these proofs of the credibility. Not one of the apostles or of their numerous converts ever came forward to complain of any imposition having been practised upon them. Now it is the obvious dictate of common sense, that if our history be a forgery, and the events did not really take place, some one, out of the many thousands and tens of thousands who followed the religion, under some circumstances or other, must have exposed the deceit, and have totally discomfited the enterprise. But where is the individual? Who has charged our books with false2 Dryden. 21 Paley. hood? Did Judas, who, stung with remorse, threw back his guilty gain, and declared he had betrayed the innocent blood? Or did the apostate of a later age, Julian, who admits every one of the gospel facts? Our religion stands without an accuser. Again, if our accounts are false, where is the true one? Our narrative gives an account, a natural, an adequate, and nothing more than an adequate, account of the facts. And where are the traces, where the vestiges of any other? What is the opposite statement? What the counter-hypothesis, that we may decide between them? All is silent as death. Every whisper of past tradition confirms our narrative. All accessible information falls in with it. Our account, therefore, is true. Nothing but a perverseness of mind, hardened against the force of moral evidence, can withhold us from reposing an entire confidence, a full acquiescence of the whole rational faculties of man, on the veracity of the evangelical history. This would be the place for entering upon the authenticity and credibility of the Old Testament, in order that this branch of our whole subject being completed, we might pass on to the divine authority of the Christian revelation. But this point is so involved in the truth of the New Testament, and so immediately follows from it, that I shall confine myself to an observation or two upon the connexion. For it is impossible to open the New Testament without perceiving that the Christian religion is the accomplishment of the Jewish, that our Lord and his apostles constantly appealed to the books of the Old Testament as acknowledged scriptures, quoted them as of unquestionable authority, and publicly professed to accomplish the prophecies which they contain. If, therefore, the New Testament be genuine and credible, the Old Testament is so likewise. The two are indissolubly linked together. The moment you open |