Not only have these different sources of proofs an entire concurrence among themselves, but they bear a general analogy to the arguments on which natural religion is 'grounded.

Every change in the phenomena of nature is an argument for the existence of God; for every change, by the constitution of our minds, forces upon us the belief of a cause, and leads us up, through all changes and all causes, to the Being who is unchangeable and eternal. In like manner, every change in the order of the phenomena of nature, or, in other words, every miracle, leads us immediately to the Lawgiver of nature, since he alone, who gave the law, has the power of suspending it. Hence the demand for miracles on the one side, and the pretension to miracles on the other, whenever a new religion is proposed. Any addition which is made to the light of nature requires an evidence that it comes from the Author of nature, who has its laws at his disposal, and can order the course of events according to his will. And so far from miracles being incredible, they naturally follow the supposition of the Divine Ruler intimating his will in a direct manner to his intelligent creatures. This is admitted in the words of Jesus, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin."

From the infinity of space and time, or, more properly, from their indefiniteness, stretching beyond any bounds that the mind of man can assign to them, and seeming, as far as they are conceived, to reject any limitation, we have an image of eternity and ubiquity presented to us, which render easier our conception of Jehovah; of him who is existence in himself in all its fulness; of him who comprehends space, and who fills eternity. In the Bible we have the reverse of this process, by which we ascend from time to eternity here, it is eternity condescending to time; and he who is from everlasting to everlasting, making his

perpetual designs intelligible to the children of a day. Hence arises the argument from prophecy. If God be viewed as ruling over the affairs of men, and ordering the intelligent as well as the unintelligent portion of nature, we expect equal marks that he is the Divine Author of revelation from his providence, as we find in the miracles from his power and in prophecy we find them. Revelation, like all the other operations of God, and in order that it be analogous to his whole proceedings, must be gradual; and prophecy is fitted to this gradual development of the Divine mind. Connecting the first dawnings of the Divine plan with its full disclosure and ultimate accomplishment, it prevents any break in the history and community of believers. He who intelligently receives the first communications, can have no scruple in receiving the later additions, seeing that, by means of prophecy, these recognize each other, and fit in together as portions of the same eternal plan.

Again, all bodies that consist of parts, and almost all bodies that are compounded, lead us to an outward influence which united these parts together. And thus, beyond the complexity of visible objects, we are led to the power which makes this various universe a whole, and who is himself absolutely simple and universal. And in the Bible we are similarly furnished with the key which not only reduces all the varieties of God's moral dealings towards mankind to a few principles, and reconciles them to one harmonious system, but which also unites the moral to the material world, and, showing that they present the same difficulties, raises a proof, even from objections, that both worlds are stamped with the peculiar impress of the same creative and original mind. Hence arises the internal evidence of analogy. While conscience gives a moral unity to the religion of nature and of revelation, and recognizing the character of her Author in the thrice holy

Jehovah, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, identifies the still small voice within us with the voice of Him who now speaks from heaven, and who, as the moral governor of the world, must give the highest and most solemn sanction to his own laws, though men, for very obvious reasons, are inclined to undervalue their imperativeness, and to mitigate their penalties and their terrors.

Each of these divisions of evidence bears witness to the attributes of its Author. The external evidence of miracles is stamped with His infinite power; the prophetic, with His divine prescience; and the internal, with His perfect holiness.

VII. Mankind are so constituted, that an individual can do little, but that the species can do much. The aids and resources which we possess are the slow accumulation of generation after generation, and of nations after nations. Our knowledge is in general the acquisition of others, and what the most original mind invents for itself, bears but a very small proportion to what it has inherited from its predecessors.

Each individual is thus placed at the mercy of the veracity of mankind, and mankind are truthful, whenever they have the means of being so, and whenever they have no motive for the contrary.

At first view there would seem to be a great mass of error prevalent in the world, both with respect to facts, and to opinions; and so in some sense there really is; but when compared to the quantity of true facts, and correct opinions, the mass of errror is but small; and even of that mass, the larger part consists of partial truths, or of facts partially detailed.

Conflicting errors are but a number of varying side views of the truth, which the truth, when steadily viewed, accounts for and reconciles; and erroneous narrations, like the discrepancy of witnesses on a trial, unite together,

and form a body of evidence, when their imperfections and partialities have due allowance made for them, and when the points in which they agree are fitted in together.

Thus truth is the rule, and falsehood the exception; and belief is the tendency, and disbelief the exception; each of the exceptions requiring a sufficient cause. And thus, though credulity, which believes to avoid the trouble of examination, is perpetually deceived; belief, which yields to evidence, and which is strong in proportion to the strength of evidence, is very rarely misled.

And it is needful that it should be so, for the unjust live by faith as well as the just, and the knowledge of the philosopher depends upon testimony as well as the information which is necessary to the most ignorant of our kind. Testimony and trust, are the supports of social life; remove them, and the nations would become like the dust of the desert, without any principle of coherence, and the savage and unsocial state of infidel writers would be no longer a dream. Covenants would at once be annulled; the laws would lose their authority; history would become silent; the past be barren of instruction, and speech no longer convey thoughts from mind to mind.

It is on the principle of belief in testimony that the external evidence for Christianity rests, and as it is a principle in every day use, even the most ignorant are practised judges of it. But the evidence for the miraculous facts on which Christianity is founded, depend upon more powerful and explicit evidence, than can be adduced for any other facts whatsoever. It rests not upon the testimony of an indiscriminate and unknown multitude, but principally on that of the twelve apostles, previously chosen to be the companions and witnesses of Christ's miracles and sufferings, and who, both from the nature of the case, and from the intimations which were given them, were designated beforehand as martyrs-witnesses who were to

seal their evidence with their blood.the seventy disciples were also witnesses, though not exactly of the same order. -after them were the five hundred who had seen the Lord Jesus after his resurrection. And still further, the whole Jewish nation, who were witnesses of miracles they rejected, but which they never succeeded in disproving.

But the evidence of the apostles alone, is incomparably the highest degree of testimony which is anywhere to be met with, from the impossibility of their being deceived, and from the impossibility of their having any motive to deceive others.

Their direct evidence, great as it is, is rendered still greater by the defection of one of their number, Judas. Had there been anything capable of detection, he was the person to detect it. He had surveyed all the miracles with the eye of a companion and a traitor.. And in the negative to every doubt and suspicion which his silence affords, we have the testimony of the remaining eleven placed in the strongest point of view.

In the case of the apostle Paul we have an unexpected addition even to this, the case is here reversed, an enemy becomes a friend, and by avowedly miraculous means.

These thirteen thus appear, by the circumstances in which they were placed, to have carried the force of testimony to the very highest pitch which it is possible to reach.

The fact of the Resurrection of Christ rests upon a weight of evidence so great, that the rejection of it would be equivalent to the adoption of universal skepticism; the witnesses for it, as we have seen, were publicly designated; they had full opportunity of information; their character and conduct was at all times canvassed; they could not be deceived themselves; they had neither motive nor opportunity to deceive others. If, according to Mr.