and adding a new circumstance by citing the testimony of the Baptist to the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world ;'

dinary methods for conducting such a plan; these unparalleled congruities, these unexampled coincidences, form altogether a species of evidence, of which there is no other in short, had there been in the several reinstance in the history of all the other books in the world.

All these variously gifted writers here enumerated, concur in this grand peculiarity, that all have the same end in view, all are pointing to the same object, all, without any projected collusion, are advancing the same scheme; each brings in his several contingent, without any apparent consideration how it may unite with the portions brought by other contributors, without any spirit of accommodation, without any visible intention to make out a case, without indeed any actual resemblance, more than that every separate portion being derived from the same spring, each must be governed by one common principle, and that principle being Truth itself, must naturally and consentane ously produce assimilation, conformity, agreement. What can we conclude from all this, but what is indeed the inevitable conclusion,-a conclusion which forces itself on the mind, and compels the submission of the understanding; that all this, under differences of administration, is the work of one and the same great, Omniscient, and Eternal Spirit.

lations not mere consistency, but positive identity, then, not only the fidelity of the writers would have been questionable, and concert and design justly have been suspect, ed, but we should in effect bave had only the testimony of one Gospel instead of four.

But to pass to other evidences of truth.The manner in which these writers speak of themselves, is at once a proof of their humility and of their veracity. The conversion of Saint Matthew is slightly related by himself and in the most modest terms. He simply says, speaking in the third person; Jesus saw a man named Matthew, and saith unto him, Follow me: and he arose and followed him: and as Jesus sat at meat in the house, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him."* Not a word is said of a sacrifice so honourable to himself, and so generously recorded by Saint Luke in those words, he left all, and followed him; not a word of the situation he renounced at the first call of the Master, and which appears to have been lucrative from the great feast he made for him in his own house, and the great company of publicans and others who sat down with him.'t Saint Luke relates only his hospitality; Saint Matthew, as if to abase himself the more, describes only the sinners which made up his society previous to his conversion.

If, however, from the general uniformity of plan visible, throughout the whole Sacred Canon, results one of the most cogent and complete arguments for its Divine original, others will also arise from its mode of execution, its peculiar diversities, and some other These sober recorders of events the most circumstances attending it, not so easily astonishing, are never carried away, by the brought under one single point of view. circumstances they relate, into any pomp of Does it not look as if Almighty Wisdom re- diction, into any use of superlatives. There fused to divide the glory of his revelation is not, perhaps, in the whole Gospel a single with man, when, passing by the shining interjection, nor an exclamation, not any arlights of the pagan world, He chose, in the tifice to call the reader's attention to the promulgation of the Gospel, to make use of marvels of which the relaters were the witmen of ordinary endowments, men possessing nesses. Absorbed in their holy task, no althe usual defects and prejudices of persons ien idea presents itself to their mind: the so educated and so circumstanced? Not only object before them fills it. They never dithe other immediate followers, but even the gress, are never called away by the solicitabiographers of Christ, were persons of no tions of vanity, or the suggestions of curios distinguished abilities. Integrity was almost ity. No image starts up to divert their attheir sole, as it were the most requisite qual- tention. There is indeed, in the Gospels, ification. On this point it is not too much much imagery, much allusion, much allegoto maintain, that the writings of each of ry, but they proceed from their Lord, and these men are not only so consistent with are recorded as his. The writers never fill each other, but also with themselves, as to up the intervals between events. offer, individually, as well as aggregately, a leave circumstances to make their own inproof of their own veracity, as well as of the pression, instead of helping out the reader truth itself. by any reflections of their own. They alHad they, however, all recorded uniform-ways feel the holy ground on which they ly the same more inconsiderable particu- stand. They preserve the gravity of history Jars; had there not been that natural diver- and the severity of truth, without enlarging sity, that incidental variation, observable in the outline or swelling the expression. all other historians ;-had not one preserved passages which the others overlooked, some recording more of the actions of Jesus, others treasuring up more of his discourses; some particularizing the circumstances of his birth; others only referring to it as a fact not requiring fresh authentication; another again plainly adverting to it by the WORD that was made flesh, and dwelt among us ;'

They

The Evangelists all agree in this most une¬ quivocal character of veracity, that of criminating themselves. They record their own errors and offences with the same simplicity with which they relate the miracles and sufferings of their Lord. Indeed their dulness, mistakes and failings are so intimately

Matthew, ch. 9

St. Luke, ch. 5.

This fidelity is equally amiable both in the composition, and in the preservation of the Old Testament, a book which every where testifies against those whose history it contains, and not seldom against the relators themselves. The author of the Pentateuch proclaims, in the most pointed terms, the ingratitude of the chosen people towards God. He prophesies that they will go on filling up the measure of their offences, calls heaven and earth to witness against them that he has delivered his own soul, declares that as they have worshipped gods which were no gods, God will punish them by calling a people Thus, it seems obvious, that unlettered who were no people. Yet this book, so dis- men were appointed to this great work, in graceful to their national character, this re- order that the success of the Gospel might gister of their own offences, they would rath- not be suspected of owing any thing to naer die than lose. This,' says the admirable tural ability, or to splendid attainment. This Pascal, is an instance of integrity which arrangement, while it proves the astonishing has no example in the world, no root in na- progress of Christianity to have been caused ture. In the Pentateuch and the Gospel, by its own energy, serves to remove every therefore, these parallel, these unequalled in- just suspicion of the contrivance of fraud, stances of sincerity, are incontrovertible the collusions of interest, or the artifices of proofs of the truth of both. invention.

blended with his history, by their continual capes them. He is transfigured ;-no expresdemands upon his patience and forbearance,sion of astonishment. He is agonized ;-the as to make no inconsiderable or unimpor- narrative does not rise in emphasis. Ile is tant part of it. betrayed ;-no execration to the betrayer. He is condemned; no animadversions on the iniquitous judge; while their own denial and desertion are faithfully recorded. He expires;-no remark on the tremendous catastrophe, no display of their own sorrow. Facts alone supply the void; and what facts? The earth quakes, the sun is eclipsed, the graves give up their dead. In such a history, it is very true, fidelity was praise, fact was glory. And yet, if, on the one hand, there were no need of the rhetorician's art to embellish the tale, what mere rhetoricians could have abstained from using it?

It is obvious that the impression which was to be made should owe nothing to the skill, but every thing to the veracity of the writers. They never tried to improve upon the doctrines or the requirements of their Master, by mixing their own wisdom with them. Though their views were not clear, their obedience was implicit. It was not, however, a mere mechanical obedience, but an undisputing submission to the Divine teaching Even at the glorious scene of the Transfiguration, their amazement did not get the better of their fidelity. There was no vain impatience to disclose the wonders which had passed, and of which they had been allowed the honour of being witnesses. Though they inserted it afterwards in their narrations, they, as they were commanded, kept it close, and told no man in those days what they had seen.'

Had the first apostles been men of genius, they might have injured the purity of the Gospel by bringing their ingenuity into it.Had they been men of learning, they might have imported from the schools of Greece and Rome, each from his own sect, some of its peculiar infusions, and thus have vitiated the simplicity of the Gospel. Had they been critics and philosophers, there might have been endless debates which part of Christianity was the power of God, and which the result of man's wisdom. Thus, though corruptions soon crept into the church, yet no impurities could reach the Gospel itself. Some of its teachers became heretical, but the pure word remained unadulterated.However, the philosophizing or the Judaizing teachers might subsequently infuse their own errors into their own preaching, the Gospel preserved its own integrity. They might mislead their followers, but they could not deteriorate the New Testament.

The simplicity of the narrative is never violated; there is even no panegyric on the august person they commemorate, not a sin- It required different gifts to promulgate gle epithet of commendation. When they and to maintain Christianity. The Evanmention an extraordinary effect of his divine gelists did not so much attempt to argue the eloquence, it is history, not eulogy, that truth of the Redeemer's doctrines, as pracspeaks. They say nothing of their own ad- tically to prove that they were of Divine miration; it is the people who were aston-origin. If called on for a defence, they ished at the gracious words which proceeded worked a miracle. If they could not proout of his mouth.' Again, it was the mul-duce a cogent argument, they could produce titudes marvelled, saying, it was never so a paralytic walking. If they could not open seen in Israel.' Again, it was the officers, the eyes of the prejudiced, they could open not the writer, who said, 'never man spake the eyes of the blind. Such attestation was like this man.' to the eye-witnesses, argument the most un

In recording the most stupendous events, answerable. The most illiterate persons we are never called to an exhibition of their could judge of this species of evidence so own pity, or their own admiration. In rela- peculiar to Christianity. He could know ting the most soul-moving circumstance, whether he saw a sick man restored to life there is no attempt to be pathetic, no aim to by a word, or a lame man take up his bed and work up the feelings of the reader, no appeal walk, or one who had been dead four days, to his sympathy, no studied finish, no elabo- instantly obey the call-Lazarus, come rate excitement. Jesus wept;-no com- forth! About a sentiment there might be ment. He is hungry;-~no compassion es- a diversity of suffrages; about an action

which all saw, all could entertain but one him for the legislator of a people so differopinion. The caviller might have refuted a ently circumstanced, it pleased the same syllogism, and a fallacy might have imposed Infinite Wisdom to convey to Paul, through on the multitude, but no sophistry could counteract occular demonstration.

the mouth of a Jewish teacher, the knowledge he was to employ for the Gentiles, and to adapt his varied acquirements to the various ranks, characters, prejudices, and local circumstances of those before whom he was to advocate the noblest cause ever assigned to man.

But as God does nothing in vain, so he never employs irrelevant instruments or superfluous means. He therefore did not see fit to be at the expense of a perpetual mira cle to maintain and carry on that church which he had thought proper to establish by Of all these providential advantages he miraculous powers. When, therefore, the availed himself with a wisdom, aptness, and Gospel was immutably fixed on its own eter- appropriateness, without a parallel-a wisnal basis, and its truth unimpeachably settled dom derived from that Divine Spirit which by the authentic testimony of so many eye-guided all his thoughts, words, and actions: witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection and with a teachableness which demonstraof Jesus; a writer was brought forward, ted that he was never disobedient to the heav contemporary, but not connected, with enly vision.

them. Not only was he not confederate Indeed it seemed necessary, in order to with the first institutors of Christianity; but demonstrate that the principles of Christianso implacably hostile was he to them, that ity are not unattainable, nor its precepts imhe had assisted at the death of the first practicable, that the New Testament should, martyr. in some part, present to us a full exemplifiAs the attestation of one notorious enemy cation of its doctrines and of its spirit; that in favour of a cause, is considered equivalent they should, to produce their practical effect, to that of many friends; thus did this dis- be embodied in a form purely human,-for tinguished adversary seem to be raised up to the character of the founder of its religion confirm and ratify all the truths he had so is deified humanity. Did the Scriptures furiously opposed; to become the most able present no such exhibition, infidelity might advocate of the cause he had reprobated, have availed itself of the omission, for the the most powerful champion of the Saviour purpose of asserting that Christianity was he had vilified. He was raised up to unfold only a bright chimera, a beautiful fiction of more at large those doctrines which could the imagination; and Plato's fair idea might not be so explicitly developed in the histori- have been brought into competition with the cal portions, while an immediate revelation doctrines of the Gospel. But in Saint Paul from heaven supplied to him the actual op- is exhibited a portrait which not only illusportunities and advantages which the Evan-trates its Divine truth, but establishes its gelists had enjoyed. Nothing short of such moral efficacy; a portrait entirely free from a Divine communication could have placed any distortion in the drawing, from any exSaint Paul on a level with the other apos- travagance in the colouring. tles; had he been taught of man, he must have been inferior to those who were taught of Jesus.

It is the representation of a man struggling with the sins and infirmities natural to man; yet habitually triumphing over them For Saint Paul had not the honour to be by that Divine grace which had first rescued the personal disciple of his Lord. His con- him from prejudice, bigotry, and unbelief.→→ version and preaching were subsequent to It represents him resisting, not only such the illumination of the Gospel; an intima- temptations as are common to men, but surtion possibly, that though revelation and hu- mounting trials to which no other man was man learning should not be considered as ever called; furnishing in his whole pracsharing between them the work of spiritual tice not only an instructor, but a model; instruction, yet that human learning might showing every where in his writings, that hence forward become a valuable adjunct, the same offers, the same supports, the same and a most suitable, though subordinate ac- victories, are tendered to every suffering cessory in maintaining the cause of that child of mortality,-that the waters of eterDivine truth which it had no hand in estab-nal life are not restricted to prophets and lishing. apostles, but are offered freely to every one that thirsteth,-offered without money and without price.

CHAP. III.

The ministry of Paul was not to be circumscribed, as that of his immediate precursors had been, by the narrow limits of the Jewish church. As he was designated to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, as he was to bear his testimony before rulers and scholars; as he was to carry his mission into the presence On the epistolary writers of the New Testa of kings, and not to be ashamed,' it pleased Infinite Wisdom, which always fits the instrument to the work, and the talent to the CAN the reader of taste and feeling, who exigence, to accommodate most exactly the has followed the much enduring hero of the endowments of Paul to the demands that Odyssey with growing delight and increasing would be made upon them; and as Divine sympathy, though in a work of fiction, Providence caused Moses to acquire in through all his wanderings, peruse with infeEgypt the learning which was to prepare rior interest the genuine voyages of the

ment, particularly 3t. Paul.

Apostle of the Gentiles over nearly the same been made by such writers, to amuse curiseas? The fabulous adventurer, once land-osity with a sequel of the history of the pered, and safe on the shores of his own Ithaca, sons named in the New Testament! How the reader's mind is satisfied, for the object of might they have misled us by unprofitable his anxiety is at rest. But not so ends the details of the Virgin Mary, or of Joseph of tale of the Christian hero. Whoever closed Arimathea! Saint Luke's narrative of the diversified events of Saint Paul's travels; whoever accompanied him with the interest his history demands, from the commencement of his trials at Damascus to his last deliverance from shipwreck, and left him preaching in his own hired house at Rome, without feeling as if he had abruptly lost sight of some one very dear to him, without sorrowing that they should see his face no more, without indulging a wish that the intercourse could have been carried on to the end, though that end were martyrdom.

What legends might have been invented, what idolatry even might have been incorporated with the true worship of God; what false history appended to the authentic record! Not only is the Divine Wisdom manifest in carrying on through the Epistles a confirmation of the Spirit and power of Christianity, but the same design is no less apparent in closing the book with the Apocalypse,-a writing which contains the testimony of the last surviving disciple of Jesus in extreme old age, to which he seems to have been providentially preserved for the Such readers, and perhaps only such, will very purpose of protecting the Gospel from rejoice to renew their acquaintance with this innovations which were beginning to corrupt very chiefest of the apostles; not indeed in it the communication of subsequent facts, but of important principles; not in the records of the biographer, but in the doctrines of the saint. In fact, to the history of Paul in the Sacred Oracles succeed his Epistles. And these Epistles, as if through design, open with that to the beloved of God called to be saints' in that very eity, the mention of his residence in which concludes the preceding

narrative.

Had the Sacred Canon closed with the evangelical narrations, bad it not been determined in the counsels of Divine Wisdom, that a subsequent portion of inspired Scripture in another form, should have been added to the historical portions, that the Epistles should have conveyed to us the results of the mission and the death of Christ, how immense would have been the disadvantage, and how irreparable the loss: May we presume to add, how much less perfect would have been our view of the scheme of Christianity, had the New Testament been curtailed of this important portion of religious and practical instruction.

The narratives of the Evangelists would indeed have remained perfect in themselves, even without the Epistles; but never could its truths have been so clearly understood, or its doctrines so fully developed, as they now are. Our Saviour himself intimated, that there would be a more full and complete knowledge of his doctrines, after he had ceased to deliver them, than there was at the time. How indeed could the doctrine of the atonement, and of pardon through his blood, have been so explicitly set forth during his life, as they afterwards were in the Epistles, especially in those of Saint Paul ?

Saint Luke, at the opening of the Acts of the Apostles, referring the friend to whom he inscribes it, to his former Treatise of all that Jesus began to do, and to teach, till he was taken up, after that he had through the Holy Ghost given commandment to the Apostles,' seems plainly to indicate that the doing and the teaching were to be carried on by them. All their doubts were at length removed. They had now a plenary conviction of the divinity of Christ's person, and of the dignity of his mission. They had now witnessed his glorious resurrection and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost. They had attained the fullest assurance of the truths they were to proclaim, and had had time to acquire the completest certainty of their moral efficacy on the heart and life.

We should indeed have felt the same adoring gratitude for the benefits of the Redeemer, but we should have been in comparative ignorance of the events consequent upon his resurrection. We should have been totally at a loss to know how and by whom the first Christian churches were founded; how they were conducted, and what was their pro It was therefore ordained by that Wisdom gress. We should have had but a slender which cannot err, that the Apostles, under notion of the manner in which Christianity the influence of the Holy Spirit, should work was planted, and how wonderfully it flourish-up all the documents of the anterior Scriped in the heathen soil Above all, we should tures into a more systematic form;--that bave been deprived of that divine instruc- they should more fully unfold their doctrines, tion, equally the dictate of the Holy Spirit, with which the Epistles abound; or, which would have been worse than ignorance, un inspired men, fanatics, or impostors, would have attached to the Gospel their glosses, conceits, errors, and misinterpretations. We should have been turned over for information to some of those spurious gospels. and more than doubtful epistles, of which mention is made in the early part of eccle siastical history. What attempts might have

extract the essence of their separate maxims, collect the scattered rays of spiritual light into a focus; and blend the whole into one complete body.

The Epistles, therefore, are an estimable appendix to the Evangelists. The memoir, which contains the actions of the Apostles, the work of an Evangelist also, stands between these two portions of the New Testament. Thus, no chasm is left, and the important events which this connecting link sup

surely be to form the general judgment, from the whole tenor and collective spirit of their writings.

plies-particularly the descent of the Holy Spirit, the emblematic vision of Saint Peter, and the conversion and apostleship of Saint Paul,-naturally prepare the mind for that full and complete commentary on the histor ical books, which the Epistles, more espe-Granted. But his miraculous conversion cially those of Saint Paul, present to us.

St. Paul was favoured with a particular revelation, a personal disclosure to him of the truths with which the other disciples were previously acquainted. This special distinction placed Paul on a level with his precursors Though, in point of fact, he added nothing to the Gospel revelation, and in point of doctrine he only gave a larger exposition of truths previously communicated, of duties already enjoined, yet here was the warrant of his teaching, the broad seal of his apostleship. And unless we fall into the gross error of insisting that the Epistles in general would not equally be given by inspiration with other parts of the New Testament, I see not how any can withhold, from the Epistles of St. Paul in particular, that reverence which they profess to entertain for the entire letter of revelation.

But it has been argued with still greater boldness, that Saint Paul was not a disciple.

entitled him to the confidence, which some men more willingly place in those who were. This event is substantially recorded by Saint Luke: and as if he foresaw the distrust which might hereafter arise, he has added to his first relation, in the 9th chapter of the Acts, two several reports of the same circumstance made by Saint Paul himself, first to the Jews, and afterwards to Festus and Agrippa. As Luke has recorded this as tonishing fact three several times, we are not left to depend for its truth entirely on Saint Paul's own frequent allusions to it.

Much suspicion of this great Apostle is avowedly grounded on the remark of Saint Peter, who, in adverting to his beloved brother Paul,' observes, that in his Epistles are some things hard to be understood, which they who are unstable and unlearned, wrest to their own destruction' Here the

It is a hardship to which all writers on sub-critic would desire to stop, or rather to garjects exclusively religious are liable, that if, ble the sentence which adds, as they do also while they are warmly pressing some great the other Scriptures; thus casting the acand important point, they omit, at the same cusation, not upon Saint Paul or the other time, to urge some other point of great mo- Scriptures,' but upon the misinterpreters of ment also, which they equally believe, but both. But Saint Peter farther includes in which they cannot in that connexion intro- the same passage, that Paul accounts the duce without breaking in on their immediate long-suffering of God to be salvation, aerortrain of argument, they are accused of re-ding to the wisdom given him.' It is appajecting what they are obliged to overlook, rent, therefore, that though there may be though in its proper place they have repeat-more difficulty, there is not more danger in edly insisted upon that very truth; nay, Saint Paul's Epistles, than in the rest of the though the whole tendency of their writings Sacred Volume Let us also observe what shows their equal faith in the doctrine they is the character of these subverters of truth, are said to have neglected. To this disin---the unstable' in principle and 'unlearned' genuous treatment, amongst other more seri- in doctrine. If, then, you feel yourself in ous attacks upon his character, no author danger of being misled, in which of these has been more obnoxious than the Apostle classes will you desire to enrol your name? Paul. It has been often intimated, that in But it is worthy of observation, that, in this dwelling on the efficacy of the death of supposed censure of Saint Peter, we have in Christ, he has nat urged with sufficient fre- reality a most valuable testimony, not only quency and energy the importance of Chris- to the excellence, but also to the inspiration tian practice. He seems himself to have of Saint Paul's writings; for he not only foreseen the probability of this reproach, and ascribes their composition to the wisdom has accordingly provided against the conse-given unto him, but puts them on a par with quence that would be drawn from his posi- the other Scriptures,—a double corroborations, if taken separately. It would be an tion of their Divine character. endless task to cite the passages in which he This passage of St. Peter, then, is so far is continually defending his doctrine against from impugning the character of Paul to these anticipated misrepresentations. Among | Divine Inspiration, that we have here the other modes of refutation, he sometimes fact itself established upon the authority of a states these false charges in the way of inter- favourite disciple and companion of Jesus. rogatories: Do we make void the law To invalidate such a testimony would be no through faith?' And not contented with the less than to shake the pillars of revelation. solemn negative, God forbid!' he adds a Besides, as an eminent divine has observed positive affirmative to the contrary; Yeaif Saint Paul had been only a good man we establish the law.' In a similar manner he is beforehand with his censors in denying the expected charge. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?' and he obtests the same Almighty name to his opposite practice. Readers, of different views, are without ceasing, on the watch to take advantage of all the epistolary writers in this respect, while the fair method would

writing under that general assistance of the Spirit common to good men, it would be as cribing far too much to his compositions to suppose that the misunderstanding them could effect the destruction of the reader.'

Saint Peter says only, that some things' are difficult; but are there not difficulties in every part of Divine revelation, in all the operations of God, in all the dispensations of