Ess. XII.]

FAITH AND OBEDIENCE.

603

have just alluded, and to walk, without deviation, in obedience to the law of God. On the other hand, obedience is the life, the strength, and the completion of faith. Those who do the will of the Father, know of the doctrine of Christ, that it is indeed of God, John vii. 17. Every successive step we take in a course of virtuous submission to the Divine will, has a sure tendency to bring us into nearer communion with our heavenly Father, to quicken our spiritual apprehension, to enlarge our religious experience, and to confirm our settlement on the immutable basis of "THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS."

CONCLUSION.

HAVING, in the Essays which are now brought to their conclusion, presented to the reader's attention an elementary sketch of the evidences which prove the truth of Christianity, and the Divine origin of the Holy Scriptures; and having examined all the essential features, as I apprehend, of that system of Divine love and wisdom, of which those Scriptures contain the record, I may now invite him to a brief review of the general course of my whole argument.

Let us, then, suppose that an honest inquirer after truth is induced, for the first time in his life, to peruse the New Testament. He soon discovers that it is no common book. He finds that it abounds in wise precepts, and that it states, in a manner at once simple and authoritative, a variety of doctrines respecting both God and man, which if true, are of infinite weight and importance. He observes more particularly, that it delineates the history and character of a perfectly virtuous Person, who, unlike all other men, is described as uniting with an abject outward condition, and with a very unusual degree of humility, an authority and power indicative of a nature essentially Divine; and he reads that this person was crucified by the Jews, and that his death

was appointed and accepted of the Father, as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

Struck with the extraordinary contents of this wonderful book, and humbled in the view of the mysteries which it unfolds, the first questions which present themselves to the mind of the inquirer are these-Is this volume genuine? Is it of the antiquity to which it pretends? Were its respective parts really written, as they profess to have been by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude-that is, by six of the apostles of Jesus Christ, and two of their companions? On these points he pursues a diligent course of investigation, and the facts which he ascertains are as follows:-that in the early part of the fourth century, (as appears from the declaration of a well known and impartial writer,) about seven-eighths of the whole New Testament were, throughout Christendom, universally confessed to be genuine that the same character was soon afterwards attributed, in the church, to the remaining part of the volume-that, during the course of two hundred years before that period, innumerable quotations were made from the New Testament by the fathers, whose works in the Greek and Latin languages are still extant—that to these quotations were added, by certain ecclesiastical writers, catalogues of the books of the New Testament, harmonies of the four Gospels, and extensive commentaries-that during the second, third, and fourth centuries, several versions were made of the whole volume, into foreign languages, some of which versions are in our hands-that the genuineness of the Gospels and

Epistles was allowed by the bitterest enemies of early Christianity; lastly, that these evidences are amply confirmed by others of an internal nature-namely, first, the Hebraistic Greek in which the whole book is written; secondly, the correct allusions which it contains to the customs prevalent, at the Christian era, among both the Jews and Romans, as well as to a variety of historical events (whether more or less obscure) which are, from other sources, known to have then taken place; and thirdly, the reciprocal incidental accordances and general congruity of its several independent parts.

On the ground of these various and accumulated evidences, our inquirer is at length well satisfied, that the genuineness of the professed works of the apostles and evangelists, or of nearly all of them, is far more largely attested, and, on the whole, more satisfactorily ascertained, than that which nobody ever dreams of disputing-the genuineness of the Olympics of Pindar, of the Georgies of Virgil, of the Offices of Cicero, or the Annals of Tacitus.

Next in order comes the important question-Is the history contained in the volume thus proved to be genuine, a true history? On this subject the inquirer would have felt no temptation to entertain doubts, had not many of the events recorded in the New Testament been of a miraculous nature; but such being the fact, he does himself the justice of investigating before he decides. Now, in the course of his investigation, he makes the following observations -namely, that two of the evangelists were eyewitnesses of the works of Jesus, and the other two

companions of eyewitnesses-that in the four Gospels are to be observed at once a variety so natural as plainly to indicate independence, and a harmony so extensive as to afford a moral demonstration of truth-that the fidelity of the historian of the Acts of the Apostles is equally evinced by the incidental correspondence of that book with the Epistles of Paul-that, independently of all such reciprocal coincidence, the history of the New Testament affords in its several parts, considered singly, ample internal evidences of the simplicity, honesty, caution, and absolute veracity of its authors-that all the twelve apostles, and many others, were engaged in bearing testimony to the miracles and resurrection of Christ that they sealed that testimony (a testimony not to notions but to facts) by a willing submission to almost unexampled suffering, and even to death itself—that the history of the New Testament is, in various important particulars, confirmed by the corresponding declarations of Jewish and profane authors that the miraculous parts of it were noticed and confessed by the enemies of our religion; finally, that early Christianity was diffused among mankind, to an extent and with a rapidity, for which, under all the circumstances of the case, nothing can account but the reality of our Lord's miracles, and those of the apostles.

Fully convinced, on these and other correspond ing evidences, of the authenticity of the evangelical history, the man who is in search after truth now experiences a fresh delight in the perusal of it, and in the contemplation of that Divine person whose