shines; or because the most nutritive grains and cooling fruits, which it does ripen, are continually distilled into liquids which, in the practical use of multitudes, become burning poisons, and sin and misery and death are thus extracted, as it were, out of its pure and vivifying beams. The real wonder is, not that such a religion, though divinely attested, was opposed and rejected by multitudes; but that it should, in its primitive purity, in deep sincerity, and at the price of suffering, have been so often received and so firmly maintained." pp. 281-283. 'It would be a strange inference that, because an instrument is not omnipotent, it is useless or unfit; that, because a persuasive is not of itself all-sufficient, it might therefore be dispensed with; that, because the means are not of themselves enough, we should have fewer or none; that, because a medicine had no good effect in certain desperate cases, it was therefore not the best, or should not have been prescribed.' p. 157.

Alluding to one of the solemn sneers' of the unjust and insidious Gibbon, Mr. Sheppard, in a few lines, touches a spring which explodes the artful misrepresentation.

In that too well known paragraph of " temperate irony", where we are led to suppose that "the sages of Greece and Rome" viewed the Christian miracles with "supine inattention", (a passage productive of more pain and misgiving to some minds than the subtler sophisms of Hume,) we are seduced into the notion, that nothing but inattention or ignorance could possibly have caused their silence; and then, that their silence, so caused, proves the non-occurrence of the events. But what, if such were not the causes? What, if we had possessed good evidence of these strange facts, that Helvetius, Diderot, and Voltaire, each became a Christian indeed; and yet, that neither D'Alembert, Buffon, nor Gibbon, in all their works, had dropped a hint of this? Would their silence prove their " inattention" or ignorance concerning the facts, and so discredit the evidence? Or would it rather prove something else?' p. 292.

In our bright days and happy country, we are scarcely capable of conceiving the dreadfulness of living under perpetual persecution; and we form ideas far below the truth of the obligations under which we lie to those who resisted unto 'blood, striving against sin.' The following interesting passage will furnish many profitable topics, both to the reason and to the feelings of thinking men.

If there were persecutions, judicial or popular, under Claudius, Nero, Trajan, Adrian, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimius, and these in distant countries, Italy and Gaul, Asia Minor and Africa, (which has appeared in the foregoing pages,) then there was, in all these reigns, a widely spread sect subsisting, to persecute. There is every reason to believe, also, that they were persecuted, in some respects unintermittingly, that there never was a time, even when they might have the lightest personal or relative share of disabilities and wrongs, in which some neighbouring house or village, or city or province, did not afford them instances of heavier injuries sustained by others, which might

soon be inflicted in turn upon themselves, or upon those most endeared to them. They must have lived under a constant and afflictive sense of insecurity. The government was despotic, and the change of rulers, both supreme and subordinate, was quick and sudden. If they were now under a lenient emperor, they might have a provincial governor, or local judge, whose pretended clemency was the most wearisome or excruciating kind of rigour. They were exposed to dislike and harshness from their fellow-citizens; in very many instances certainly, from near kindred and connexions also; and, even when times were at the best, the petty persecution of taunts and contumelies could not cease t. The paths of honourable advancement, both in office and in alliance, were shut against them; and the most promising ways of emolument must have been usually closed. Nor is it, I think, in general enough considered, how much the adherent of a persecuted faith may have his most purely affectionate feelings tried and agitated, in the thought of those sure disadvantages and probable sufferings in which the education which his opinions dictate will involve his family. Think of tender Christian parents, at Lyons, or Vienne, or Smyrna, looking on their unconscious children, in what has been called the preeminently happy age of the Antonines, when the deaths of Attalus, and Blandina, and Polycarp, and many more martyrs, were fresh in every mind; and when the sufferings of confessors, or the marks of what they had suffered, were visible to every eye. Think of the question of a father's earnest brow, and a mother's silent tears!" Are we bringing up these poor babes to suffer scorn and outrage, or to meet, at the least, with a hard and adverse course through a hostile world, all for a cunningly devised fable, or a dubious faith?" Is it to be credited that feelings like these, sure as they were to be most deep and genuine in the same upright and tender hearts that loved the words of life eternal, would not urge to a close and searching examination, as

. . . They betook themselves to what was esteemed by them CLEMENCY and HUMANITY. Nor was it fit (they said) that the government of the emperors, who were BENIGN and MERCIFUL to all, should be blemished by any excessive cruelties; but it was reasonable that the imperial benevolence should be extended to all, and that Christians should not suffer capital punishments. From that time, therefore, it was enjoined that their eyes should be plucked out, and one of their legs be debilitated,-the most gentle punishment that could be inflicted. Henceforward, upon account of this lenity, it is impossible to reckon up the number of those who had their right eyes first thrust out with a sword, and then seared with red-hot irons; and of those who had the flexures of their left legs seared with irons; after which they were sent to the copper-mines, not so much for the sake of the service they could do there, as with a view to increase their miseries.' Euseb. Hist. Eccl. VII. 12. (Quoted in Vol. I. p. 280.)

It must not be thought that these, however minute or hidden from the eye of history, are not grievous if they be continued. Many a one would rather bear a sword-wound or a scourge for once, than a swarm of mosquitoes for a year.'

far as practicable, of the primary facts and grounds of that faith? But assuredly, throughout the whole apostolic age, and even during part of the second century, close and effective examination might be, and must have been made, by many friends and many enemies: therefore the subsistence and growth of the religion through that period, amidst such violent, various, and disheartening oppositions, affords a separate proof that it was sustained by miraculous attestations, present or recent, which neither its foes could shew to be false, nor its converts suspect to be delusive.' Vol. I. p. 314–317.

In another place, the Author represents, with great justness and force of argument, the strong probability, that multitudes of persons who were inquiring about Christianity, or who had embraced it, would, in the earlier periods, actually take journeys from the neighbouring countries, or even from Greece, Italy, and remoter coasts, into Judea and to Jerusalem, to collect on the spot, and from the yet living eye-witnesses, the amplest means of contradicting or confirming the facts which had been declared to them. The age of the apostles was one in which travelling was common and easy. Excellent roads had been made in every part of the empire, and they were constantly frequented. The exigencies of the Roman Government, and the perpetual business, military and civil, which was in operation to and from the mistress-city and all the provinces, made the transit to all parts of the empire usual and constant. In particular, the Jews were in the habit of going to the Passover and the other great festivals at Jerusalem, from all parts of the world in which they might be settled. This fact of itself 'shews how natural and how easy an undertaking it would ap'pear, for converts or inquirers to travel thither, either to reassure their faith or to gratify their attachment.'

One of the most important characters of this work is its animated piety, its deeply serious feeling, its constant tendency to promote the vital spirit and practice of religion. It is but too well known, that many treatises upon the external evidences of revelation, convincing and in other respects valuable as they are to a certain extent, deal only in the logic of the case, and scarcely ever attempt to press the personal obligations of that religion whose origin they have proved to be Divine. This defect is most pernicious. Among other false and dangerous inferences which it can hardly fail to produce, these are obvious,---that the whole question is one of theory and of intellectual curiosity; that the rejection of Christianity is a matter of innocent opinion,-at least, a misfortune rather than a fault; and that a man may be equally virtuous and happy, equally approved by God, and safe for eternity, whether he embraces or renounces the records of revelation. None of these baneful conclusions can be drawn from the volumes before us. Appeals to the con

science, to the moral wants, and to the everlasting responsibility of the reader, are not indeed forced, or introduced formally and artificially: but, when a natural opportunity for them arises, it is not shunned. They occur where the greatness of the occasion calls for them; and they are expressed with explicitness, tenderness, simplicity, and strength. Among the reflections and appeals of this kind which occur, our limits will permit us to take only one specimen.

Yet often has the dejecting thought assailed him, [the Author,] at last, what will be effected? What but a fruitless, nay, a melancholy work, if we should merely bring some to a right historical faith, or re-assure and fortify them in it; but none to a vital faith; none to the obedience of faith; none to understand, to receive, to adorn, that doctrine which is the power of God? Reader, suffer not that dejecting thought to be verified. It depends on you, personally, by the grace of God, to preclude its fulfilment. If you, and you alone, will but act, as even a qualified assent to the truth of this religion does in all reason engage and bind you to act, the writer's aim cannot be unfulfilled. Nay, though it should fail as it respects all others, in your individual happiness it will be richly fulfilled and requited. But, if you mean not so, if you do not propose, or at least desire, to go beyond mere assent, and, admitting Christianity to be divine, to seek and endeavour that you may verily possess it, then, I am inclined to counsel you, proceed no further. Do not aggravate your own inconsistency by acquiring new testimony for truths of infinite importance, which you still mean to neglect, or which you intend shall have no true power over your mind and life. Already you think this gospel came from God. Can you then fail to perceive, (even before studying it,) that it must be "worthy of all acceptation" from man?'

Even if you had no grounds of assent beside those very limited and external views of Christianity which have been taken in the preceding pages, [you are, by the obligation of reason, bound to say," I have here reviewed the characteristics of this religion; its origin, the obstacles over which it triumphed, the rapidity of its extension: and, did I know no more, I should yet confess that all this could not be a work merely human. It must have been divinely originated and sustained. Whether the divine support were visible or invisible, it must have been special. Whether the miracle were open or secret, it must have been real. The founder and first heralds of this doctrine must have been taught and commissioned and upholden by the Almighty Author of good." You would judge rightly, as I apprehend, even on these grounds; and you are well aware that there are other proofs at hand to corroborate your judgement. But,-is it possible that the consequence can escape you? Or do you wish, though it meets and presses on you, to elude it? If you should merely admit it to be highly probable, that Jesus and his apostles were accredited messengers of HIM who is omnipotent to save and to destroy, is it not the greatest self-impeachment of common sense and even sanity, not to examine, with deep seriousness, their recorded messages? If you

be conscious that, while judging in this general way the religion of Christ to be divine, you yet feel towards it and him a cold and reckless indifference; then, how can you be wholly unconscious of that "madness of the heart" which nothing, except this slighted dispensation itself, even offers to cure? For, though you may say or feel at present, I am happy or easy without being a religionist;-you must see that life has many and great evils; you must know that, were all these escaped, its good with itself will soon decline and terminate; you must secretly confess that you know not," in that sleep of death, what dreams may come". Meanwhile you are apprised that the religion which you admit to be divine, involves and answers those most momentous questions, If a man die, shall he live again? How shall man be just with God? What must we do to be saved? Yet you do not apply yourself to the earnest study of it. It came from God; and that is enough! You are content with a few slight notions of what it describes and teaches. You are no infidel: but-you have no turn for Theology!

Now, what would be thought of a similar conduct in other affairs?' Vol. I. p. 337-340.

Subjoined to the work, we find Three Dissertations, under the title of Appendices, on subjects not less interesting in themselves than important, as elucidating many parts of the preceding argument: I. The probable Temper towards Christianity, of Proselytes to Judaism and of Judaising Gentiles. II. The 'Nature of that Accession of Proof for Christianity which is ' derived from its Subsistence, amidst all the foregoing Oppo'sitions, through the Half-Century following the Apostolic Age. III. On the National Conversions to Christianity, from the 'Time of Constantine, through the Middle Ages; and on the 'Modern Conversions in the South-Sea Islands.' We can do no more than thus mention these appended writings, though, had we room, or were they separate publications, we should have gratified our readers not a little by the detail of much original and weighty matter, e. g. upon the motives and moral condition of the perfect and the imperfect proselytes from the various forms of idolatry to the acknowledgement of the Only God, the God of Israel; upon the existence of numerous philosophic Monotheists among the cultivated Romans; upon the often assumed existence of eminent facilities, in the age of the apostles, for the dissemination of their doctrine; upon the time of the cessation of the primitive miracles; upon the solid grounds of faith in the absence of miraculous attestations; and upon the contrast between the secular and forced conversions of tribes and nations, after Christianity had been desecrated to political purposes, and those which were produced by rational evidence. and the moral power of heavenly truth in the hand of its almighty Author.

In reviewing these volumes, we cannot but have received a