CHRISTIANITY- 



379 



Christian!- ask, would it have been followed up by the subsequent 

 t ty- compositions of those numerous agents in the work of 

 "nf^* deception ? How comes it, that they have betrayed no 

 symptom of that insecurity which it would have been 

 o natural to feel in their circumstances ? Through the 

 whole of these epistles, we see nothing like the awkward 

 or embarrassed air of an impostor. We see no anxiety, ei- 

 ther to mend or to confirm the history that had already 

 been given. We see no contest which they might have 

 been cailed upon to maintain with the incredulity of 

 their converts, as to the miracles of the gospel. We see 

 the most intrepid remonstrance against errors of con- 

 duct, or discipline, or doctrine. This savours strongly 

 of upright a;id independent teachers ; but is it not a 

 most striking circumstance, that, amongst the severe 

 reckonings which St Paul had with some of his churches, 

 he was never once called upon to school their doubts, or 

 their suspicions, as to the reality of the Christian mira- 

 cles ? This is a point universally acquiesced in ; and, 

 from the general strain of these epistles, \ve collect, not 

 merely the testimony of their authors, but the unsus- 

 pected testimony of all to whom they addressed themselves. 

 127. And let it never be forgotten, that the Christians 

 who composed these churches, were in every way well 

 qualified to be arbiters in this question. They had the first 

 authorities within their reach. The five hundred who, 

 Paul says to them, had seen our Saviour after his resur- 

 rection, could be sought after ; and if not to be found, 

 Paul would have had his assertion to answer f.ir. In 

 tome cases, they were the first authorities themselves, 

 and had therefore no confirmation to go in search of. 

 He appeals to the miracles which had been wrought 

 among them, and in this way he commits the question to 

 their own experience. He asserts this to the Galatians ; 

 and at the very time, too, that he is delivering against 

 them a most severe and irritating invective. He inti- 

 mates the same thing rep> atedly to the Corinthians ; and 

 after he had put his honesty to so severe a trial, does he 

 betray any insecurity as to his character and reputation 

 amongst them > So far from this, that in arguing the 

 general doctrine of resurrection from the dead, as the 

 most effectual method of securing assent to it, he rests 

 the main part of the argument upon their confidence in 

 his fidelity as a witness. " Bat if there be no resurrec- 

 tion from the dead, then is Christ not risen. Yea, 



and we are found false witnesses of God, because we 

 have testified cf God, that he raised up Christ, whom he 

 raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." Where, 

 we ask, would have been the mighty charm of this argu- 

 ment, if Paul's fidelity had been questioned ; and how 

 hall we account for the free and intrepid manner in which 

 he advances it, if the miracles which he refers to, as wrought 

 among them, had been nullities of his own invention ? 



12b. For the truth of the gospel history, we can appeal 

 to one strong and unbroken series of testimonies from the 

 days of the apostles. But the great strength of the 

 evidence lies in that effulgence of testimony, which en. 

 lightens this history at its commencement in the num- 

 ber of its original witnesses in the distinct and inde- 

 pendent records which they left behind them, and in the 

 undoubted faith they bore among the numerous societies 

 vrhich they instituted. The concurrence of the aposto- 

 lic fathers, and their immediate successors, forms a very 

 ttrong and a very satisfying argument ; but let it be fur- 

 ther remembered, that out of the materials which com- 

 pose, if we may he allowed the expression, the original 

 charter of our faith, we can select a stronger body of 

 evidence than it is possible to form out of the whole 

 jnajs of subsequent testimonies. 



129. Prophecy is another species of evidence which Christian;. 



Christianity professes an abundant claim to, and which can 

 be established on evidence altogether distinct from the tes- 

 timony of its supporters. The prediction of what is fu- 

 ture may not be delivered in terms so clear and intelli- 

 gible as the history of what is past ; and yet, in its actual 

 fulfilment, it may leave no doubt on the mind of the en- 

 quirer that it was a prediction, and that the event in 

 question was in the contemplation of him who uttered it. 

 It may be easy to dispose of one isolated prophecy, by 

 ascribing it to accident ; but when we observe a number 

 of these prophecies, delivered in different ages, and all 

 bearing an application to the same events, or the same in- 

 dividual, it is difficult to resist the impression that they 

 were actuated by a knowledge superior to human. 



130. The obscurity of the prophetical language has 

 been often complained of; but it is not so often attended 

 to, that if the prophecy which fortels an event were as 

 clear as the narrative which describes, it would in many 

 cases annihilate the argument. Were the history of 

 any individual foretold in terms as explicit as it is in the 

 power of narrative to make them, it might be competent 

 for any usurper to set himself forward, and in as far as it 

 depended upon his own agency, he might realize that 

 history. He has no more to do than to take his lesson 

 from the prophecy before him ; but could it be said that 

 fulfilment like this carried in it the evidence of any 

 thing divine or miraculous ? If the prophecy of a Prince 

 aud a Saviour, in the Old Testament, were different from 

 what they are, and delivered in the precise and intelli- 

 gible terms of an actual history ; then every accomplish- 

 ment which could be brought about by the agency of 

 those who understood the prophecy, and were anxious 

 for its verification, is lost to the argument. It would be 

 instantly said that the agents in the transaction took their 

 clue from the prophecy before them. It is the way, in 

 fact, in which infidels have attempted to evade the ar- 

 gument as it actually stands. In the New Testament, 

 an event is sometimes said to happen that it mig/tl be ful- 

 filled, what was spoken by some of the old prophets. If 

 every event which enters into the gospel had been under 

 the controul of agents merely human, and friends to 

 Christianity ; then we might have had reason to pro. 

 nounce the whole history to be one continued process of 

 artful and designed accommodation to the Old Testa- 

 ment prophecies. But the truth is, that many of the 

 events pointed at in the Old Testament, so far from 

 being brought about by the agency of Christians, were 

 brought about in opposition to their most anxious wish- 

 es. Some of them were brought about by the agency of 

 their most decided enemies ; and some of them, such as 

 the dissolution of the Jewish state, and the dispersion of 

 its people amongst all countries, were quite beyond the 

 controul of the apostles and their followers, aud were ef- 

 fected by the intervention of a neutral party, which at 

 the time took no interest in the question, and which wai 

 a stranger to the prophecy, though the unconscious in- 

 strument of its fulfilment. 



131. Lord Bulingbroke has carried the objection so far, 

 that he asserts Jesus Christ to have brought on his own 

 death, by a series of wilful and preconcerted measures, 

 merely to give the disciples who came after him the 

 triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies. This is ri- 

 diculous enough ; but it serves to shew with what faci- 

 lity an infidel might have evaded the whole argument, 

 had theee prophecies been free of all that obscurity which 

 is now so loudly complained of. 



132. The best form for the purposes of argument in 

 which a prophecy can be delivered] is to be so obscure, u 



Prophecy. 



