come forward and make out their case, and we are ready to weigh their arguments. But then they must of course produce a contrary series of testimonies; they must bring forward facts against our facts; contemporary authors against our contemporary authors; Heathen and Jewish historians whose evidence goes against ours which sustain the credibility. They must oppose to our positive proofs of authenticity, positive proofs of forgery. They must oppose to our historical evidences of credibility, a contrary series of historical documents. They must combat our matters of fact, supporting the divine authority of Christianity, by contradicting matters of fact-all which I need not say no one has even attempted. But for men, admitting, as those with whom we are arguing profess to do, the being and attributes of God and the accountableness of man, to pass over all these irrefragable proofs, and to turn aside and cavil at the contents of the religion, is so open an act of disobedience and rebellion against God, that nothing but the deep depravity of the human heart could for a moment listen to it. And yet men listen to nothing else. Metaphysical objections against the matter of Christianity is the ground almost always taken by the unbeliever. We sweep away, then, all these objections at once, as out of place, as directed to an illegitimate object. We stop the argument at the threshold. We say, if the Revelation be indeed from God, it is itself the authority for all it contains: your objections, therefore, must be directed to the question of the evidences on which the religion restsand till these are overthrown by historical documents, by a series of positive testimonies, by a fair and manly appeal to the contemporary evidences of the period when the gospel was established, we must consider all your reasonings as mere talk-they are wrong in object; and are on this account, as well, on the ground of their being wrong in kind, utterly inadmissible in the present stage of the argument: they are cavils, not objections; subterfuges, not reasonings; the artifices of a dishonest or confused, not the arguments of a sincere and well-balanced, mind. But we do not stop here. So triumphant are the evidences of the Christian Revelation, that we go a step further; and, in order to fortify the breasts of ingenuous youth against the shafts of infidelity, we show that, II. The objections against the Christian religion are coNTRADICTORY, THE ONE TO THE OTHER. For, on looking a little closer into the statements of unbelievers, we find such confusion and fallacy in their reasonings such prevarication and dissimulation of the real facts of the case-such concessions made to the Christian faith at one time, and such unfair and intemperate invectives urged at another-such shifting and versatility in different ages, and by different classes of writers, that we may really leave such objections to refute and destroy each other, and may feel yet more completely assured of the truth of a religion, which is only assailed by contradictory speculative opinions. 1. For, what CONFUSION AND FALSE REASONINGS do we discover, the closer we examine the difficulties advanced by infidelity! There is nothing clear, nothing tangible, nothing fairly reasoned out upon its proper grounds. The objections of unbelievers prove too much; they sap the foundations of the natural religion which they profess to support, as well as of the revealed doctrine which they avowedly attack. They deny all human testimony. They subvert the first principles of morals. Their objections are rather the offspring of the ignorant and fallen mind of man, as we have already observed; such as every Christian has felt, and feels continually, and overcomes by faith-than specific doubt sustained by any consistent series of arguments. They quite forget that the evidences of Christianity are what is termed a cumulative proof; a collective argument, arising, not from one thing, but from many things of various kinds, and springing from independent sources, and contributing in different degrees to the result. They argue as if a single minute objection could invalidate the whole. combined truth. They think if they can make good any point against any branch of the Christian evidence, as stated by a less informed or feeble advocate, they have gained their cause. Thus they confuse the question. All their arguments are fallacies. It is well known that in matters of judicial investigation, there is often an overwhelming conviction produced from the combination of a great number of witnesses, no single one of whom could be considered as entitled to the highest degree of credit, from the want of general intelligence, or acquaintance with the particular circumstances of the case, or even from want of character. If such an accidental combination takes place, the evidence becomes perfectly conclusive.d What, then, avail cavils against some smaller points in the cumulative argument? If unbelievers could weaken the force of one half of our proofs, the remainder would be more than sufficient; perhaps even one branch of them-the character of our Lord, for example-would be enough to convince a sincere inquirer. But no single division of our evidences has yet been disproved; and the confused objections of mere speculative unbelief against some insulated facts, are like the foaming waves dashing against the deep-rooted rock, which has for ages defied their impotent fury. The evidences of our religion are like what we mean by strength or effect in architecture, the consequence of the whole edifice erected in such a manner, and seen in its true light. Supposing one argument should be less clearly supported, this leaves the grand mass of proof in its general force and beauty. If a single stone or column seems to an objector's eye inappropriate for upholding or adorning the building, we are not to think that the entire strength or effect depends upon that separate support, when it reposes, and with far greater security, upon the wide, united strength and entire range and system of its fabric. What, then, avail the incoherent, contradictory speculations of infidelity? Supposing we should not be able to solve explicitly every objection, we may yet be perfectly satisfied upon the whole and may leave the difficulty for abler hands, or for a more advanced period of our own studies. (d) Verplank. (e) Butler, Davison. 2. But further-the PREVARICATION AND DISSIMULATION OF THE REAL FACTS of the case are so apparent in the objections of unbelievers, as to deprive their reasonings of all force. The bold denial of the best attested matters of history; the mis-statement of particular circumstances; the calumnies heaped on the memory of the defenders of Christianity; the false quotations made from their books; alterations in the reading of important passages; the perversion of almost every incident occurring in ecclesiastical and profane historians-these are the arts which disgust every candid and well-informed mind in the writings of sceptics. Was ever such a daring compound of prevarication, gross blunders, impudent denial of the most notorious facts, and unblushing dissimulation of the real state of the question, as the pages of the Age of Reason exhibited? and yet this wretched stuff was a chief instrument in the spread of infidelity in this country at the period of the French Revolution. Take the works of Gibbon, or Hume, or Voltaire, or Rosseau-there is scarcely a fact which affects Christianity, not perverted or concealed. So grossly is this the case, that the warmest admirers of these writers do not deny it; whilst the artful insinuations, the secret hints and reflections against the Christian religion, cast out incidentally, as it were, and in books and places where they might have been least expected, prove the dishonesty of mind of those who have recourse to such methods of controversy. The main engine of infidelity in France, was an insidious corruption of the streams of literature. Every species of publication, from the fugitive tale to the ponderous Encyclopedia, was infected with the moral poison. In fact, deceit and misrepresentation are the arms of this wretched cause. I know of no one work on the side of unbelief, which meets manfully the case, which allows the facts with candour, and then proceeds to a consistent and honest argument. 3. Consider, again, the CONCESSIONS made to the Christian faith at one time, and the UNFAIR AND INTEMPERATE INVECTIVES urged at another. The concessions of unbelievers are sufficient to establish the Christian religion. The FACTS of the gospel are not denied; the admissions of the three first centuries make this impossible. The simplicity and artlessness of the narratives, that is, the CREDIBILITY, is admitted. Miracles are disputed against generally; but the particular facts of the gospel not being controverted, the MIRACLES are virtually conceded. The fulfilment of the Prophecies, though contested by modern infidels, was conceded by the earlier ones, some of whom attempted to show that the predictions were written after the events. The existence of the Jews in the present day is a fact which carries the truth of all the prophecies along with it. The beauty of the MORALS, and the benevolence and purity of the CHARACTER OF CHRIST are granted. The TENDENCY of the religion to promote human happiness is avowed by all legislators and rulers. The supernatural PROPAGATION of Christianity may be established from Gibbon's own objections. How is it, then, that the opponents of Revelation are thus inconsistent? How is it that they are thus compelled to bear testimony in favor of Christianity? Does it not prove that they are not satisfied with their own arguments, and that their consciences cannot repose on the reasonings they have framed? Christian writers never act thus. We never make concessions to infidelity; we never admit at one time what we deny at another. The case is plain. Those concessions arise from occasional convictions of truth felt and expressed, though contrary to the general stream of the unbeliever's feelings. It is thus that vicious men often bear testimony in favor of virtue, especially at the near approach of death; but virtuous men never bear testimony in favor of vice.f And then, with these concessions contrast the bitter invectives which, at other times, infidelity employs against Christianity, its ministers, its doctrines, its precepts. Observe the rancour, the peculiar irritation, the deadly malignity which mark their writings. They seem to avenge a personal quarrel. No buffoonery is too coarse, no ridicule too keen, no sarcasm is too bitter for such a purpose. In (f) Fuller. |