3. The apostles were under no temptation to forge a story of this kind, or to pul)lisli it to the world know- ing it to he false. 4. Ilad, tlicy done so, humanly speaking, they must quickly have perished in it, and their foolish cause must have died with them, without
ever gaining anj' credit in the world. Reflect more particularly on the nature of those grand facts, the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ, which formed the great foundation of the Christian scheme, as first exhibited to the apostles. The resurrection of a dead man, and his ascension into an abode in the upper world, were such strange things that a thousand objections would immediately have been raised against them, and some extraordinary proof would have been justly required as a balance to them. Consider the manner in which the apostles undertook to prove the truth of tlieir testimon}' to these facts, and it will evi- dentl}' appear that, instead of confirming their scheme, it must have been sufficient utterly to have overthrown it, had it been itself the most probable imposture that the wit of man could ever have contrived. See Acts iii, ix, xiv, xix, etc. They did not merel}' assert that they had seen miracles wrought by Jesus, but that he had endowed them with a variety of miraculous pow- ers ; and tliese they undertook to display, not in such idle and useless tricks as sleight of hand might per- form, but in such solid and important works as ap- peared worth}' of divine interposition, and entirely su- perior to human power. Nor were these things un- dertaken in a corner, in a circle of friends or depend- ents ; nor were they said to be wrought, as might be suspected, by any confederates in the fraud ; but they were done often in the most public manner. Would impostors have made such pi'etensions as these ? or, if they had, must they not immediately have been ex- posed and ruined? Now, if the New Testament be genuine, then it is certain that the apostles pretend to have wrought miracles in the very presence of those to whom their writings were addressed; nay, more, they profess likewise to have conferred those miracu- lous gifts in some considerable degrees on others, even on the very persons to whom they write, and they ap- peal to their consciences as to the truth of it. And could there possibly be room for delusion liere ? 5. It is likewise certain that the apostles did gain early credit, and succeeded in a most wonderful manner. This is abundantly proved by the vast number of churches established in early ages at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, etc. G. That, admitting the facts which they testified concerning Christ to be true, then it was reasonable for their contemporaries, and is rea- sonable for us, to receive the Gospel which they have transmitted to us as a divine revelation. Tlie great thing they asserted was, that Jesus was the Christ, and that he was proved to be so by prophecies accomplish- ed in him, and by miracles wrought by him, and by others in his name. If we attend to these, we shall find them to be no contemptible arguments, but must be forced to acknowledge that, the premises being es- tablished, the conclusion most easily and necessarily follows ; and this conclusion, that Jesus is tlie Christ, taken in all its extent, is an abstract of the Gospel rev- elation, and tlierefore is sometimes put for the whole of it (Acts viii, 37 ; xvii, 18)" (Buck, TheoL Diet. s. v. Christianity).
2. The Internal evidence of Christianity is drawn from a consideration of the doctrines of Scripture, of their consistency with the character of God, and their tendency to promote the virtue and happiness of men. It takes note also of the morals of Christianity, and of their superiority to all other systems of ethics ; and especially of tlie character of Christ, as a real life far transcending even the highest imaginations of merely human moralists. " Of its just and sublime concep- tions and exliibitions of the divine character; of the trutli of that view of the moral state of man upon which it,s disciplinar}' treatment is founded ; of the coiTespondence that there is between its views of man's mixed relation to God as a sinful creature, and yet pitied and cared for, and that actual mixture of good and evil, penalty and forbearance, which the condi- tion of the world presents ; of the connection of its
EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 377 E\TDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY