that a perseverance in a false assertion of innoeence has been found." But there is an important difference and a manifest superiority in the case of the Apostles, to both of them. They suffered not for stubbornness of opinion so much as the assertion of facts, and not for the mere assertion of facts alone, but for the continued and undeviating assertion of facts, of which if they had renounced their belief, they had lived and been rewarded. Such were the followers of Jesus Christ, and even their persecutors when they viewed their patience under suffering must have felt and acknowledged their sincerity in their fortitude-must have perceived that they spoke of what they knew, and thought, at least, that they had seen the wonders which they recorded.

But have we not here introduced a circum stance which vitiates the credibility of at least some portion of their evidence? If the works of Christ were of such a wonderful nature, is it not possible that the understandings of the Apostles might have been so confounded by the awfulness, and unsettled by the glory of the scenes to which they were admitted, as to make them think that they had seen what they never saw, and so to

h The Ashtons at Lancaster, and two criminals at the last assizes at Carlisle, died declaring their innocence against the clearest proof of their guilt.

mistake and misrepresent the mighty acts of the Lord, as to render their testimony admissible only to a certain extent? In answer to this question, let us contemplate for a moment the character of the facts themselves.

"There arose a great

One of them is this. tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves, but Jesus was asleep," Now who is there, with the common senses of mortality about him, that could not give a clear and decided testimony to an occurrence so usual and yet so striking as this? Again, it is said, that "his disciples came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us, we perish."" And who that has the feelings and memory of a man, would not recollect to the latest hour of his life the fears he had experienced, and the words he had uttered, in a moment so trying and so terrible? Lastly, it is observed, that Jesus "arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, 'Peace, be still.' And the wind ceased and there

was a great calm."

had ears to hear,

And who, I would ask, that would not remember the answer of his Master in such an hour? Or who that had eyes to see, could refuse to mark the change which had been wrought upon the waters of the deep?

Matt. viii. 24, &c.

Take another instance. 66

When Jesus was

come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever." The fact is simple in itself, and one, of which the testimony of the most unlearned is a sufficient proof; and as little could the most careless be mistaken in that which immediately follows. "And he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose, and ministered unto them."

Now what is there in either of these narratives that should make us doubt the competency of an honest man to give a clear and consistent testimony? The circumstances are all in themselves of ordinary occurrence. That a fever should quit the body of a woman who was sick, and that she should rise from her bed to return to her usual occupations that the tempest should cease its raging, and the troubled billows of a stormy ocean become still in all this there was nothing to confound the understanding or mislead the judgment of them that saw it. I do not pretend to say that all the works of Jesus which the Apostles beheld and have recorded were of the same simple and ordinary character. I know that many were of a different complexion. I have followed my Redeemer to the solitudes of Galilee,

* Matt. xviii. 14.

and there marked the amazement of the disciples' mind, as they looked upon the glory of his transfiguration, and were sore afraid, neither knowing what to think, nor wisting what to say. I have seen him walking in the hour of darkness upon the waters, and scarce wondered at the faithlessness of Peter. I have been with the Apostles to the Mount of Olives, and, struck dumb with the wonders of the scene, have continued gazing, with them, abstractedly up into heaven, vainly endeavouring to pierce the cloud by the intensity of my vision, and catch another glimpse of my ascended Lord. ascended Lord. I have meditated solemnly upon all these things, and humbly confess, that had I been admitted, like the Apostles, to behold them upon the earth, I know not whether I could have held the possession of my faculties unimpaired. But what of this? If by arguments deduced from those miracles of Jesus which were of a more common and less confounding nature,-if by inferences drawn from those wonders where mercy, unmingled with awfulness, prevailed, and where there were no splendid terrors to drive Reason from her seat, and where there was nothing, therefore, that could impeach the credibility of the witnesses,if by the testimony of the Evangelists to simple facts, we can once fairly establish the divine authority of the Gospel,-the certainty of every

other wonder it records, however awfully glorious or sublimely obscure, must follow in the train of its various consequences. We may not perhaps be authorized to reckon the Transfiguration or the Ascension amongst the number of those premises from which the truth of Christianity itself is in the first instance or solely to be drawn; but, when once that truth has been ascertained by any other means, the truth of these wonders becomes a necessary and irresistible conclusion, because they form a part of what has already been proved to be true. It is requisite

to mark and remember this distinction between the different kinds of our Saviour's miracles, because it is by exclusively directing his efforts against those which are more singular in their nature, that the Deist would disturb the repose of the Christian upon the credibility of the Evangelists.

Seeing then that they lived a life of suffering and died a death of torture in the cause, the Apostles of our Lord must be allowed to have been faithful and unprejudiced witnesses, and their testimony, as such, to be substantially true.

Deny then what we may, and disbelieve what we will, we cannot overthrow the credit which is due to the inspired writers, or call in question