faith, that, as remains to be seen, the great strength of the testimony lies. For the truths to which witness unto death was borne are those only which prophets had foretold; and the history of the martyrs of Jesus, at that express and defined period, is summarily comprehended in their word. It is true, in fact, as it was written in prophecy, that after the Messiah was cut off, the city and sanctuary of Jerusalem were destroyed, the daily sacrifice which was offered there was taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate was set up. But the people that knew their God were strong, and did exploits; and they that understood among the people instructed many; yet they fell by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil many days. "The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church;" and the sure word of prophecy was fulfilled concerning those who loved not their lives unto the death, in testifying those things which the prophets aforetime had testified of Jesus.

CHAPTER VII.

APPROPRIATION OF THE ARGUMENTS OF CELSUS, PORPHYRY, AND JULIAN, IN PROOF OF THE GENUINENESS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THE MESSIAHSHIP OF JESUS.

SECTION I.

THE religion of Jesus, which braved the edicts of emperors, and which no iron yoke could crush, was not destined to fall before the pen of sophists. It prospered and prevailed against every mode of trial, and every form of opposition that could be devised or put in action against it. And history is clear that it never sunk till first it was corrupted. Christians were slaughtered, but Christianity increased. It frustrated the counsels of princes, and set at naught their power; it braved the rage of wild beasts, and the fury of barbarous men; and it passed unhurt through the fierceness of fire. It was not for death to daunt the spirits of those who believed in Him by whom death itself had been vanquished and when terror failed to extirpate faith, philosophy, falsely so called, took up the task which principalities and powers had tried in vain to accomplish. But it behooved not those who professed to be guided by that light which alone can enlighten the nations, and whose commanded duty it was, by an authority which they held to be Divine, to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asked

T

them a reason of the hope that was in them, to shrink from the arguments of gainsayers. The weapons that are not carnal are those alone which the Christian can take up. But with these, when needful, he may contend earnestly for the faith. The vantage ground of reason is the proper field of Truth; and that "the children of the light" must ever claim as their own, where no foe, with impunity, can stand up against them. And in proof that the God of Truth is on their side, it is their prerogative, we maintain, to keep that field which they claim, and their privilege to hold forth the surrendered weapons of their enemies, as the tokens of their triumph.

The adversaries of the gospel, in these latter times, while indulging in theories of a seemingly opposite tendency, have practically taught us that, judging from experience, nothing is more credible, however strange at first it may seem, than that the bitterest enemies of our faith should unconsciously, even without resigning their arms for our use, prove its ablest defenders. Of yore, as of late, they have done all the work; and they have left nothing for the Christian to do but to repeat their words and to tell of their doings. Do we want a witness above all others to testify of the facts which, in modern times, form the express accomplishment of ancient prophecies ?-there is not another, as the man of our choice, who can stand up beside Volney, and claim the suffrages of all believers. Do we seek, according to the Scriptures, for the great argument of scoffers in the last days? the scoffing Hume, applauded and followed by a host of kindred spirits, proclaims himself its author. Do we stand in need of an interpreter, by facts and not by fancies, of the more symbolical predictions which have long baffled the skill of Christian writers, and which involve the decline and fall of the Roman empire, and, in connexion with it, the fate of the church and the history of the world, who can be compared to Gibbon, whose name is associated with the theme? Seek we, in looking to times long past, to know of the origin and rise of our faith, and to find some record concerning it so ancient as closely to follow up, in time, the Acts of the Apostles? Tacitus, the Roman historian, speaking of a new religion, which he called a detestable superstition, is ready with his vouchers. And do we inquire more closely, whether, in fulfilment of ancient prophecy, kings and rulers took counsel against the Lord and his Anointed? Pliny and Trajan, the governor of Bithynia and the emperor of Rome, present their letters, and show us the counsel that was asked and given. Are we more inquisitive still, and do we wish to be informed whether the disciples of Jesus, as it is recorded that he foretold, were hated of all men for his name's sake? another emperor also bears witness to the importunate de

mands and loud clamours that were raised and urged against them; and, as if he had sat upon his throne on purpose to verify the words of Jesus, that Christians would be brought before governors and kings for his name's sake, he issued a rescript, in which we read that they were not to be charged but in a legal manner in court, where they might answer for themselves, and that the governor should take cognizance of any accusations against them. Or if, distrusting the efficacy of the faith in Jesus to purify the heart, while we look at nominal Christendom as it is, unpurged from iniquity, we seek to know if ever there was a time when the doctrine of the gospel was adorned by those who professed it, and whether the life of the Christian was then in happy harmony with the death of the martyr, the enemies of our faith take up the testimony in their behalf, and show us that their lives were practical illustrations of the precepts of Jesus.

With the proofs of such infatuation on the part of our enemies, in ancient as in modern times, multiplying before us and thus instructed,

Fas est et ab hoste doceri,

would we not be forsaking experience as our guide if-in seeking some evidence that the New Testament Scriptures were written in the age and by the persons they profess to be, even by the evangelists and apostles of Jesus, and also that the facts of his life and the nature of his religion were the tokens and testimonials of his Messiahship-we were not to inquire whether our enemies be not here also ready with their aid? In the providence of God, we may be permitted to say, for such things come not by chance, it is even so. And they who first vented their malice against the gospel by their writings, as others did by actions, are now, in their proper order, our witnesses, and lead us on to the direct demonstration that the gospel is alike authentic and Divine.

The faith of Christians stands not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. From first to last the wisdom of man has often been in active exercise against it. The talent of some of our adversaries is not to be denied, however much the mode of its exercise may be deplored. And, without impeaching their title to philosophy, we may wish that they were truly wise. Things Divine, as is written, may be hid from the wise and prudent, and yet be revealed unto babes. But it is also said that God frustrateth the tokens of liars, and turneth wise men backward. And however great may be the talent of those whose wisdom is leagued with error and directed against truth, they only make the triumph of the cause which they oppose ultimately the more conspicuous and complete. And not in a solitary instance only,

but by repeated and increasing examples, their talents, in despite of them, are turned to the proof of the word of the Lord. And the greater the primary display of their ingenuity, so much the more do they labour for the final confirmation of the Christian faith. And as Volney, by drawing with much labour a picture of Palestine, as if he had stood alternately on Pisgah and Tabor, was thereby the better witness of the faithfulness of the picture drawn by the prophets, and manifested thus the extreme precision of the prophetic word, so the earliest writers among the enemies of our faith, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, the talented infidel penmen of their times, afford a new series of illustrations of the same truth : and by taxing all their art, in their own time and way, to disparage the scriptures by multiplying objections, they multiplied proofs. Seeking to sustain a system of error, and deriding as foolishness the truths of the gospel, they were able, by an ingenuity devoid of ingenuousness, to show, in a great variety of instances, how the writings of the disciples of Jesus appeared unto them foolishness: and thus, as every reader may judge, committed by their own words, and taken in their own craftiness, they adopted the most effectual means, above all others in their power, of imparting the most abundant and decisive proof of the antiquity and of the genuineness, as such, of those very scriptures which they vilified; and, while catering for infidelity, they have laid up a treasure of imperishable testimony to the genuineness of the scriptures, which was not controverted in their time; and now, when the inspiration of the prophets may be witnessed by every man who has eyes to see and ears to hear, be he Jew or Gentile, that fact transforms their objections into proofs as clear and conclusive as those of Volney. And palpable illustrations are thus given, from which all may see how the simplicity of truth triumphs over all the plausibility of falsehood.

The renowned champions of paganism strove to overthrow Christianity by reason and ridicule; and failed not to achieve all that argument could accomplish. Their talents and labours subverted the faith of some, served to sanction the incredulity of more, and called forth, on the part of Christians, many vindications of the gospel from their violent assaults. Deists have joined with pagans in deeming their arguments unanswerable. And Gibbon states that "even the work of Cyril (against Julian) has not entirely satisfied the most favourable judges; and the Abbé de la Bleterie (Preface à l'Hist. de Jovian) wishes that some theologien philosophe (a strange centaur) would undertake the refutation of Julian,"* by whose superior merit, in the estimation of his eulogists,

*Gibbon's Hist., vol. iv., p. 81.

the celebrated name of Porphyry was effaced. Some of the arguments of Porphyry have been renewed in modern times. And it may be admitted that "the objection, as stated by Origen from Celsus, is sometimes stronger than his own an

swers.

The genuineness of the Christian Scriptures, as has been often shown, is manifestly established by the fact that they were quoted as such in the earliest ages, by heathens as well as by believers. And a few examples will show how incidentally this evidence is supplied. But while the record itself was held to be unquestionably genuine, many cavils were subtlely urged against the religion of Jesus as a revelation from Heaven, because its doctrines did not accord with the prejudices or fancies of men. And theories concerning matters of religious belief may be numbered among the many inventions which men sought out for themselves. But the question is no longer left to the arbitrament of vain imaginations, when the inspiration of those prophets is perceived and admitted who foretold the coming of the Messiah. And as the nations that strove against the Lord were hewn by his servants the prophets and fell before their word, a like fate by the same means awaits those who, from first to last, have unconsciously argued from predicted facts against the Christian religion! And now that the inspiration of the prophets has its proof in hundreds of existing facts, to a degree that no ancient pagan could have credited, the best answer to the objections of skeptics against the tenets or doctrines of the gospel is to appropriate them as proofs that the word of the Lord by the prophets has been fulfilled. And though these arguments of our adversaries were seemingly as strong as once was the wall of Babylon, which for a season held captive the people of the Lord, yet, like it, they too may thus be swept with the besom of destruction, till nothing be left but confirmations of his word.

In repeated instances, the same objections, couched sometimes in the most revolting terms, so as to forbid their unnecessary repetition, were urged repeatedly by the earliest opponents of Christianity as by some of their late imitators. It is not to be wondered at that a holy doctrine should be hated by the children of men. And as the same spirit of persecution manifested itself, in various places and in different ages, against those who bare witness to the faith, and the same kind of engines of torture were used in places far separated, so the invention of men, exercised in another manner, has been manifested in the adoption of the selfsame invectives against the doctrines of the gospel from age to age. All that we here ask them is, that they would not begrudge

* Paley's Evidences.