of the institution, without their previous belief and acceptance of the story; or lastly of forcing that belief, without a story, of so palpable and public a nature, being actually true.*

* The rules applied by Leslie to this investigation are the four following First, That the matter of fact be such, that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears may be judges of it. 2d, That it be done publicly in the face of the world. 3d, That not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed. 4th, That such monuments, or such actions and observances as be instituted, do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done."

"The two first rules make it impossible for any such matter of fact to be imposed upon men at the time when such matter of fact was said to be done; because every man's eyes and senses would contradict it."

"Therefore it only remains that such matter of fact might be invented some time after, when the men of that generation wherein the thing was said to be done are all past and gone, and the credulity of after ages might be imposed upon to believe that things were done in former ages which were not.

"And for this the two last rules secure us as much as the two first rules in the former case.'

He applies these rules with great good effect to the histories both of Moses and Christ. The chief Jewish memorials which he notices are the Feast of the Passover-Aaron's Rod-the lot of Manna-the Brazen Serpent-the Feast of Pentecost-the Sabbath-the Sacrifices--the Feasts and Fasts in general-the tribe of Levi-the stones at Gilgal.

His treatment of the last of these memorials may be given as a fair specimen of his whole argument.

"Now to frame our argument, let us suppose, that there never was any such thing as that passage over Jordan-that these stones at Gilgal were set up upon some other occasion in some after age -and then that some designing man invented this book of Joshua, and said that it was writ by Joshua at that time, and gave this stoneage at Gilgal for a testimony of the truth of it-would not every body say to him, we know this stoneage at Gilgal, but we never heard before of this reason for it, nor of this book of Joshua. Where has it been all this while? And where and how came you after so many ages to find it? Besides this book tells us that this passage over Jordan was ordained to be taught our children from age to age; and therefore that they were always to be instructed in the meaning of that stoneage at Gilgal as a memorial of it. But were never taught it when we were children, nor did ever

we

63. He applies this argument with great effect to Christianity, which has its Sabbath, and its standing ministry, and its Baptism, and its Sacrament of the Supper-all of them coeval with itself; and the last of them especially commemorative, not merely of the death of our Saviour, but in the words by which we are enjoined to "do this till he come again" commemorative also of his resurrection. The annual celebrations of this solemnity may be regarded, then, as the stepping-stones, by which the tradition of this great miracle has descended on sure footing from the first age of the gospel to the time in which we live. It has moved downward for nearly two thousand years on a solid pathway— handed from one to another, in a progression that could not possibly have commenced later than the age of the Apostles; and could not possibly have commenced then, without the general faith of a persecuted and therefore a pure and an upright church, in an event about which it was impossible to deceive them.

teach our children any such thing; and it is not likely that thing could have been forgotten, while so remarkable a stoneage did continue which was set up for that and no other end."

"The matters of fact of Mahomet, or what is fabled of the heathen deities, do all want some of the aforesaid rules, whereby the certainty of matters of fact is demonstrated."

"I do not say that every thing which wants these four marks is false; but that nothing can be false which has them all."

The Essay altogether is terse and powerful, and one of the happiest specimens in existence of good wholesome English argu

ment.

There are certain other material vestiges of the truth of Revelation, by the investigation of which we should break up a new and a rich mine of evidence in its favour. We refer to coins and medals, and architectural monuments, confirmatory of the Jewish and Christian histories, and more especially of the facts connected with the origin of the latter dispensation.

CHAPTER VI.

On the secure and impregnable Character of the Historical Argument for the Truth of Christianity.

1. If there be one thing more distinctive of all that is sound in our Modern Philosophy than another, it is the respect which it maintains throughout for the evidence of observation. Now the original witnesses of the gospel had the evidence of observation for the truth of its recorded miracles. And to us of the present day, it comes in the shape of observation at second hand-coming as it does through the medium of a testimony altogether unexampled in strength and sureness. The office of history is to inform us, not of that which has fallen under the observation of our own senses, but of that which has fallen under the observation of the senses of other men-and, if only transmitted to us by a sure pathway, then, though it may be termed derivative rather than direct or primary observation, yet may it claim the same rightful authority over all that is of a conjectural character, which is now allowed at all hands to the evidence of facts over the gratuitous fancies of Theory or Speculation. And it does give a more entire character of purely observational evidence to the evidence of testimony, that beside reporting to us the observation of others, it is upon observation of our own, upon the experience we have had of the

characters of truth and falsehood in other men, that we immediately pass our judgment on the credibility of any narrative which may happen to be submitted to us. This is one good effect of proving the faith of testimony to be resolvable into the faith of experience. It gives, out and out, to the evidence for the miracles of the gospel, the character of a solid experimental and Baconian evidence—and as much superior to the hypothetical imaginations which have been opposed to it, as are the certainties of that terra firma which is within the circle of observation, to the plausibilities however ingenious of that terra incognita which is bevond it.

2. After having attained this secure vantageground, we have only to make a right use of its capabilities in order to disperse certain phantoms which Infidelity has conjured up from a dim and inaccessible region. Perhaps the two most notable examples of this are first, the presumption on which the enemies of revelation have attempted to discredit it, because of its imagined incongruity with their geological speculations-second the presumption on which a similar attempt has been made, because of the imagined incongruity between the Theology of the Bible and the Theology of Nature. The one presumption is fetched from a distant antiquity, and supposes an acquaintance with the secrets of a physical history that no human spectator witnessed, and of which no human record has been transmitted to us. The other presumption is fetched from an obscurity profounder still, and supposes an acquaintance

with the mysteries of the spiritual world of which the duration reaches from Eternity to Eternity; and which besides, as much surpasses the audacity of the former presumption, as the dimensions of our single earth are surpassed by the dimensions of the universe. Meanwhile we have a stable historical, or, which is really tantamount to this, a stable observational evidence for the miracles of the New Testament; and it only remains to be shown, how this enables us to stand our ground against sceptical geologists on the one hand, and sceptical theists upon the other.

3. I. There are certain late speculations in geology which give the example of a distant and unconnected circumstance, being suffered to cast an unmerited disgrace over the whole of our argument. They give a higher antiquity to the world, than most of those who read the Bible had any conception of. Admit this antiquity; and in what possible way does it touch upon the historical evidence for the New Testament? The credibility of the gospel miracles stands upon its own appropriate foundation, the recorded testimony of numerous and unexceptionable witnesses. The only way in which we can overthrow that credibility is by attacking the testimony, or disproving the authenticity of the record. Every other science is tried upon its own peculiar evidences: and all we contend for is, that the same justice be done to theology. When a mathematician offers to apply his reasoning to the phenomena of mind, the votaries of moral science resent it as an invasion, and make their appeal to the evidence of