Suppose, however, there had been nothing of the kind,—that, in the primitive Church, no manifestations of a visionary and superstitious spirit, or of any particular passion for the marvellous, had appeared. Would this have formed an argument in favor of Christianity? or would it not rather have been a fact hardly capable of solution? Would there have been no ground for the remark, that, if Christ ever performed the miraculous works ascribed to him by the gospel historians, the effect must have been seen in an inflamed popular imagination manifesting itself in a thousand fantasies and fictions, and a readiness to believe in any wonders alleged to have been wrought in support of his cause? We produce, in the pseudo-gospels, the proofs of the actual existence, at the period referred to, of such a state of the popular mind as is here argued. But now, instead of being acknowledged as the natural productions of a miraculous age, these extravagant legends only reveal, we are told, the weak and unsound character of the gospel era, and serve to cast suspicion on the whole supernatural history of the New Testament. With such versatility of objection has Christianity to deal! But whatever attestations to the divine origin of our faith we may derive from antiquity, some profess to think there must always be an essential defect in every argument of this nature. All historical testimony, they say, is weakened by time. But how weakened, unless time brings some counter testimony to light? If the character of an event is not changed by years, why its credibility? That Xenophon was the author of the Anabasis is as certain now, and is felt by every one to be as certain, as it was ten centuries ago. The truth is, time is necessary to a religion, to settle it upon the basis of absolute and unassailable certainty. Celsus might have said to the Christians of his day,-"You are new. Soon you will meet with the usual fate of deluded and fanatical zealots. Your extravagance will be duly appreciated by other times and other men. You will sink into oblivion." Thus far the gospel has found no occasion to shrink from the test of history. It has been in advance of every age to which it has yet come. Some profess to attach little or no importance to the historical argument for Christianity, because history, as they say, implicates itself with the accidents of time and requires so much critical erudition to sift it properly. With as good reason it might be said that the great mass of mankind have no concern with any ancient facts, because they are unable to look up and settle the authorities upon which they rest. Admit this inability. Have we Americans no concern with those illustrious events in our early history which cast so glorious a light upon the principles and institutions of a free government, because we must generally rely on a few learned men to make a thorough investigation of them? So with Christianity. Much that belongs to its remote antiquity is received by most Christians upon trust. How it could have been otherwise is one question; why it need have been otherwise is another. CHAPTER II. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOSPELS. WE have a fourfold Gospel. The natural check and counter-check existing in this plurality will readily be seen.- -Again, all the Gospels enjoyed the reputation of apostolical or subapostolical authorship from an early date. No one of them could have been considered as entitled to this distinction but for important reasons. That four spurious writings should have been thus honored is quite inconceivable.-Two of the Gospels, and no more, bear the names of Apostles. If they were indebted to fiction for this distinction, it is a natural inquiry, why the other two were not honored in the same way. A difference so apparently arbitrary certainly looks like historical fact. Further, each of the Gospels is sufficient for the great objects of Christian faith. The reception of any one of them by the early disciples is an argument in favor of the rest. For what need of the rest, when one of them was enough for all the purposes of a gospel history? and how reluctant must the Christian community have been to place three other histories by the side of an apostolical memoir, without having the most satisfactory proof of their being of equal authority with this important and venerated document!-Again, that there should have been more than one Gospel, more than one repository of facts so momentous as the sayings and doings of a divine teacher, is in harmony with the course of general Providence. We are accustomed to repetitionary blessings. Our most necessary senses are given us in pairs. Our bodily sustenance is not permitted to depend on but a single article of food. Nature is full of equivalents. There are long passages in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are the same, word for word, or nearly so, in each. How this could have happened in three original and independent productions has been a matter of inquiry. But it strikes me in a very different light from that of a difficulty. Notes of what they had seen and heard in their attendance upon Jesus might very naturally have been taken by the more considerate and intelligent of his immediate companions and disciples. These memoranda I would as naturally be distributed, and unequally of course, among the Christians of that day. Some would be found in the hands of all the believers,-others, in those of a few |