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influences of a dissolute life, could utterly extinguish. It burst forth from its smouldering ruins in the following sublime eulogy of the Gospel and its divine Founder :

"I will confess to you," says the infidel associate of Hume, "that the majesty of the scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the scriptures! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness and without ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginary good man, loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking, that all the fathers perceived it. What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them!

Socrates, dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was anything more than a mere sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just, before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas had given up his life for his country, before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn among his cotemporaries, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only hath given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelical history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction: on the con

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trary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obviating it; it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel; the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero."

CHAPTER IX.

THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL.

Miracles of Christianity internal proofs of divinity-Science of juridical evidence applied to christian history-Writers of Gospel not deceived-Miracles palpable to senses-Abiding in effects— Infallible-No collusion-Open and public-Continued for years in presence of friends and foes-Writers of Gospel had good sense and sound understanding-Deposed from personal knowledge— Paul knew with certainty whether miracles of his conversion and those wrought by himself were real-Writers of Gospel eight in number-Testimonies equivalent to judicial depositions.

THE miracles of the Gospel have been generally classed among its external evidences. We cannot perceive the propriety of that classification. Of the christian prodigies, the Gospel is the only primary record; of their reality, the evangelical writers are the only original witnesses whose depositions survive to the present day. Instead of being extraneous, its miracles constitute integral parts of the New Testament. The scriptural accounts of the sayings of Jesus Christ are universally acknowledged to belong to the internal evidences of Christianity; the scriptural accounts of the doings of Jesus Christ are testimonials alike internal. It

is the Gospel itself that proves the sublime theism and the pure ethics taught by the Prophet of Nazareth, so indicative of his divinity; it is the Gospel itself that also proves his wonderful works, so demonstrative that he was the Son of God. The confirmations derived from foreign sources constitute the external evidences of our holy religion.

It would be irrelevant to our argument to discuss the abstract question whether a miracle must necessarily, and in all cases, verify the dogma it is designed to uphold. Such discussion would gratuitously bring under review the cases of the Egyptian magicians, and of the sorceress of Endor, with other scriptural passages seeming to countenance the existence of "lying wonders." It is enough for our purpose that the sole tendency of the Gospel is to promote the glory of God, the holiness of man, the discomfiture of the powers of darkness. For the authentication of such a system of faith and of ethics, evil demons would not work miracles if they could. It would display a "kingdom divided against itself." If genuine, the christian miracles must have been from above; they are to be deemed the broad seals of heaven to the Gospel's truth.

The science of evidence is an important depart

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