CHAPTER II.

SHEWING THAT THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IS

OF SUCH A NATURE THAT IT ADMITS OF BEING BROUGHT HOME INDIVIDUALLY, WITH CONVINCING POWER, TO EVERY MAN'S BOSOM.

It is never to be forgotten that those who are called to examine the divine pretensions of Christianity are the very persons interested in its communications. To man it distinctly makes its appeal, and in him it proposes to effect that mighty renovation of which it speaks. Should it be true, then, to its own assumed character, it will undoubtedly verify its several claims in the personal consciousness of all its recipients. I choose to begin here, because I am satisfied that no man can sit down to investigate the truth of his Bible, who does not stand in need of light on the subjects of which it treats. Every man's conscience may suggest to him that he has

offended against God, that he has violated, in innumerable instances, his own sense of right and wrong, and that there may be some fearful retribution awaiting transgressors in another and unknown state of existence. But whatever Reason may surmise on these subjects, she has no balm with which to soothe an anguished conscience, no system of propitiation by which to relieve a guilty and foreboding mind, no mediator between the offended Majesty of Heaven and his erring creatures. It is Christianity alone which opens up a door of hope to an apostate race; every thing besides is utter conjecture. Infidels may boast of the composure and satisfaction they feel in contemplating the issues of the present life; but their exemption from anxious dread is but one instance out of many in which the voice of conscience is silenced by that spirit of utter and reckless scepticism, which on the one hand rejects a mass of well-authenticated evidence, and on the other professes firm belief and unshaken confidence in its own dogmas, without so much as a tittle of proof to support them.

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The man, then, who examines Christianity in a right spirit, may expect to perceive, in its intimate bearing on his own case, that it is of God. If he is in that state of mind which is suitable to a rational creature anxious to know the will of God, he will find in Christianity what he can discover no where else. Is he conscious of sin? it reveals to him its true character, traces it to its source, and points to its consequences. Is he the subject of legitimate dread and apprehension in prospect of standing before an offended God? it tells him how his guilt may be effectually removed, and how the peace of an accusing conscience may be restored. Is he oppressed whenever he thinks of the divine purity, and contrasts it with a nature ever prone to evil? it proposes to subject him to a healing and remedial process, by which moral health is to be restored to his diseased soul, and by which he is to be taught to delight in God, and to aspire after his likeness. Is he mournfully sensible of the fact, that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit," and that nothing under the sun can satisfy the desires of a mind panting after immortality? it opens up to his

view sources of never-ending delight, it brings him to the very fountain of all happiness, it shews him how his fondest expectations may be realized, it tells him how to delight in God, and how to draw near in acceptable worship to Him whom angels adore, and before whom the spirits of darkness flee in terror and dismay.

It becomes every man who sets himself to the task of examining Christianity, to fix his attention on the following momentous inquiry:-"Is this professed revelation adapted to my actual necessities? to my fears and hopes? to the circumstances by which I am surrounded? and to the prospects which stretch before me?" If, upon minute inquiry, it is found to be thus adapted to our fallen state, it will surely carry along with it a striking demonstration of its divine origin; and if, upon actual experiment, we find that the reception of Christianity allays our guilty fears, gives peace to our troubled consciences, quenches the thirst of sin, inspires the hope of immortality, supplies motives for patient endurance, and sheds the lustre of moral loveliness and purity over the character in whom it dwells, then may we

assure ourselves of the source whence it sprung, and then may we enter, with a full heart, into the meaning of the beloved disciple when he says, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."*

“I think,” said the good and great Richard Baxter, "that in the hearing and reading of the Bible, God's spirit often so concurreth, as that the will itself should be touched with an internal gust and savour of the goodness contained in the doctrine, and at the same time the understanding with an internal irradiation, which breeds such a certain apprehension of the verity of it, as nature gives men of natural principles. And I am persuaded that this, increased by more experience and love, doth hold most Christians faster to Christ than naked reasonings could do. And were it not for this, unlearned, ignorant persons were still in danger of apostacy by every subtle caviller that assaults them. And I be

* John v. 10. See also a discourse, by the Author, on “the Experimental Evidence of Christianity,” included in a volume lately published by ministers connected with the Monthly Meeting, "On the Evidences of Christianity."