history so perfectly credible, according to the most established rules of evidence, as it is."* Besides the universal tradition in the Christian church, and the written testimony of the apostles, there is yet a third ground upon which we believe the resurrection of Christ. "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater;" and that witness was given in the extraordinary powers which were conferred upon the apostles before they began to execute their commission, and which continued with them always. I stated these powers formerly as the fulfilment of prophecy. But they present themselves at this place as the vouchers of the testimony of the apostles; and in this light they are uniformly stated both by our Lord and by the witnesses themselves. He said to them before his death, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, he shall testify of me ;" and "he will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me."t Again, a little before his ascension, he said, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, aud ye shall be witnesses to me." Peter, in one of his first sermons, speaking of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, says, "We are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him."§ The word translated comforter, in the first passage that I quoted, is ragazλntos, which exactly corresponds in etymology to the Latin word advocatus, from which comes our word advocate, a person called in to stand by another in a court of justice, to assist him in pleading his cause, and confuting his adversaries. The apostles spake before kings and governors, before the whole world, bearing witness to the resurrection of Christ. But lest they should be confounded by the subtlety, or overwhelmed by the power of their enemies, here is a divine person promised to confirm what they said, and to join with them in convincing the world of their sin in rejecting Jesus, and of his righteousness, that although he had been condemned as a malefactor, he was accounted righteous in the sight of God. His own works were the evidence, to which he always appealed in his lifetime, that God was with him; and when he left the earth, the works which he enabled his servants to perform, the same in kind with his own, were the evidence that he had returned to his Father. "Therefore," says Peter on the day of Pentecost, "being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear."|| Here is another instance of that uniformity which we have often occasion to mark in the evidence of Christianity; the same divine attestation of the servants of Jesus as of himself; the same proof of his resurrection from the dead, as of the high claim which he advanced when he was alive. "The works which I do," he said, "bear witness that the Father hath sent me; and the works which I do, shall ye my apostles do also, because I go to my Father." We are thus led back to the amount of the argument from miracles, in order to perceive the nature of that confirmation which this testimony of the * Hist. of Early Opinions, iv. 19. § Acts v. 32. † John xv. 26; xvi. 8, 9. + Acts i. 8. Spirit gives to the testimony of the apostles. If there be an almighty Ruler of the universe, who has established what we call the laws of nature, and who can suspend them at his pleasure; and if this almighty Ruler be a God of truth, who takes an interest in the happiness of his reasonable offspring, it is impossible that the apostles of Jesus could be invested with powers, the exertion of which was fitted to convince every candid observer of the truth of an imposture; and, therefore, since signs and wonders far beyond the measure of human power are ascribed to the apostles in authentic histories published at the time, in epistles addressed by themselves to the witnesses of those signs, and in the writings of authors nearly contemporary; since no attempt was made to disprove the facts at the time when the imposture might have been easily exposed, and since the signs were expressly wrought in confirmation of this assertion of the apostles, that their Master was risen from the dead, we are constrained by the strongest moral evidence to believe that that assertion was true. It is impossible for words to make this argument plainer. But there are some particulars which may illustrate the economy of the divine dispensation in conferring these extraordinary powers, and the connection which they have with the other branches of the evidence for Christianity. The day upon which our Lord rose was the day after that Sabbath which was the passover, i. e. it was the first day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath being the seventh; and it was called in the Levitical law, the wave-offering. Pentecost was the VTηoorη uga, the 50th day from the wave-offering. It was therefore also the first day of the week, and it was a day upon which all the males of Judea were supposed to be present before the Lord in Jerusalem. Our Lord remained forty days upon earth after his resurrection, and he probably spent the greatest part of that time in Galilee. But he was in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem upon the fortieth day, for he ascended from Mount Olivet.* The apostles, who probably would feel it to be their duty as Jews to be present at the approaching festival, were commanded by their Master not to depart from Jerusalem till they received the promise of the Father: for, said he, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." Accordingly the eleven returned from the mount, where they had witnessed the ascension, to Jerusalem, and continued quietly with the disciples in prayer and supplication. We have reason to think that they did not appear in public; and we do not read of any other transaction but filling up the Apostolical College, till the day of Pentecost, the tenth day after the ascension, when, being "all with one accord in one place, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The gift of tongues was the first that was exercised, because it was suited to the occasion. Devout Jews and proselytes were assembled, from respect to the festival, out of all countries. To every one in his own tougue, the apostles, inspired with fortitude, another gift of the Spirit, spoke the wonderful works of God. And Peter explained the appearance which excited their wonder, to be the attestation which, in fulfilment of their own prophecies, God was now bearing to the re Luke xxiv. 50: Acts i. 12. C surrection of the Messiah, whom, after all the works that he had done in the midst of them, their rulers had crucified, but whom God had exalted. You can thus trace, in the time of conferring these powers, the wise adjustment of means to an end. You see the silence and quietness, which had been maintained after the death of Christ, abundantly compensated by the public manner in which the gospel is first preached. The apostles are directed to submit their claim to the examination of the greatest multitude that could be assembled at Jerusalem; and the report, which this multitude would carry to their own countries of so extraordinary an appearance, was employed as an instrument of preparing many different parts of the world for the preaching of the apostles, who were soon to visit them. The powers themselves are delineated in the Acts and in the Epistles. You read of the word of wisdom, i. e. a clear comprehensive view of the Christian scheme-the word of knowledge, probably the faculty of tracing the connection between the Jewish and Christian dispensationprophecy, either the applying of the prophecies in the Old Testament, or the foretelling future events-healing-the gift of tongues -the gift of interpreting tongues-and the gift of discerning spirits, that is, perceiving the true character of men under the disguise which they assumed, so as to be able to detect impostors. There is a variety in these gifts corresponding to all the possible occasions of the teachers of this new religion. Some of them, being external and visible, were the signs and pledges of those which, although invisible, were not less necessary. Some of them were disseminated through the Christian church, and the gifts of healing and of tongues were often conferred by the hands of the apostles upon believers. This abundance of miraculous gifts was proper at that time, to demonstrate to the world the fulness of those treasures which were dispensed by the Lord Jesus, the dignity with which he had invested his apostles, and the obligation which lay upon all Christians to receive his word at their mouth. It was proper to rouse the attention of the world to a new religion, to overcome those considerations of prudence which made them unwilling to forsake the religion of their fathers, and to inspire them with steadfastness in the faith. It was proper also to remove the prejudices which the Jews entertained against the heathen, and to satisfy those who boasted of the privileges of the law, that God had received the Gentiles. Cornelius and his kinsmen and his friends were the first uncircumcised persons to whom the gospel was preached. They of the circumcision who believed were astonished when they saw the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out upon them, and heard them speak with tongues. Peter considered this as his warrant to baptize them: and when he reported it afterwards to the apostles and brethren at Jerusalem, they no longer blamed what he had done, but "held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." This abundance of miraculous gifts, which so many reasons rendered proper at the first appearance of Christianity, was gradually withdrawn as the occasions ceased. We have no reason to think * 1 Cor. xii. 8-10. that any but the apostles had the power of conferring such gifts upon others. We are not indeed warranted to say that miraculous gifts were never visible in any who had not received them from the hands of the apostles. But we know that in the succeeding generations they became more rare. And when we were speaking of this subject formerly, we found writers in the third, and beginning of the fourth century, acknowledging that only some vestiges of such gifts remained in their days. If you lay together the several particulars which have been mentioned respecting the economy of these miraculous gifts, it will appear that as, from their nature, they were the unquenchable witnesses of the Spirit, confirming the testimony which the apostles bore to the resurrection of their Master; so, in the manner of their being conferred, every wise observer may trace the finger of God. There is none of that waste which betrays ostentation, none of that scantiness or delay which implies a defect of power, no circumstance unworthy of the divine author of them; but the wisdom and power of God are united in the cause of the Gospel, and the same fitness and dignity, which distinguished the miracles of Jesus, are transferred to the works which his Spirit enabled his apostles to perform. CHAPTER IX. PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. In our Lord's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, we meet with these words: "This Gospel of the kingdom shall first be preached to all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come." These words mark the space intervening between the prediction and the termination of the Jewish state, that is, a space of less than forty years, as the period within which the Gospel was to be preached to all nations. When we attended to the fulfilment of this prophecy, we found that the account given in the book of Acts, of the multitude of early converts, of the dispersion of the Christians, and of the success of Paul's labours, is confirmed by the most unexceptionable testimony. We learn from Tacitus, that in the year of our Lord 63, thirty years after his death, there was an immense multitude of Christians in Rome. From the capital of the world, the communication was easy through all the parts of the Roman empire; and no country then discovered was too distant to hear the gospel. Accordingly it is generally agreed, that before the destruction of Jerusalem, Scythia on the north, India on the east, Gaul and Egypt on the west, and Ethiopia on the south, had received the doctrine of Christ. And Britain, which was then regarded as the extremity of the earth, being frequently visited during that period by Roman emperors or their generals, there is no improbability in what is affirmed by Christian historians, that the gospel was preached in the capital of this island thirty years after the death of our Saviour. The last fact which Scripture contains respecting the propagation of Christianity, is found in the book of Revelation. It appears from the epistles which John was cominanded to write to the ministers of the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, that there were, during the life of that apostle, seven regular Christian churches in Asia Minor. We may consider the facts hitherto mentioned as the fulfilment of that prophecy which I quoted. As to the progress of our religion, subsequent to the period marked in the prophecy, we derive no light from the books of the New Testament, because there is none of them which we certainly know to be of a later date than the destruction of Jerusalem. But there are other authentic monuments from which I shall state you the fact; and then I shall lead you to consider the force of the argument for the truth of Christianity, which has been grounded upon that fact. The younger Pliny, proconsul of Bithynia, writes in the end of the first century to the emperor Trajan, asking directions as to his conduct |