148 History. 



serves to be mentioned among the literary en- 

 terprises which distinguish the age under consider- 

 ation, may also, at the same time, be pronounced 

 to have exerted a favourable influence on the cha- 

 racter of modern historical composition. 



It is impossible to dismiss this subject without 

 recollecting how much the researches of historians, 

 in the eighteenth century, have contributed to fur- 

 nish evidence in favour of Revelation. There 

 never was a period in which Antiquities were so ex- 

 tensively and successfully investigated; and every 

 step of this investigation has served to illustrate 

 and support the sacred volume. A few superficial 

 inquirers, in the course of the century, supposed 

 and hoped that they had made discoveries from the 

 stores of antiquity which would be found destruc- 

 tive of the inspired history. But these fond hopes 

 were soon disappointed. When the path of inquiry 

 opened by these sanguine discoverers was pursued 

 further, and the facts on which they rested their op- 

 position to Scripture were more closely examined, 

 they were found to terminate in evidence of a di- 

 rectly contrary kind from that which was at first 

 expected. In this view it may be asserted, that 

 some portions of the evidence in favour of Christie 

 anity, instead of growing weaker by time, are 

 more convincing and satisfactory to the candid 

 mind, at the present hour, than they were, or, 

 could have been, fifteen centuries ago. 



