the fundamental article of the Christian creed, that Jesus was the Messiah?-a proof, I mean, as credible and as satisfactory as was the answer of our Lord to the Baptist? If there be, what is the nature of that proof? These are the questions upon which we are now to debate and determine, and my endeavour will be, to shew that the proof is in both cases complete, and, with a few necessary limitations, the same.

To justify our assent in any of those matters of faith, where acquiescence is demanded upon the authority of others, there are only two things (the genuineness of the testimony being supposed) of which it is necessary to be assured; the credibility of the witnesses, and the sufficiency of what they allege to establish the point in dispute. If the witnesses be unworthy of confidence, it matters little how decisive their testimony may be, and if the testimony be inconclusive, the truth of the witnesses themselves will be of little avail; but where both are united, the controversy is at an end. Upon these two things then hangs all the weight of the Christian religion; and the result, whether favourable or unfavourable, will be the same, to whichever of the two we direct our first attention. I shall therefore proceed to consider them in the order in which they stand,

and examine, first, the credibility of the witnesses themselves.

If it be asked upon what ground of credibility the Baptist relied, when he trusted to the report of the individuals whom he had sent to Jesus, we answer, with boldness, upon their number and upon their character. In the mouth of two witnesses was every thing established before him, and those witnesses were the objects of his own peculiar choice, men of good report, and persons with whose fidelity and integrity he was fully acquainted. They had no prejudices to mislead their judgment, in favour of the pretensions of our Lord; no interest to serve by deceiving their Master, by falsifying, by misrepresenting, by magnifying or by diminishing what they had heard and seen.

Such were his own disciples unto John, and such also, but in authority more unimpeachable, are the Apostles and Evangelists of Christ unto us, more numerous, more capable, more faithful, and more disinterested witnesses of the truth. Yet perhaps I should scarce say that they were disinterested; for they were solicited by the united ties of nature, of habit, of education, and of religion, to resist even the evidence of their

senses, and stifle the very firmest convictions of their mind. They were tempted to a denial of their Master by every motive which usually influences the actions and opinions of men; by the sense of difficulty and danger, by the love of ease, and the little prospect which they enjoyed of success. They were tempted to unbelief by the various prejudices they had to combat both in themselves and others, by the persecutions to which they were liable, the self-denials to which they were called, the disappointment of all their favourite schemes, hopes, and ideas, and by the poverty and wretchedness, the stripes and death to which they were doomed, both by the nature of the case and the prophecies of their Lord. Yet did they resolutely maintain that Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified Jesus, was the great and promised Deliverer of Israel, and voluntarily submitted to a strict and rigid system of morality, to every variety of fatigue and suffering, in the laborious and, to all human probability, the hopeless undertaking of propagating his religion. It is true, indeed, that for once they all forsook him and fled. But that confirms instead of weakening their testimony, because it arose from a want of adequate and correct views into the nature and dignity of his doctrines. They beheld him only with the eyes of the flesh. They looked to him as the Redeemer of Israel, not from the

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bondage of sin, but the sorrows of servitude; not from the power of Satan, but the authority of Cæsar. They trusted that he would be the Conqueror of the world, and they themselves called to sit down upon his right hand and upon his left to become the rulers of provinces and wield the sceptre of dominion in some tributary kingdom. This charm of the imagination was, however, quickly broken by his death. Reflection came to the aid of reason, and cheered by his resurrection, and illuminated by his Spirit, they went on from virtue to virtue, and from faith to faith. They at once assumed a new character and new dispositions. Their own views had been graciously corrected, and with the benevolence of upright and honest men, they endeavoured zealously, but without enthusiasm, to correct the errors and the prejudices of others. In the confidence of their integrity, and the mild firmness of their sincerity, they proclaimed remission of sins through faith in Christ Jesus-that Jesus whom the Jews had crucified and slain, but whom God had raised from the dead. They every where preached the Gospel of peace, till either the force of truth triumphed over the blindness of error, or they themselves fell victims in the cause, and sunk under the malice and persecution of their enemies. Their trials were deep; but in all their trials they ever spoke and acted as those

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who thought it better to obey God than man, and as those who could not but testify the things which they had heard and seen: and as in the hour of his distress they had all forsaken their Saviour and fled, so did they afterwards endeavour to expiate their crime, by forsaking all, to return to him again, and follow him in the face of terror and of misery, even through the valley of the shadow of death. If this be not sincerity, I know not where sincerity can be found. be, that some, besides the Apostles, have died rather than retract the false assertions which they had previously made; and hence we may infer the possibility, at least, of a similar occurrence in the present case, But where are those that have died as the Apostles died, to be found? I know of none. If there be any who have entered into the gates of the grave rather than retract testimony which they had borne to what was false, it has been for maintaining the truth of false opinions and not of false facts that they so suffered. Or if there be any, and I deny not that there are some, who have suffered for bearing testimony to facts, which we are persuaded are false, it has been under circumstances where a renunciation of their testimony would not have saved them from death. It has been with criminals alone in the hour of execution and the hopelessness of pardon from a confession of guilt,