CHRISTIANITY. 



371 





Christian!- timony of the teachers, whether we take into consideration 

 >? the subject of that testimony, or the circumstances under 



S "" "~V"^ -which it was delivered, is of itself a stronger argument 

 for the truth of the gospel history than can be alleged 

 for the truth of any other history which has been trans- 

 mitted down to us from ancient times. The concurrence 

 of the taught carries along with it a host of additional 

 testimonies, which gives an evidence to the evangelical 

 story, that is altogether unexampled. On a point of or- 

 dinary history, the testimony of Tacitus is held decisive, 

 because it is not contradicted. The history of the New 

 Testament is not only not contradicted, but confirmed 

 by the strongest possible expressions which men can give 

 of their acquiescence in its truth ; by thousands who 

 \vereeitheragents or eye witnesses of the transactions 

 recorded, who could not be deceived, who had no in- 

 terest, and no glory to gain by supporting a falsehood, 

 and who, by their sufferings in the cause of what they 

 professed to be their belief, gave the highest evidence, 

 that human nature can give of sincerity. 



79. In this circumstance, it may be perceived, how much 

 the evidence for Christianity goes beyond all ordinary his- 

 torical evidence. A profane historian relates a series of 

 events which happen in a particular age ; and we count 

 it well, if it be his own age, and if the history which he 

 gives as be the testimony of a cotemporary author. 

 Another historian succeeds him at the distance of years, 

 and by repeating the same story, gives additional evi- 

 dence of his testimony to its truth. A third historian 

 perhaps goes over the same ground, and lends another 

 confirmation to the history. Aiid it is thus, by collec- 

 ting all the lights which are thinly scattered over the 

 tract of ages and of centuries, that we obtain all the 

 evidence which can be got, and all the evidence that is 

 generally wished for. 



80. Now, there is room for a thousand presumptions, 

 which, if admitted, would overturn the whole of this 

 evidence. For any thing we know, the first historians 

 may have had some interest in disguising the truth, or 

 substituting in its place a falsehood, and a fabrication. 

 True, it has not been contradicted, but they form a 

 rery small number of men who feel strongly or particu- 

 larly interested in a question of history. The literary 

 and speculative men of that age may have perhaps been 

 ngaged in other pursuits, or their testimonies may have 

 perished in the wreck of centuries. The second histo- 

 nan may have been so far removed in point of time from 

 the events of his narratives, that he can furnish us not 

 with an independent, but with a derived testimony. He 

 may have copied his account from the original historian, 

 and the falsehood have come down to us in the shape of 

 an authentic and well attested history. Presumptions 

 may be multiplied without end, yet in spite of them, there 

 is a natural confidence in the veracity of man, which dis- 

 poses us to as firm a btlief in many of the facts of antient 

 history, as in the occurrences of the present day. 



81. The hisiory of the gospel, however, stands distin- 

 guished from all other history, by the uninterrupted nature 

 of its testimony, which carries down its evidence, without 

 a chasm, from its earliest promulgation to the present day. 

 We do not speak of the superior weight and splendour 

 of its evidences, at the first publication of that history, 

 as being supported, not merely by the testimony of one, 

 but by the concurrence of several independent witnesses. 

 We do not speak of its subsequent writers, who, follow 

 one anothir in a far closer and more crowded train, than 

 there i anv other example of in the history or literature 

 f the world. We speak of the strong though unwritten 

 testimony of its numerous proselytes, who, in the very 

 fact of their proselytism, give the strongest possible con- 



firmation to the gospel, and fill up every chasm in the re- 

 corded evidence'of past times. 



82. In the written testimonies for the truth of the Chris- 

 tian religion, Barnabas comes next in order to the first p ress tes . 

 promulgators of the evangelical story. He was a cotem- timony of 

 porary of the apostles, and writes a very few years after subsquent 

 the publication of the pieces which make up the New writers. 

 Testament. Clement follows, who was a fellow labourer 

 of Paul, and writes an epistle in the name of the church 

 of Rome, to the church of Corinth. The written testi- 

 monies follow one another with a closeness and a rapidity 

 of which there is no example ; but what we insist on at 

 present, is the unwritten and implied testimony of the 

 people who composed these two churches. There can 

 be no fact better established, than that these two church- 

 es were planted in the days of the apostles, and that the 

 epistles which were respectively addressed to them, were 

 held in the utmost authority and veneration. There is 

 no doubt, that the leading facts of the gospel history 

 were familiar to them ; that it was in the power of many 

 individuals amongst them to verify these facts, either by 

 their own personal observation, or*by an actual conversa- 

 tion with eye-witnesses ; and that in particular, it was 

 in the power of almost every individual in the church of 

 Corinth, either to verify the miracles which St Paul al- 

 ludes to, in his epistle to that church, or to detect and 

 expose the imposition, had there been no foundation for 

 such an allusion. What do we see in all this, but the 

 strongest possible testimony of a whole people to the 

 truth of the Christian miracles : there is nothing like this 

 in common history, the formation of a society, which 

 can only be explained by the history of the gospel, and 

 where the conduct of every individual furnishes a distinct 

 pledge and evidence of its truth. And to have a full 

 view of the argument, we must reflect, that it is not one, 

 but many societies scattered over the different countries 

 of the world ; that the principle upon which each so- 

 ciety was formed, was the divine authority of Christ and 

 his apostles, resting upon the recorded miracles of the 

 New Testament ; that these miracles were wrought with 

 a publicity, and at a nearness of time, which rendered 

 them accessible to the enquiries of all, for upwards of 

 half a century ; that nothing but the power of convic- 

 tion could have induced the people of that age to embrace 

 a religion so disgraced and so persecuted ; that every 

 temptation was held out for its disciples to abandon it ; 

 and that though some of them, overpowered by the ter- 

 ror- of punishment, were driven to apostacy, yet not one 

 of them has left us a testimony which can impeach the 

 miracles of Christianity, or the integrity of its first 

 teachers. 



83. It may be observed, that in pursuing the line of 

 continuity from the days of the apostles, the written testi- 

 monies for the truth of the Christian miracles follow 

 one another in closer succession, than we have any other 

 example of in antient history. But what gives such 

 peculiar and unprecedented evidence*to the history of the 

 gospel, is that in the concurrence of the multitudes who 

 embraced it, and in the existence of those numerous 

 churches and societies of men who espoused the profes- 

 sion of the Christian faith, we cannot but perceive, that 

 every small interval of time betwixt the written testimo- 

 nies of authors is filled up by materials so strong and so 

 firmly cemented, as to present us with an unbroken chain 

 of evidence, carrying as much authority along with it, as 

 if it had been a diurnal record, commencing from the days 

 of the apostles, and authenticated through its whole pro- 

 gress by the trsiimoiry ot thousands. 



84-. Every convert to the Christian faith in these days r 

 gives one additional testimony to the truth of the gospel hie 



