the corruption even of oral tradition, and is still less consistent with the experience of history; especially, as no such change as the substitution of another story took place in any future period of the Christian era.

Q. Did the religious rites and usages of early Christians accord with the narrative now in our hands?

A. Strictly; their religious assemblies on a stated day of the week, and the celebration of the Eucharist, are in accordance with the commands and institutions recorded in our books, and were observed by Christians of many different nations and languages.

Q. Is there not room for insinuating, that they were studiously accommodated to the usages of the times in which they were written?

A. No; the Scripture accounts, especially of the Eucharist, are too short, not to say obscure, and in this view deficient, to permit any such suspicion.

Q. Name one of the proofs that the story we have now is the same in substance that the Christians had then?

A. The story was public at the time, and the Christians possessed the substance and chief parts of it, as we gather from the Gospels themselves.

Q. Were the Gospels the original cause of the Christian history being believed.

A. No; they were themselves among the consequences of that belief, as is expressly asserted by St. Luke in his important preface, which testifies that the history which he was about to write, was

believed by Christians upon the authority of eye witnesses, and that his object was, to fix the certainty of things before heard of by the reader.

Q. How does the same point appear in St. John? A. Because there are some principal facts to which he only refers, but does not relate; the ascension in particular. St. Matthew has also omitted it, and the same solution explains both; viz., that they wrote with the supposition of the notoriety of the event.

Q. Does St. John afford any other instances of this sense of notoriety of facts referred to?

A Yes; his reference to the testimony and imprisonment of John the Baptist, the description of Andrew as Peter's brother, and the remark on the misconstruction of Christ's discourse with the beloved disciple, prove that the characters and discourse wer already public.

Q. Recapitulate the four circumstances which are sufficient to prove the general truth of the story.

A. Its recognition by a series of succeeding writers; the total absence of any substantially different account; the early prevalence of rites and usages resulting from our accounts; and those accounts bearing in their construction, proofs of facts known and believed at the time.

Q. What is meant by the phrase, in general.

A. That the texture and principal facts are the same. For instance, the resurrection is assumed, asserted, or referred to, in every Christian writing which has come down to us.

Q. What should we have to offer if our evidence stopped here?

A. A strong case; viz., that in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, some persons attempted to establish a new religion, with great labour, danger, and sufferings, all for a miraculous story, which they published every where; and that the resurrection of a dead man, whom in life they had followed, was a constant part of the story.

CHAPTER VIII.

Q. THE idéntity of the story which we have, with that of the Apostles, being proved, does it follow that' the detail of the New Testament is entitled to credit? A That will necessarily depend on our knowledge of the books, and their authors.

Q. Was the situation of the authors to which the Gospels are ascribed, such as, that if one be genuine, it is sufficient?

A. Yes; the first was an original emissary of the religion: the second, an inhabitant of Jerusalem at the time, a host of the Apostles, and an attendant upon one of the most eminent; the third, a fellow traveller of the most active of the teachers, and frequently in the society of the Apostles; and the fourth, one of these Apostles.

Q. As Matthew and John were eye and ear

witnesses of the facts and discourses, must the narratives under their names be true?

A. As far as human recollection is usually to. be depended upon; i. e. in substance, or they must be wilful falsehoods. If the latter, they sacrificed their ease and safety for a purpose most inconsistent with dishonesty, since they were villains to teach virtue, and martyrs without honour or advantage.

Q. What credit is due to the Gospels under the names of Mark and Luke?

A. The next to that due to eye witnesses, since they are the narratives of contemporary writers, who mixed with those who had been present at the transactions. Very few historians are so nearly connected with their subject or possessed, such means of authentic information,

Q. Does not their situation apply to the truths of the recorded facts?

A. Yes; but at present the testimony goes to a point short of this, viz. that the facts in the Gospels, whether true or false, are the facts, and the sort of facts, alleged by the original preachers.

Q. How stands the proof of this point?

A. A set of men went about the world publishing a miraculous story, incurring labours and dangers in its attestation; accounts of this story are furnished by two of their own number, by one most probably residing then at Jerusalem, and by another who accompanied the most laborious of the missionaries.

Q. Is this the kind of proof we should have required for the story if we were not in possession of it?

A. Precisely; and this will make us feel the value of it more sensibly. If our books be genuine we have the very species of information our imagination would have carved out for us, if it had been wanting.

Q. Show that if one Gospel be genuine, its direct historical testimony cannot be rejected?

A. If Matthew's, we have a narrative of one of the number, to judge of the miracles attributed by the Apostles to Christ, if not, and John's be, the argument is equally strong. If neither, yet if Luke's be written by any person in the situation in which he professes to have been, or if that of Mark was really his, at least we possess one writer not only contemporary with the Apostles, but a companion of their ministry.

Q. When is this authority sufficient?

A. When the question is simply, what it was which the Apostles advanced.

Q. Is there not a risk of error in assigning the authors of our books?

A. There may be, but then we are entitled to the advantage of so many separate probabilities. The New Testament contains a number of distinct writings, any one of which is almost enough to establish the truth of the religion; and four distinct histories, any one of which is perfectly sufficient.