and took him away by force, or that he did rise from the dead in spite of them? They would not have told them that they were asleep, lest they should be punished for it ; nor would they have undertaken to tell what took place when they were professedly asleep, about which they could know nothing.

This proves that the report which the Jews sent abroad, that the soldiers said, his disciples stole him away while they slept, was invented by the chief rulers, and that the soldiers never reported any such thing. Now, why did they invent and propagate this lie, if the truth had been what they wanted? The truth is, the soldiers reported to them, that he rose from the dead, as the evangelists say they did, but the rulers, not believing it, hired them to tell. the inconsistent story that his disciples stole him away while they slept, and promised to persuade the governour and secure them from punishinent.

We must suppose the soldiers to be anxious only to escape punishment, and of course willing to tell any story that might please the chief rulers and secure their lives.Their invention of this story shows clearly that they could not account for the disappearance of the body. The grand reason the high priests and chief men were not willing to admit that he had risen from the dead, was that they had a great worldly interest in the perpetuity of those customs and laws, which christianity threatened to abolish. This induced them to put him to death; to say he worked miracles by the help of the devil, when they could not deny that he did perform them; and to invent a foolish lie to explain the grand fact of his resurrection. They had still another evident motive in dissuading the people from the belief that he had risen from from the dead; and that was to save their own characters from the imputation of innocent blood. For in proportion as people believed the resurrection, they would believe those men murderers.

3. We might add, that all the disciples, who declared

the resurrection, knew whether they had seen and handled him, and conversed with him or not. If they did not do it they did lie. But would they get away the body in spite of sixty soldiers, in such an astonishing manner that the Jews could not prove it, and then proclaim his resurrection, only as the foundation of truth, and holiness, and hope, to men? These men never attempted to build any thing upon the fact of the resurrection but truth, self-denial, and the purest righteousness. Did they indeed lie? And did they lie only to make people good-and all that for no other personal comforts, but stripes, prisons, crucifictions, and excruciating tortures? Indeed if they were liars, they must have been such a kind of liars as never happened to visit this world before or since!

They must have been an astonishing kind of men to have got away the body-to have been all agreed to propagate a lie for the sake of making others good, and themselves miserable;-to have all gone out into the wide persecuting world, appearing to perform miracles without ever once being detected-to have acted at all times with the promptness, the energy, and contempt of danger and death, that men would do who really believed God with themthat not one of them should ever expose the craft, or be discouraged, or shrink from the cruel scenes every where before them that they should actually deceive hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gentiles in their own age, who should manifest the purest feelings and most exalted virtues that they should seem inspired with a superhuman devotion to the cause, which disarmed dungeon torments and cruel flames of their terrours, and made them rejoice to suffer for the sake of the glory of a better world! Oh, God! were these men impostors? What mysterious power moved upon mankind, that such an imposture should triumph against the world in arms?

4. Paul boldly declared that five hundred persons saw Jesus at one time after his resurrection; and that most of

them were living to testify to its truth then when he wrote. -I. Cor. xv. 6. Would he have said that if he knew it to be false? Would he not have feared that unbelievers might inquire for those five hundred or most of them, that they might be examined on the subject, and thus expose him as an impostor ?

Finally, the resurrection of Christ, with all the facts connected with the truth of christianity, is sustained by more positive and unquestionable evidence than any other event which passed prior to our existence. And only two things can be assigned, why, all do not believe that have any knowledge on the subject. One is because the miracles designed to convince are so extraordinary and marvelous ; and the other is because christianity imposes an unwelcome restraint upon the vicious propensities of men.

The last reason, however, is rather an argument in favour of the truth of christianity; and the first is no objection. For if the miracles had not been extraordinary, all would have imputed them to the ordinary powers of men, and they would not have convinced any. Even extraordinary as they were, the early infidels knew of no way to manage them, but to attribute them to some magick art, and the Jews attributed them to the devil. They could not deny their existence. But why should not all that believe in a God, believe in a miracle, when well attested, as soon as an ordinary thing, so long as they do not believe it too great a work for God to perform? All that believe in a God, therefore, have not a single argument with which to oppose the grand truth presented in this number. But if they believe not in a God, when all creation eternally proclaims his existence, we cannot convince them. Could we speak for ever with a million of tongues, and every word a demonstration, we could never do more than begin the argument that there is a God. Admit this true—and every objection to christiany falls to the ground-if there be a God, christianity is proved beyond all controversy. If

there be not-then-ah-then-every thing is a miracle indeed!! We boldly say, that atheism or deism embraces millions of miracles, as often as christianity recognizes one. To conclude in the words of Saurin, collect all these proofs together; consider them in one point of view, and see how many extravagant suppositions must be advanced, if the resurrection of our Saviour be denied. It must be supposed that guards, who had been particularly cautioned by their officers, sat down to sleep, and that, nevertheless, they deserved credit when they said the body of Jesus Christ was stolen. It must be supposed that men who had been imposed upon in the most odious and cruel manner in the world, hazarded their dearest enjoyments for the glory of an impostor. It must be supposed that ignorant and illiterate men, who had neither reputation, fortune nor eloquence, possessed the art of fascinating the eyes of all the church. It must be supposed, either that five hundred persons were all deprived of their senses at a time, or that they were all deceived in the plainest matters of facts; or that this multitude of false witnesses had found out the secret of never contradicting themselves or one another, and of being always uniform in their testimony. It must be supposed that the most expert courts of judicature could not find out a shadow of contradiction in a palpable imposture. It must be supposed that the apostles, sensible men in other cases, chose precisely those places and those times which were most unfavourable to their views. It must be supposed that millions madly suffered imprisonments, tortures and crucifixion to spread an illusion. It must be supposed that ten thousand miracles were wrought in favour of falsehood, or all these facts must be denied. And then it must be supposed that the apostles were idiots, that the enemies. of christianity were idiots, and that all the primitive christians were idiots."

VIII. Evidence drawn from Prophecy.-An author defines prophecy to be "a miracle of knowledge, a declara

tion, or description, or representation of something future, beyond the power of human sagacity to discern or to calculate, and it is the highest evidence that can be given of supernatural communion with the Deity, and of the truth of a revelation from God."

Prophecy is often better evidence to us than any other kind of miracles; for in many cases we depend not on the testimony of others; but we know that things were predicted, and we see that they are fulfilled in our own time and before our own eyes; so that we become witnesses of the miracles ourselves. Some few remakable prophecies we will enumerate out of the many the Bible contains, which unanswerably prove its revelation. We will use the words of Horne:

1. "Ishmael's name and fortune were announced before he was born; particularly, that his descendants should be very numerous, and that he should beget twelve princes. The whole came to pass precisely as it was foretold. Compare Gen. xvi. 10-13. xvi. 20. and xxv. 12-18. I will make him a great nation, said Jehovah to Abraham, (Gen. xvII. 20,) and this prediction was accomplished as soon as it could be in the regular course of nature. From Ishmael proceeded the various tribes of Arabs (also called Saracens, by christian writers,) who anciently were, and still continue to be a very powerful people. They might, indeed, be emphatically styled a great nation, when the Saracens made their rapid and extensive conquests during the middle ages, and erected one of the largest empires that ever were in the world. He will be a wild mar (Gen. XVI. 12.) literally a wild ass-man, that is, as wild as a wild ass: and the account of that animal, in Job xxxIx. 5-8, affords the best possible description of the wandering, lawless, and freebooting lives and manners of the Arabs.Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the