ADVERTISEMENT. THE notes to the Gospels, credited to Archbishop Newcome, without other reference, are selected from the notes to his Greek Harmony. In following Dr. Robinson's arrangement of the Gospels, I have in several places omitted his transposition of the verses of the text, occurring within the limits of a section; it being more convenient to insert them in the order in which they were written by the Evangelists. The text, except in a few places where the article a was accidentally printed instead of an, in the words an house, an hungered, &c., is conformable to the common octavo edition of the American Bible Society. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. §1. In examining the evidences of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that we bring to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice and open to conviction. There should be a readiness, on our part, to investigate with candor, to follow the truth wherever it may lead us, and to submit, without reserve or objection, to all the teachings of this religion, if it be found to be of divine origin. "There is no other entrance," says Lord Bacon, "to the kingdom of man, which is founded in the sciences, than to the kingdom of heaven, into which no one can enter but in the character of a little child." " The disciples is not docility which true philosophy requires of her a spirit of servility, or the surrender of the reason and judgment to whatsoever the teacher may inculcate; but it is a mind free from all pride of opinion, not hostile to the truth sought for, willing to pursue the inquiry and impartially to weigh the arguments and evidence, and to acquiesce in the judgment of right reason. The investigation, moreover, should be pursued with the serious earnestness which becomes the greatness of the subject-a subject fraught with such momentous consequences to man. It should be pursued as in the presence of God, and under the solemn sanctions Nov. Org. 1. 68. His words are: Ut non alius fere sit aditus ad regnum hominis, quod fundatur in scientiis, quam ad regnum cœlorum, in quod, nisi sub persona infantis, intrare non datur." created by a lively sense of his omniscience, and of our accountability to him for the right use of the faculties which he has bestowed. § 2. In requiring this candor and simplicity of mind in those who would investigate the truth of our religion, Christianity demands nothing more than is readily conceded to every branch of human science. All these have their data, and their axioms; and Christianity, too, has her first principles, the admission of which is essential to any real progress in knowledge. "Christianity," says Bishop Wilson, "inscribes on the portal of her dominions, 'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein.' Christianity does not profess to convince the perverse and headstrong, to bring irresistible evidence to the daring and profane, to vanquish the proud scorner, and afford evidences from which the careless and perverse cannot possibly escape. This might go to destroy man's responsibility. All that Christianity professes, is to propose such evidences as may satisfy the meek, the tractable, the candid, the serious inquirer." " § 3. The present design, however, is not to enter upon any general examination of the evidences of Christianity, but to confine the inquiry to the testimony of the Four Evangelists, bringing their narratives to the tests to which other evidence is subjected in human tribunals. Of course several things, sometimes controverted, will here be assumed as true. § 4. (1.) It will, in the first place, be assumed that God has, at some times, revealed himself to man, by special and express communications. The reality of such a revelation has been argued from its necessity. That man is a religious being, is universally conceded, for it has been seen to be universally true. He is everywhere a worshipper. In every age and country, and in every stage, from the highest intellectual culture to the darkest stupidity, he bows with homage to a superior being. Be it the rude carved idol of his own fabrication, or the unseen divinity that stirs within him, it Bishop Wilson's Evidences, p. 38. |