the truth of the Gospel, powerfully establish it; for these cautious, distrustful men, not only became bold preachers of the faith of Jesus, but gave the soundest evidence of their conviction, by laying down their lives in its confirmation.

This fidelity is equally admirable 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 relaters themselves. The author of the Pentateuch proclaims, in the most pointed terms, his own frailties as well as 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 who were no people. Yet this book, so disgraceful to their national character, this register of their own offences, they would rather die than lose. "This," says the admirable Pascal, " is an instance of integrity which has no example in the world, no root in nature." In the Pentateuch and the Gospels, therefore, these parallel, these unequalled instances of sincerity, are incontrovertible proofs of the truth of both.

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."

The simplicity of the narrative is never violated; there is even no panegyric on the august person they commemorate; not a single epithet of commendation. When they mention an extraordinary effect of his divine eloquence, it is history, not eulogy, that speaks. They say. nothing of their own admiration; it is "the people who were astonished at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." Again, it was "the multitudes marvelled, saying, it was never so seen in Israel." Again, it was the officers, not the writer, who said, "never man spake like this man."

In recording the most stupendous events, we are never called to an exhibition of their own pity, or their own wonder, or their own admir

no com

ation. In relating the most soul-moving circumstances, there is no attempt to be pathetic, no aim to work up the feelings of the reader, no appeal to his sympathy, no studied finish, no elaborate excitement. Jesus wept; ment. He is hungry; no compassion escapes them. He is transfigured; - no expression of astonishment. He is agonized; — the narrative does not rise in emphasis. He is betrayed; no execration of 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?

Thus, it seems obvious, that unlettered men were appointed to this great work, in order that the success of the Gospel might not be suspected of owing any thing to natural ability, or to splendid attainment. This arrangement, while it proves the astonishing progress of Christianity to have been caused by its own energy, serves to remove every just suspicion of

the contrivance of fraud, the collusions of interest, or the artifices of invention.

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 philosophising or the judaising 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.

It required different gifts to promulgate and to maintain Christianity. The Evangelists did not so much attempt to argue the truth of the Redeemer's doctrines, as practically to prove that they were of Divine origin. If called on for a defence, they worked a miracle. If they could not produce a cogent argument, they

If they

could produce a paralytic walking. could not open the eyes of the prejudiced, they could open those of the blind. Such attestation was, to the eye-witnesses, argument the most unanswerable. The most illiterate person could judge of this species of evidence so peculiar to Christianity. He could know whether he saw a sick man restored to life by a word, or a lame man take up his bed and walk, or one who had been dead four days instantly obey the call, — "Lazarus, come forth!" About a sentiment there might be a diversity of suffrages; about an action which all saw, all could entertain but one opinion. The caviller might have refuted a syllogism, and a fallacy might have imposed on the multitude, but no sophistry could counteract ocular demonstration.

means.

But as God does nothing in vain, so he never employs irrelevant instruments or superfluous He did not see fit to be at the expense of a perpetual miracle to maintain and carry on that church which he had thought proper to establish by miraculous powers. When, therefore, the Gospel was immutably fixed on its own eternal basis, and its truth unimpeachably settled by the authentic testimony of so many eyewitnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, a writer was brought forward, contemporary, but not connected, with them. Not only was he not confederate with the first institutors of Christianity, but so implacably hos