endeavor to answer it. In order to do so, let us, if possible, form a conception of the case which must have been presented to us by the Christian witnesses, in order that our belief might have been challenged on the ground of such human testimony alone. Let us then suppose that the Christian scheme of religion bore no internal mark of divinity; that in its views of man and of God it stood on the same level as the philosophy of a Plato, or an Aristotle; that there were nothing in the character of Jesus, the personage around whom the whole clusters, to distinguish him from any of the sages of antiquity; that the alleged miracles did not claim to have been wrought in the midst of angry thousands, ready to imbrue their hands in the blood of the advocates of the new religion, and of course to prove them impostors if they could, but only in presence of the witnesses themselves, or at most of their friends and followers; that no voice of prophecy had ever predicted the coming Saviour, and that no general expectation had existed of the coming of such a personage; that the testimony of these men had either been rejected in the age in which they lived, or received, if at all, in such a way as to imply no argument in favor of the truth of the testimony; and that there were nothing in the subsequent history of the world inconsistent with the supposition that the whole was an imposition. Now, we ask the candid reader, if, on such grounds as these, our faith were challenged in the miracles of the gospel, would any sober-minded man think of believing them? Grant they were men of unimpeached probity; grant that they claim, and that collateral history proved them to have had the most intimate intercourse with the reputed author of the miracles, and consequently the best opportunity of detecting the fraud, if one existed. Grant that they were intelligent, sober-minded men, so far as history threw any light on their characters. Grant also that they had endured on account of their testimony the greatest sacrifices, and had finally all submitted to a cruel death, rather than abjure it; still, if they testified to miracles such as recorded in the Bible, and in circumstances such as we have supposed, would any rational man believe them? Would not every thinking man say, they might have been laboring under a fatal delusion? or they might have been impelled, by some secret motive of great strength, to practise on the credulity of mankind? Would not either of these suppositions appear far more probable than an interruption of nature's course? If any one should be found to maintain that in such a case we should and ought to believe, we desire to propound to him another question:-Why then did God ever work miracles in presence of mankind at all? If in such circumstances as these, the testimony of a Moses, a Paul, or a Peter, is to be taken, why not receive the religion directly on their testimony, without ever founding it on miracles at all? The man who testifies that he has had a secret personal interview with God, asserts a thing no harder to be believed, than he who testifies that he has seen a dead man raised to life; or a violent storm hushed to a calm at the bare word of a human being: and if I can believe the latter, on the simple say-so of a fellow-man, in such circumstances as we have supposed, then why not the other? What in that case did our Saviour mean, when he said, "If I do not the works of the Father, believe me not ?"* Does he not warn the Jews against resting even his claims upon his mere say-so, and refer them to his miracles as the only trustworthy witnesses in his favor? What does Peter mean, on this supposition, when he says to the Jews: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved (accredited) of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, etc.?" Does he mean that, though the mere testimony of an apostle to a supernatural event is to be received as convincing evidence, the testimony of Jesus himself could only be received, when backed up by miracles, and wonders, and signs? To us this seems quite inadmissible. In view of these and other texts, is it not obvious that God did not intend that our faith should stand at any time on mere testimony? At least, do they not prove that this rule was acted on at the outset ? And, surely, it would have been of little avail to have started the system under this rule, if it was after all immediately to fall back on mere testimony, so far as respected all subsequent generations. But this point is ably argued in the work before us, and to it we refer the reader. Does any one object to this view of the subject, that it undermines the evidence in support of the divine authority of the Scriptures? Have we then no good and substantial foundation still left to rest them on? Is it no argument in their favor, that the only system of religion and morals ever taught on earth, which was either worthy of God, or suited to the wants of * John 10: 37, quoted by Prof. Turner. man, is the very one in evidence of which these miracles are alleged to have been wrought? Is it nothing that the character of the personage in whose name they were wrought, was one of superhuman, yea, of superangelic purity and virtue; not only surpassing all other actual specimens of human virtue, but all other conceptions either of the poet or the philosopher, as much as the brilliancy of the noonday sun surpasses the faint glimmerings of the taper? Skeptics and self-styled philosophers may say what they please of this argument: we risk nothing in the prediction, that while it remains, though all others were forgotten, the Bible will be received as true, and as the book of God, by all the most enlightened and pure-minded of the human race. While these facts remain, virtuous and right-minded men will believe and feel that it is probable that God would work miracles in confirmation of such a system, taught by such a personage; and that it is more probable that a thousand miracles have been wrought, than that such a man has practised imposition in support of such a system of religion. While this argument remains unimpaired, we shall always believe that the man who deliberately rejects Christianity, does so because he wishes to avoid the salutary restraints of responsibility to the God of the Bible, and not because there is not evidence enough to produce conviction. Again, is there nothing of argument in the fact, that the transactions recorded in the New Testament are boldly asserted to have taken place, in the midst of angry thousands, and sometimes millions, who might have disproved every fact stated in the writings of the apostles, had the statements been false, and yet they have never attempted to disprove one of them ?Nothing in the early reception of the faith of the crucified malefactor, in the midst of persecution the most bitter, and opposition the most formidable, by the most enlightened nations, and in the most enlightened age of antiquity ?-Nothing in the fact that the life of Jesus was the fulfilment of a long line of predictions, uttered and recorded hundreds of years before his birth, and one of them designating the very time of his appearance ?Is there nothing in the subsequent history of the world, or in the monuments which have survived the wreck of nations for nearly two thousand years, or in the condition of the Jews, at this moment a standing fulfilment of predictions uttered thousands of years ago, or in the present condition and prospects of Christendom, inconsistent with the supposition that the religion of Christ is an imposition and a delusion? Let it not be supposed, however, that we place the apostles as witnesses, on the same footing as the vile pretenders of other systems of religion. There are several points of distinction the most marked and the most honorable to the Christian witnesses. At two or three of these we will merely glance. In the case of pretenders to miracles under every other system of religion, we can distinctly see, in their circumstances and history, worldly and selfish motives of great power, impelling them to the practice of imposture in the case of the apostles and first Christians, no such motives appear. There is, on the contrary, abundant evidence from history, both sacred and profane, that every motive of this nature impelled them to deny Christ, though having certain knowledge of his divine character. It is indeed supposable that they might have so used the belief of the people in the new religion, as to have made it subservient to their own ambitious schemes of personal aggrandizement; but there is an entire absence of all evidence that they did so use it, or that they had ever any such schemes. Indeed, there is the most decided evidence that they had not. Paul, and Peter, and John were, so long as we are able to follow their history, the servants of all men for Jesus' sake: they not only suffered the loss of all, but they neither received nor sought any earthly equivalent they suffered the loss of all things that they might win Christ-they looked for their reward only in heaven. Compare these facts with the history of Joseph Smith and his witnesses. Fifteen years have not elapsed since the first pretended revelations, before we find the prophet, clad cap-a-pie in the costume of a military officer of the highest rank, and manoeuvering at the head of his armed Mormon legion. A Mormon community is organized, a Mormon city founded,-a splendid temple is commenced,-extensive joint-stock companies are chartered. Joseph Smith and his immediate friends and supporters manage the whole; and all are to be sustained by heavy contributions levied on the faithful, and to be controlled by direct revelations from the Lord, through his only prophet. These are the true signs of an impostor: in the Christian witnesses they are entirely wanting. Again, in almost or quite every other case of pretended miracles, the character of those who have claimed to work them, and of the religious system they taught, has been precisely consistent with the supposition that they were an imposition upon the credulity of mankind. In the case of the Christian witnesses they are entirely inconsistent with such a supposition. The men were precisely such as we should never expect to be guilty of a deep-laid plot to deceive, and the system was one in defence of which we should no sooner expect fraud to be practised, than we should expect thieves to steal Bibles for their own use. Again, the Christian witnesses are the only pretenders to miracles, who have ever placed their pretensions on such a footing, as that an imposition admitted of easy detection, and that too in circumstances in which thousands were disposed to discredit them if they could. We only purpose to indicate this point of difference, that the reader may not suppose us insensible of it. It is a thought which is fully expanded in the various works on the evidences of Christianity, with which the English language abounds. It is a point too of great importance to the argument. Infidels tell us that history is full of pretensions to miracles, and would make the uninformed and unwary believe that the Christian miracles stand on the same footing with all the rest. No misrepresentation could be more gross. It is not only untrue that the world is full of such pretensions to miracles as those which are put forth by the sacred writers, but it is true that those pretensions are wholly unlike any thing in the religious history of man. No miracles of any pagan or papal wonder-worker, or of any modern impostor, can bear any comparison with them even in the pretensions put forth, much less in the fair opportunity they afford for detecting imposture. The two cases stand precisely contrasted-the Christian witnesses sought the scrutiny of enemies-all other pretenders have shunned it. While, therefore, we deny that the Christian revelation rests at any point on the naked testimony of friends and advocates in its favor, we maintain that the Christian miracles stand contrasted with all other pretenders in this line, just as truth is contrasted with falsehood, and honesty with deception. No eandid man can become acquainted with the former without respecting them, or with the latter without despising them. If the principles thus far stated are just, we wonder not that Mormonism or any like delusion gains converts; or that skeptics are found to draw a parallel between the apostles and the witnesses of Mormonism. The statements of some of our most popular writers on the evidences of Christianity, are not clear or satisfactory in reference to the relation of human testimony to the evidence of divine revelation. In proof of this assertion, |