For much recurrence to original authorities in the historical part, I had not time. The quotations in that part are generally taken from Paley or Horne, or from some source equally common. Those quotations, however, are of unquestioned authority; they are to the point, and perhaps nothing could have more usefully occupied the same space. The importance of the object intended to be accomplished by the founder of the Lowell Institute, in this course of Lectures, cannot be over-estimated. Let there be in the minds of the people generally a settled and rational conviction of the truth of Christianity, such as a fair presentation of the evidence could not fail to produce, and there will be the best and the only true foundation laid for a rational piety, and for the practice of every social and civil virtue. That these Lectures were useful, to some extent, when they were delivered, in producing such a conviction, I had the great satisfaction of knowing; and I now commit them to the blessing of God, with the hope, though there are so many and so able treatises on this subject already before the public, that they will have a degree of usefulness that will justify their publication. WILLIAMS COLLEGE, April, 1846. CONTENTS. Object of the Course. - Responsibility of Men for their Opinions. -Revelation provable.-This shown from a Comparison of Preliminary Observations. - Revelation probable: First, from the Nature of the Case; secondly, from Facts.-Probability of Miracles, aside from their Effect in sustaining any particular PAGE Argument second: Coincidence of Christianity with Natural Religion.Argument third: Its Adaptation to the Conscience as a perceiving Power. - Peculiar Difficulties in the Way of establishing and maintaining a perfect Standard. - Argument fourth: If the Morality is perfect, the Religion must be true. 97 Argument fifth, continued: Division second: Christianity as a Restraining Power.-Argument sixth: The Experimental Evidence of Christianity. — Argument seventh: Its Fitness Argument thirteenth: Prophecy.-Nature of this Evidence. -- EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. LECTURE I. OBJECT OF THE COURSE. RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN FOR THEIR OPINIONS.-REVELATION PROVABLE. THIS SHOWN FROM A COMPARISON OF MATHEMATICAL AND MORAL EVIDENCE, AND FROM AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARGUMENT OF HUME. IN entering upon this course of lectures, there is one impression against which I wish to guard at the outset. It is, that I come here to defend Christianity, as if its truth were a matter of doubt. Not so. I come, not to dispute, but to exhibit truth; to do my part in a great work, which must be done for every generation, by showing them, so that they shall see for themselves, the grounds on which their belief in the Christian religion rests. I come to stand at the door of the temple of Truth, and ask you to go in with me, and see for yourselves the foundation and the shafts of those pillars upon which its dome is reared. I ask you, in the words of one of old, to walk with me about our Zion, and go round about her, to tell the towers thereof, to mark well her bulwarks, to consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following.* Persons to be benefited. — In doing this, I shall hope to be useful to three classes of persons. First Class. To the first belong those who have received Christianity by acquiescence; who have, per * Psalm xlviii. 12, 13. haps, never questioned its truth, but who have never examined its evidence. This class is large, it is to be feared increasingly so, and it does not seem to me that the position of mind in which they are placed, and its consequences, are sufficiently regarded. The claims of the Christian religion present themselves to those who enter upon life in a Christian country, in an attitude entirely different from that in which they were presented at their first announcement, when they made such rapid progress, and when their dominion over the mind of man was so efficient.* Then, no man was born a Christian. If he became one, it was in opposition to the prejudices of education, to ties of kindred, to motives of interest, and often at the sacrifice of reputation and of life. This no man would do except on the ground of the strongest reasons, perceived and assented to by his own mind. Christianity was an aggressive and an uncompromising religion. It attacked every other form of religion, whether Jewish or pagan, and sought to destroy it. It turned the world upside down" wherever it came; and the first question which any man would naturally ask was, What are its claims? What are the reasons why I should receive it?" And these claims and reasons would be examined with all the attention that could be produced by the stimulus of novelty, and by the deepest personal interest. Now, however, all this is changed. Men are born nominally Christians. The truth of the religion is taken for granted; nothing leads them to question it, nothing to examine it. In this position the mind may open itself to the reception of the religion from a perception of its intrinsic excellence, and its adaptation to the deep wants of man; but the probability is that doubts will arise. The occasions of these are abundant on every * See Whately's Logic, Appendix, p. 325. |