Jewish history. On this subject, Stillingfleet's Origines Sacræ; Marsh's Authenticity of the Books of Moses; Schmidt's Old Testament Canon, and Jahn's Introduction, with Faber's Hora Mosaicæ, will give ample information.* The next step consists in the proofs of the Mosaic revelation; on which Leslie's Short and Easy Method contains very terse and powerful reasoning. The argument is also summed up in Horne's Introduction, (ch. i. § 1. 1-3; § 2. 1; ch. iv. § 2. 7.) Thirdly, The truth of the gospel is thus confirmed by analogy, as continuing the same course of supernatural providence. Fourthly, It is confirmed by direct predictions, that are fulfilled in the gospel history. On this subject, the Dialogue of Justin Martyr, and the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius, with Kidder's Demonstrations, and Scott's Answer to Crool, may all be read with advantage. A work, however, seems needed, to consider this argument more fully, in reference to the most recent forms of German rationalism. The last branch of retrospective evidence consists in the other internal marks, throughout the whole Jewish economy, that it was only an introductory dispensation, designed to prepare the way for some fuller exhibition of the Divine will.

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III. The Prospective Evidence completes the external proofs of the gospel. It consists in all those arguments, which be drawn from the history of its progress in the world. Its Divine origin is confirmed, first of all, by its early and rapid triumphs in the days of the apostles and their immediate successors. This is briefly unfolded in pt. ii. ch. ix. of this treatise, and in Milner's Reply to Gibbon. It is ably developed, also, in bishop Macelvaine's valuable little treatise on the Christian Evidences. The objection, from the spread of Mohammedanism, is well answered by Paley, and more fully in White's Bampton Lectures.

A second branch of prospective evidence consists in the fulfilment of our Lord's prophecy, and those of the Old Testament, respecting the Jews and the land of Israel. On this subject much has been written. The exposition of that prophecy, in Bishop Newton's Treatise, and in Greswell's work on the Parables, with Dr. Keith's interesting

The treatise of Dr. Hengstenburg on the Pentateuch, is a more recent and triumphant vindication of the authority of the books of Moses.

volume on prophecies already fulfilled, will furnish a popular view of the whole subject; but a comparison of Josephus, or of any history of the Jews, with the words of the New Testament, will be the most impressive. A third branch relates to those prophecies which describe the spread of the church, and its degeneracy in later times. These, however brief, are very significant, but some parts of the evidence can hardly be viewed as external, or suited to the first stage of inquiry; they are rather a provision of truth for confirmed and advanced Christians. A fourth and last argument may be drawn from the historical influence of Christianity, and its manifest power, as the agent of social reformation and moral advancement, wherever the New Testament is practically received for the guide of private life, and the code of appeal in all national and public affairs.

IV. The Moral and Internal Evidences have not been so frequently made the subject of distinct works, but have been often mingled with those topics of general theology, out of which they take their rise. It will be enough to indicate here their general character.

The moral evidence of Christianity consists in all those marks of goodness and excellence which lie open to the view of honest and sincere inquirers, though not yet enlightened by a knowledge of the truth. It may be arranged

under four heads, as follows:

The first consists in the direct precepts of the gospel, and the Divine purity of its ethical code. It is briefly, and rather defectively, treated upon in pt. ii. ch. ii. of the following treatise, and admits of a wider development than it seems to have received, though it is referred to in general terms by a multitude of writers. The second consists in the character of our Lord himself, and the manifest signs of truth, purity, love and wisdom, which mark all his words and actions, as recorded in the Gospels. A third branch of moral evidence arises from the character of the evangelists and apostles, and the marks of candour, sincerity, holiness, and devoted love, which beam in all their writings and missionary labours. A fourth consists in the moral effects of the gospel, upon those who receive it humbly, and show any signs of real faith in the message it

contains.

The Internal Evidence is that which belongs to real

believers only, who have received the gospel in sincerity, and yielded their hearts to its quickening and purifying power. The first branch is the personal or experimental evidence. It is that proof of the Divine origin of the Christian faith, which the soul obtains, from the full adaptation of the gospel to its own deepest wants and spiritual necessities. It includes, first, its discovery of sin and corruption, and of the secret bondage of the human heart. This is a subject which Pascal's Thoughts have unfolded with unusual depth and power; and an apprehension of this truth is the best practical preparation for a real faith in the gospel of Christ. It includes, next, the harmony of that gospel, as a message of grace, with the wants of the sinner, or the suitableness of the Divine medicine to the conscious disease of the spirit within us. There will then

follow a further evidence of its truth, in the full agreement between the sacred descriptions, and the actual experience of repentance, faith, and spiritual desires and affections, in the heart of every sincere believer; so that, as in water face answers to face, the words of Christ and his apostles find a daily echo in the innermost life of the Christian. Lastly, it is crowned by all the various experience of the faithful servants of Christ, in the efficacy of prayer, the nature of inward temptation, the fulfilment of Scripture promises, and the consciousness of growing light in the upward pathway of obedience to the will of God.

The Social or Practical Evidence, though nearly related to the last, is distinct from it. It comprises all the great features of Christianity, as a social economy, for the renewal of families, communities, and kingdoms, and their restoration to harmony, holiness, and love. It may be seen, first, in the social precepts of the New Testament, in that union of opposite truths, of liberty and authority, of respect to inward motives and outward conduct, that deep foundation laid to sustain all the relations of human life, which manifest a wisdom and goodness truly Divine. It is seen, further, in the ordinances of the visible church, and the provision there made for combining all the energy of Christians into a perpetual conflict with every form of evil, that the church may be the salt of the earth, and the light of the world. It is seen, further, in the practical influence of Christianity on those favoured families or

communities, where it really exerts its proper and natural power. This evidence is indeed partly visible to unbelievers, yet it can be felt in its full extent only by those who are within the circle of its happy influence. They only can understand and know the blessedness of a family or church where hearts are really knit together by the love of Christ. It consists, finally, in the hopes which the gospel reveals of a perfect society to come, and the gathering of all the ransomed multitudes of mankind around their Lord, to dwell in love and peace for ever.

The Biblical Evidence is internal, in a still stricter sense. It consists of all those marks of Divine wisdom and goodness in the word of God, which manifest its origin, and prove that it " came not by the will of men, but that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." It is naturally introduced by an inquiry into the accuracy of the Scripture canon, and a general view of inspiration, as revealed in the word of God itself. It consists in all those various harmonies of Scripture, which reveal themselves to the humble and thoughtful student, when searching its pages with reverence, as a message from the all-wise God. It is difficult to classify a branch of evidence, so wide and manifold in its own nature. It includes in it the general characters of Scripture, and its special correspondences and harmonies in its separate portions. Under the first we may rank its unity and its variety, its Divine sublimity and popular adaptation, its brevity and its comprehensive fulness. Under the other head we may comprise the mutual relations of the Old and New Testaments, and their harmony with the contrasted attributes of Divine holiness and grace; the mutual connexions of the historical, poetical, and didactical books of Scripture, and their harmony with the three great faculties of the human mind, memory, imagination, and reason; the harmony of the types in the law with their antitypes in the gospel, of predictions in the prophets with their fulfilment in the church of Christ, and of the earlier prophecies, as a whole, with the later predictions of the New Testament. To these may be added, finally, the marks of gradual progression and development in the whole series of sacred writings, not like the chance products of human invention, but results of the same wisdom, exercised through long ages,

which rears the spreading oak of the forest from the little acorn, and employs continually the smallest grains of seed to people the earth with all the rich and noble varieties of vegetable life and beauty. They begin with the first creation, and end with the glorious promise, "Behold, I make all things new." They begin with the loss of an earthly paradise, and end with the recovery of a heavenly paradise, nobler and more glorious than that which was lost. They begin with the brief promise, that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent; and they end with the final victory, when the old serpent is bound and sentenced for ever, and the Son of the virgin, the promised Saviour of the world, is seen reigning in glory, with his ransomed people, over a renovated universe.

But this leads to the last branch of the internal evidence, which may be called Spiritual or Metaphysical. The highest view of a Divine revelation is that which regards it as a manifestation of the name of God, an unveiling of his counsels, who is perfect love and perfect wisdom. It is true that only a part of his ways are now revealed to us; and, even of what is revealed in our present life, we are able to comprehend a small part only. Yet still the very purpose of the Christian revelation is to raise the soul into oneness of mind with God himself, and to bring us so near to his presence, that we discern with our own eyes the beauty, the perfection, and the glory of his counsels. This kind of evidence must be entirely hidden from us, till we have received and embraced the gospel; and even in the earliest stages of the Christian life it can only be very scantily attained. In the best and holiest Christians, nay, even in the inspired apostles, it must have been very imperfect, while the tabernacles of clay were still around them, barring the avenues of the spiritual world. To require such a perception of the harmony of revelation with our à priori notions of the Divine government, as the condition of our believing its truth, is indeed the most monstrous of human follies. An earthworm, rejecting the Newtonian system of the heavens, because it does not suit its dim notions of daylight and its changes, is a feeble emblem of his presumption, who, with a heart still sunk in the mire of sin, would sit in judgment on the word of the living God, and bring the messages which that God has attested by signs and