proof will be seen unfolded in a very pithy and conclusive form. But this truth once established, all the abstract objections against Christianity, as a revelation, die away of their own accord. If God has once revealed his will through miracles and signs, there is precedent and analogy in favour of a still fuller revelation of the same kind, whenever the state of mankind shall be seen to require a moral remedy. Thus all the proofs of the Mosaic miracles, from their publicity; the public monuments to perpetuate their memory; the national rites founded upon them, and continued for many ages, or even to this day; and from the internal truthfulness and consistency of the sacred narrative, now confirmed by many fresh attestations in recent discoveries; become so many presumptions in favour of Christianity, which is a revelation of the same kind, founded in miracles, and confirmed by the faith of the whole church, and sacred ordinances that continue to the present day. On this argument ample information will be found in Horne's "Introduction," vol. i.; Faber's "Horæ Mosaicæ;" Graves' "Pentateuch;" and Bishop Chandler's "Vindications."

II. This argument from precedent is, however, chiefly negative. It removes effectually all the abstract presumptions against the Christian revelation, but lends it no positive and direct proof. But the argument from analogy is more complete. There are many features of close resemblance between Christianity and Judaism, in the mode of their origin, and their fundamental laws, which can scarcely be found in any other religious system whatever. Both of them are professedly founded on miraculous works, publicy wrought in the sight of a whole nation. Both of them centre in the person of one distinguished leader, by whom these miracles were publicly wrought, and by whose lips the whole constitution of Divine laws was first uttered. Both of them perpetuate the memory of these Divine miracles by sacred ordinances, instituted at the time of their occurrence, and continuing ever since until now. Both of them enforce and publish, with Divine authority, the same great maxims of morality, embodied in the two great commandments. Both of them set apart a chosen people, to be the witnesses before the world of the truth of this miraculous revelation; and then lead them forth to combat, in the name of God, whether by righteous severity, or by messages of pardon and grace, with the foul idolatry of the heathen world. Both of them, finally, refer to each other, and mutually confirm each other's claims. The law announces the coming of a greater Prophet, like unto Moses, to whose voice obedience is due; and our Lord proclaims, in his turn, that if men hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded though one were to rise from the dead. These various analogies, and this mutual reference, make all the proofs of the Divine mission of Moses a real and

integral part of the Christian evidence. "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall' ye believe my words?" III. The continuity of Divine Providence furnishes another proof, derived from the same general source. Once let the mission of Moses and the prophets be allowed, and we are embarked on a mighty stream, which must land us in a cordial reception of the new covenant of the gospel. When we have

contemplated the mighty works of God, from the hour when Moses' rod was turned into a serpent, to the deliverance of Daniel from the den of lions, and the three children from the ' furnace, there will be found something more than merely an analogy, to establish our faith in the miracles of the New Testament. A spiritual law of Divine interposition will have been revealed, lasting through a thousand years, which involves the moral certainty of a later and fuller revelation. For who can believe that the all-wise God would set on foot and continue such a mighty scheme of supernatural providence, and then let it suddenly cease and die away; so as to be followed only by the national extinction of the people to whom it was given; and by a system of enormous imposture, that would ape all the characters, and even borrow the morality and sacred ordinances, of that true and genuine revelation, which is really dishonoured, counterfeited, and cast aside? Christianity is only the fit and natural sequel to a course of miraculous agency that had already continued for more than a thousand years, and which rested on distinct and decisive evidence of its own.

IV. The manifest incompleteness of the Mosaic economy becomes a further argument for the truth and divinity of the gospel. "The law made nothing perfect." It was confined, almost exclusively, to a single nation, and one of the smallest in the world. It was loaded with a multitude of ceremonies, many of which would seem trivial and unmeaning, unless they pointed to some higher and further object, not included in the Levitical institution. It was marked by many features of sternness and severity. There was a prospective character in every part of its arrangements. It seemed as if the ideal glory of the kingdom of Israel were only reached for a moment, under Solomon, when it was removed at once, to prepare the way for a nobler dispensation. And hence, inasmuch as the law teaches its own imperfection, while the gospel proclaims itself to be only the fulfilment of "what Moses in the law and the prophets did say should come," all the proofs of the Christian religion ratify the authority of the Old Testament, and all the direct evidence that confirms the mission of Moses, confirms at the same time the Divine authority of our Lord and his apostles. This branch of evidence will be found treated of in most works on the Jewish controversy, from the Dialogue of Justin Martyr down to the

writings of Limborch, Allix, Scott, and others in modern times. The Old Testament, in fact, beside the express prophecies of Messiah, needs and presupposes a further revelation, to remove from it the charge of a limited and dwarfish design, unworthy of the God of heaven, and the majesty of his universal dominion.

To trace fully these links of connexion, like the loops of the Jewish tabernacle, which prove the gospel to be only the predicted completion of an earlier message from God, would require a volume. But every honest inquirer, who seriously compares the Old with the New Testament, will find abundant proof of the fact; and there is no stronger part of the whole body of Christian evidence than what results from this very connexion, however superficial observers may reckon it among the difficulties that encumber the direct argument. The law, the prophets, the gospels, and the epistles, when thoughtfully compared, prove themselves to be a four-fold cord of Divine truth, which cannot be broken.

V. There is still one further branch of this argument, less accessible to sceptical minds, but most convincing and decisive to all who search deeply into the word of God. It consists in

the various types of the Mosaic history, and of the Levitical institutions, when compared with their manifest antitypes in the gospel of Christ, and the history, ordinances, and revealed hopes of the Christian church. Of these it may be enough here to specify a few of the more striking: Adam in paradise, compared with the final description of Christ and the glorified church; the sacrifice of Isaac, (Gen. xxii.) with the antitype, in the sacrifice and death of the Son of God; the history of Joseph, with its counterpart in the sufferings of our Lord and his exaltation; the passover, and its Christian antitype; the brazen serpent; the scape-goat and annual atonement; the tabernacle and its apostolic interpretation; and the history of David and his followers, compared with that of Christ, and his followers, the early Christians. To enter into the whole force of this argument, and distinguish it from the mere abuse of a sportive fancy, would plainly require an enlarged knowledge of the Scriptures, and of the outlines of Christian truth; but the correspondence, in some of these cases, is very apparent to any simple and candid inquirer. This whole branch of Christian evidence, however, deserves a fuller and larger development than it has ever received, though abundant materials for such a work are scattered everywhere through the writings of scriptural commentators on the Old Testament. One instance of this striking relation between the early and later revelation may be seen by comparing Dan. ix. and Mal. iii. iv. with the opening chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, or the first chapter of Genesis with the two last in the book of Revelation. Those who pursue the examination thoughtfully, will see the proofs multiply upon them, that these are

indeed the words of God, and that a marvellous unity of design runs through every part of the sacred message.

SUPPLEMENT G.—(Page 280.)

ON EXTERNAL CONFIRMATIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I. Luke iii. 1: "Lysanias being tetrarch of Abilene." Very little is said of this tetrarchy by other writers, and it is never mentioned again in the New Testament. But Josephus tells us that Claudius, on his accession, added to the previous dominions of Herod Agrippa, "all that country over which his grandfather Herod had reigned, in Judæa and Samaria, as due to his family. But as for Abila of Lysanias, and all that lay near Mount Libanus, he bestowed them upon him, as out of his own territories." He mentions also, that, after the accession of Archelaus, Peræa and Galilee paid their tribute to Herod Antipas; "while Batanea, with Trachonitis and Auranitis, and a certain part of which was called 'the house of Zenodorus,' paid the tribute of a hundred talents to Philip." And again, that Claudius, after the twelfth year of his reign, "bestowed upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip, and Batanea, and added thereto Trachonitis, with Abila; which last had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took from him Chalcis, when he had governed it four years."

About fifteen years, then, after the date in St. Luke, Abila had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias. Four years earlier, it is called Abila of Lysanias, and had then been some time under the direct government of the emperor. At the accession of Archelaus, about thirty years before the date in the Gospel, it is called the house of Zenodorus; and a part of it, and only a part, is given to Philip. All this agrees, indirectly, but minutely, with the statement of St. Luke; since it requires us to place a Lysanias, as tetrarch of Abilene, somewhere in an interval of forty-five years, which closes fifteen years after the date of the evangelist.

II. Acts xvi. 11, 12: "We came to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, a colony.'

No extant author mentions Philippi as a Roman colony, which St. Luke here affirms it to be. But coins have been discovered which prove the fact. Some of them have the inscription,

COL. AUG. JUL. PHILIPP.,

while one of them states that Julius Cæsar bestowed the privileges of a colony, which were augmented by Augustus.

Again: Macedonia was parted by the Romans into four divisions, and Philippi was placed in the first of these, medals of which remain with the inscription, Μακεδονων πρωτης. Hence the description—" that part of Macedonia"-is precise and distinctive.

Again: Amphipolis was originally the first or chief city of this part of Macedonia. Yet Himerius, in the time of Julian, speaks of Philippi as the first of all Thrace, (πολις Θρᾳκων ἡμιν ή πρώτη, Φιλιππου βασιλεως επωνυμος). The primacy would very probably date from the reign of Augustus, when its privileges were increased, and might perhaps be a memorial of the victory which he gained in its neighbourhood, over Brutus and Cassius.

III. Acts xvi. 14: "Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira."

Among the ruins of Thyatira an inscription has been found, closing with the words, oi ẞapes, the dyers. It was made by the corporation of dyers, in honour of Antonius Claudius Alphenus, in the reign of Caracalla.

IV. Acts xix. 35: "What man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is temple-keeper (vεwкoρov) of the great Diana, and of the image that fell down from Jupiter?"

Medals are extant, where this very epithet is given to the city of Ephesus, with the inscriptions, Epɛotwv vεwкopwv, and also as twice, thrice, and four times vεwкopwv. A catalogue of them is given by Rasche (Lexicon Rei Nummariæ II., col. 650-670). One of Caracalla, in the British Museum, has the inscription, with four temples on the obverse, πρώτης Ασίας εφεσίων Δ VEWKоpwv, the Ephesians, of the chief city of Asia, temple-keepers for the fourth time.

The words of the town-clerk imply that the fact was one of great notoriety. Accordingly, this temple of Diana at Ephesus was esteemed popularly one of the seven wonders of the world.

V. 2 Cor. xi. 32: "In Damascus, the ethnarch under Aretas the king kept the city with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me. And through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands."

This passage occurs, quite incidentally, in a list the apostle gives of his own sufferings. But no mention of the king Aretas is found elsewhere in the New Testament. The same event is recorded in Acts; but there we learn that they were Jews who watched the gates to slay him, and that he had gone to Damascus with a commission from the high priest at Jerusalem. Here there is no trace to be found of king Aretas, and no help to explain this part of St. Paul's statement.

When, however, we turn to Josephus, the difficulty is soon

T