SERMON III.

JOHN XVII. 3.

This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

To establish the authenticity of the Scriptures has ever been the aim of men eminent for their learning and piety. Various have been the accessions of matter upon this interesting subject; and indeed the genuineness of the Inspired Volume has been brought to such precision and certainty, that nothing more is requisite to warrant the expectation of the faithful, or silence the cavils of unbelievers. The inspiration likewise of the Bible has been shewn both from internal and external evidence; but as this is the grand subject of dispute, any additional evidence, which may occur to me, I shall consider it my duty to lay before you. The more independent, perhaps, any evidence of Christianity is of foreign resources, the more valuable it must be. The few observations which I shall make in the introduction of this discourse, will, I hope, be of this nature.

We will suppose that the Gospel of St. John is genuine, that it was written by the beloved disciple of our Lord: we undertake to shew that it must have been inspired. This Gospel was written about the year A.D. 100, when the apostle was upwards of ninety years of age. The occasion which induced the apostle to write it, is no less remarkable. The absurd heresy of the Gnostics was the occasion of it; in order to suppress which, the apostle complied with the solicitation of the elders of the church, and wrote this most elaborate of all the Gospels. This history of our Lord contains not so much matter of fact, as the sayings and discourses of Christ. The object of the apostle was, not so much to supply the church with the acts, life, and sufferings of Christ, as to supply the defects of the other evangelists, by publishing a full account of the doctrines preached by Christ himself.

Now it follows, first, either that the apostle from memory related these discourses of Christ; or, secondly, that he forged them; or, thirdly, that he was inspired. To one of these conculsions we are forced.

Let us then examine the first proposition; whether the apostle John could have remembered these dis

courses.

And before we enter upon this subject, we will make a few observations respecting them. The first thing which arrests our attention, is the metaphy

sical nature of them all. The first discourse is that which our Lord held with Nicodemus; and it is highly metaphorical, mysterious, and purely metaphysical. The conversation of our Lord with the Samaritan woman is precisely of the same nature. The sixth chapter contains our Lord's Discourse upon the bread which supports the soul; this is still more deep and mysterious. Our Lord's reasoning with the Jews in the eighth chapter, respecting his person, is of the same nature. The last discourse is contained in four chapters, and is even still more deep and metaphysical. The time intervening between the delivery of these speeches and the publication of them, was upwards of fifty years. The man who remembered them, was ninety years old and upwards. And I would very strongly urge

upon your consideration the fact, that the author had no design of publishing them at the time he heard them, nor for upwards of fifty years after. The impression of a discourse upon the memory will vary according as the hearer designs to publish it or not. It is evident that the apostle had no such intention, or he would have done it when the sayings of Christ were fresh in his memory. It is to the heresy of the Gnostics, and to that alone we owe this Gospel; which is at once a proof that the apostle did not listen to the Sermons of Christ with a design of publishing them. The nature and length of these discourses are as extraordinary as

the man who remembered them. There is nothing in history at all parallel with the case before us. The conversations of great men have been noted down by their biographers at the time they were delivered, and never depended upon any great exercise of memory. The difficulty in the case before us is, an arithmetic or rather geometric series increasing with the lapse of time. It is extremely difficult to give an accurate account of a common sermon that we may have heard, and which we endeavour to remember the very day we heard it; but to repeat in substance this sermon six months after, without having listened to it with such an intent, is still more difficult; but to repeat it and others fifty years afterwards, quite impossible.

It is easy to remember facts, and the impression of discourses but I fear the most attentive auditory would be sorry to be called upon to repeat a metaphysical sermon of no greater length than the chapter from whence my text is taken, and which is only a part of a long discourse.

There is no faculty of the mind which fails aged persons so much as memory; so that difficulties amounting to impossibility meet us at every turning. Consider again the person remembering these discourses. He was no better educated than the commons of this country; the faculty of his memory had not been more exercised; he was neither better

able to understand, much less remember such abstract metaphysics.

To sum up the argument. To believe that a fisherman of ninety years old and upwards, should be able to remember long, abstruse, metaphysical sermons, which, it is evident, at the time he heard them, he did not even understand, (which increases the difficulty) and which he did not hear with any intention of publishing; to believe that this uneducated aged person, fifty years afterwards, should under such difficulties, remember sayings, which at the time they were uttered, he did not understand, is most absurd. From history, experience, and knowledge of the faculties of the human mind, we have greater reason to disbelieve, than to believe, that such a person, under such circumstances, could have remembered such long, deep, and metaphysical discourses.

Let us examine, Secondly, whether he forged

them.

To suppose that the apostle invented these discourses would be as absurd, as to maintain that Boswell invented the conversation which he has put in the mouth of Johnson. Both cases in this respect are parallel. As Boswell could not have been the author of these conversations, if he would, so neither could the apostle John have been the author of these Sermons, if he would. Criticism, likewise, forbids such a supposition. Without entering into much