have been put in possession of the actual "Cotemporary Records of Israel in the Wilderness." This new Testimony of the Rocks verifies not only the main facts, but also the minute particulars, of the Mosaic history. How is it to be met? "It cannot be answered with supercilious sneers; it cannot be passed by in silent contempt; it cannot now be hinted or surmised that the inscriptions are falsely copied, or that some of them do not really exist. Photography cannot be made to lie; the sun in the heavens will not lend his beams to illuminate and engross a forgery." A more valuable external testimony to the exact veracity of the Mosaic history than that which these inscriptions on the rocks of Sinai afford, can hardly be conceived. Unconscious witnesses to the truth of God's word; a hidden testimony lying unnoticed for ages, but "graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever;" and at length produced to strengthen the faith of those who believe "all Scripture" to have been written by inspiration of God, and therefore, in the minutest particular, unalterably true.

4. THERE IS A CERTAIN DEMONSTRATION OF ITS THEORY. Its theory is this:

That man cannot, by searching, find out God; that God has therefore been pleased to reveal Himself to man. That by nature, man is "dead in trespasses and sins:" but that "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." That the Scriptures are the depository of that life; because it is by them alone that we can obtain an authentic knowledge of Him, "whom to know is life eternal." That this knowledge (although the special gift of God) is offered to all (without respect of persons,) on one single condition. That condition is this:-That men shall take God's word. That they shall believe in Him :— so believe in Him as to obey Him. And on this single condition, God's promise of absolute certainty as to the Truth of Christianity, may be verified by every man who is willing to comply with the condition.

Could anything be more reasonable? The mysteries of art are known only to the practical artist. The secret of success

is the exclusive possession of those who succeed. The demonstrations of chemistry are taken on trust by thousands; but the knowledge of their absolute certainty belongs to those only

THE APPEAL TO EVIDENCE.

469

who have conducted the experiments. And it is a certainty analogous to this, but infinitely higher, that results from the same method in religion. No man ever yet tried the EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE for Christianity, and found it fail him.

5. THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE IS DISTINGUISHED BY ITS CERTAINTY from all other religions whatsoever.

The religions of Paganism were merely popular delusions which were deemed essential to the well-being of society."' Their truth was not only not evident; it was non-existent. No one ever pretended that they could be established by evidence it was deemed enough that they were established by law. With respect to them, truth, and belief in the truth, seem scarcely to have entered men's minds. No wonder therefore that Pilate should be perplexed when, in answer to his inquiries, the founder of Christianity declared Himself to have come into the world for this very end-that he might "bear witness unto the Truth." (What is truth?) But so it is. The Christianity of the Bible is "The Truth." Christ's disciples are "sanctified through the Truth." They "know the Truth;" and the Truth makes them free. And the reception of Christianity is the reception of "The Truth." In all this it is not only implied that the religion of Christ is true, and is the only true one; but when the Gospel was first preached, the very pretension to truth, the very demand of faith, were among its characteristic distinctions. The heathen mythology not only was not true, but was not even supported as true: it not only deserved no faith, but it demanded none. Christianity, on the other hand, is distinguished not merely by the strength of its claims, but by their nature. Its friends can point not only to the force of the evidence in its favour; but also to the fact that it alone dare boldly appeal to evidence.R

It appeals to the evidence of Miracles.

The reality of the miracles involved in the creation of the

7" The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally

useful.” (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"; ch. ii.)

See Abp. Whately's "Essay on some of the Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul "; p. 8.

first man,' and the history of the first "Sunday," is not at all affected by the most incessant shouting that "miracles are impossible.' Even Science herself (through the pages of Prof. Babbage ) has shown the absurdity of disbelief with regard to miracles. The miracles of the New Testament are unique. They are so in themselves; in their consequences; in their uniform subordination to moral ends; and in the character of the witnesses by whom they are attested. If the Christian Miracles were not true, we should then have to confront the greatest miracle of all:-the miracle involved in the existence of Christianity without miracles! But the Christian Miracles are true; their monuments still confront us; and they furnish irrefragable proof that the Christian Religion is Divine.

It appeals to the evidence of Prophecy.

The antiquity of the prophecies that foretell the extirpation of the Edomites, the preservation of the Jews, the coming of Messiah, is undisputed. The pretence that any prophecy of Scripture was mere history, thrown by some forger into the prophetic form, has been driven from its last lurking place in the animadversions on Daniel. The character of these predictions, not less than their singular and exact fulfilment, proves their prevision to be divine. The Prophecies of Scripture do more than foretell, they instruct. They have a preceptive element inseparable from the predictive: and by their Divine Morality as well as by their comprehensive Unity, they are distinguished from all other oracles whatever. It was of Messiah, that "The Prophets," as well as "Moses, in the Law," "did write." The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And just as in the miracles of Christianity we see the monuments of Christ's words and deeds, so we see their foreshadows in those prophetic utterances which "testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glory that should follow." The vision vouchsafed to Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration made him an eye-witness of Messiah's majesty; he saw "the excellent glory;" he heard the attesting voice: but typed on the pages of the Bible, and imprinted on the history of nations, is an evidence more infallible than that of the senses;

an

9

' Vide supra, pp. 333, 334.

10

The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise.

THE EXTERNAL ATTESTATION.

evidence which he who runs may read;

of prophecy."

471

a MORE SURE word

It appeals to the moral fitness of its doctrines, and the moral excellence of its precepts.

Is there any other system which unfolds to us the diagnosis of our moral malady? which gives us at once, the knowledge of the disease and the knowledge of the cure? Any other which explains the nature, and supplies the antidote, of the moral evil within us and around us? Give us only the parable of the lost sheep, and of the prodigal son; a Reconciler who can bring to an end our long estrangement and alienation from our Father in heaven; a Deliverer "mighty to save”; “Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us;" even "The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!" and we want no other proof that the Bible is from God, and Christianity divine. Its adaptation to our need is perfect. "We have found Him" our souls so long have sought; and we clasp the precious truth to our heart-It is "a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It appeals to the moral character of its penmen and preachers. For this alone presents a phenomenon inexplicable if not divine. " The Christian miracles are the result of Divine Power; the prophecies of Divine Knowledge; the moral excellence of the teaching flows from Divine Goodness; and the moral character of the teachers, from Divine Purity. So that Christianity may be said to be built on these four immoveable pillars; the power, the wisdom, the goodness, and the purity of God. But although the manifestations of the Divine Presence may be seen conspicuously in these particulars, they are not confined to these. The verity of Inspired Scripture is attested by external history, in such minute particulars, and to such a large extent, that a recent writer forcibly remarked that the shortest way of dispelling Scepticism would be by a thorough investigation of St. Luke's account of the voyage of St. Paul (Ac. xxvii). And internally it is attested (independent of its moral traits) by those innumerable and "deeply-latent coincidences, which, if fraud employed them, overreached fraud.

"Vide supra, pp. 371-374; 423-425.

itself; lying so deep as to be undiscovered for nearly eighteen centuries, and only recently attracting the attention of the world in consequence of the objections of infidels themselves."

It appeals to those undeniable facts which prove that it cannot but be true.

If the Bible be merely human, how came it to be written? How came it to be so very widely different from every other book? Above all, how came its writers to be Jews? For the Jews (as Theodore Parker truly says,) were "a nation alike despised in ancient and modern times." Yet it is from this nation that we receive a book to which neither Greece, nor Rome, nor Italy, nor England can offer any parallel. Here is a miracle, open to all men's view, which not even that sturdiest disbeliever of "supernaturalism" can deny or question.

But besides being written, the Bible has been believed. How came it to be believed at first, if it is not true?

And first as to the New Testament. If the alleged facts there recorded have no reality they are romance of the most monstrous kind. But how came these fictions, containing such monstrous romance, and equally monstrous doctrines, to be believed? To be believed by multitudes of Jews and Gentiles, both opposed and equally opposed to them by previous inveterate superstition and prejudice? How came so many men of such different races and nations of mankind to hasten to unclothe themselves of all their previous beliefs in order to adopt these fantastical fables? How came they to persist in regarding them as authoritative truth? How came so many in so many different countries to do this at once? And yet it is not only certain that they did so; but (as already shewn) these very peculiar fictions". were believed by many before they were even compiled and published!

As to the Old Testament: How are we to account for the intense, obstinate, and unanimous belief of the Jews for so many ages, and afterwards of their enemies, the Samaritans, not only in the historic character, but also in the Mosaic authorship and inspiration of the Pentateuch ?-a belief never troubled by a shadow of doubt or suspicion, or contradicted by one echo of opposing testimony; a belief which they were ever palpably interested in throwing off, if erroneous, and yet which they