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CHAPTER VII.

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY:

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son."

THE first inquiry which meets us, in entering upon the consideration of this subject, is, "What sort of evidence are we to expect?" The only proper answer is, that sort of evidence which men require to produce conviction and to control the conduct in other cases. The human mind is so constituted, that men are governed by a certain kind and degree of evidence in all the concerns of life—a kind and a degree which are adapted to the circumstances in which we are placed here. This evidence, however, almost always falls very far short of demonstration, or absolute certainty. Still, it is enough to control the conduct. By the influence of it, a man will embark in the most momentous enterprises, and he is often induced by it to abandon his most favorite plans. Still, it is very far short of demonstration, or absolute certainty. For example, a merchant receives in his counting-room a newspaper which marks the prices of some species of goods at a foreign port as very high. He immediately determines to purchase a quantity, and to send a cargo there; but suppose, as he is making arrangements for this purpose, his clerk should say to him, "Perhaps this information may not be correct. The correspondent of the editor may have made a false statement for some fraudulent purpose, or the communication may have been forged; or some evil-minded person having the article in question for sale, may have contrived by stealth to alter the types, so as to cause the paper to make a false report, at least in some of the copies."

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Now in such a case would the merchant be influenced in the slightest degree by such a sceptical spirit as this?

Would he attempt to reply to these suppositions, and to show that the channel of communication between the distant port and his own counting-room could not have been broken in upon by fraud somewhere in its course, so as to bring a false statement to him? He could not show this. His only reply must be, if he should reply at all, "The evidence of this printed sheet is not perfect demonstration, but it is just such evidence in kind and degree as I act upon in all my business; and it is enough. Were I to pause with the spirit of your present objections, and refuse to act whenever such doubts as those you have presented might be entertained, I might close my business at once, and spend life in inaction. I could not, in one case in ten thousand, get the evidence which would satisfy such a spirit."

Again you are a parent, I suppose; you have a son travelling at a distance from home, and you receive some day a letter from the post-office in a strange handwriting, and signed by a name you have never heard, informing you that your son has been taken sick at one of the villages on his route, and that he is lying dangerously ill at the house of the writer, and has requested that his father might be informed of his condition, and urged to come and see him before he dies.

Where now is the father who, in such a case, would say to himself, "Stop, this may be a deception; some one may have forged this letter to impose upon me. Before I take this journey, I must write to some responsible man in that village to ascertain the facts."

No; instead of looking with suspicion upon the letter, scrutinizing it carefully to find marks of counterfeiting, he would not even read it a second time. As soon as he had caught a glimpse of its contents, he would throw it hastily aside, and urging the arrangements for his departure to the utmost, he would hasten away, saying, "Let me go as soon as possible to my dying son."

I will state one more case, though perhaps it is so evident, upon a moment's reflection, that men do not wait for perfect certainty in the evidence upon which they act, that I have already stated too many.

Your child is sick, and as he lies tossing in a burning fever on his bed, the physician comes in to visit him. He looks for a few minutes at the patient, examines the symptoms, and then hastily writes an almost illegible prescription, whose irregular and abbreviated characters are entirely unintelligible to all but professional eyes. You give this prescription to a messenger-perhaps to some one whom you do not know—and he carries it to the apothecary, who, from the indiscriminate multitude of jars and drawers and boxes, filled with every powerful medicine and corroding acid and deadly poison, selects a little here and a little there, with which, talking perhaps all the time to those around him, he compounds a remedy for your son. The messenger brings it to the sick chamber, and as he puts it into your hands, do you think of stopping to consider the possibility of a mistake? How easily might the physician, by substituting one barbarous Latin name for another, or by making one little character too few or too many, have so altered the ingredients, or the proportions of the mixture, as to convert that which was intended to be a remedy to an active and fatal poison. How easily might the apothecary, by using the wrong weight, or mistaking one white powder for another precisely similar in appearance, or by giving your messenger the parcel intended for another customer, send you, not a remedy which would allay the fever and bring repose to the restless child, but an irritating stimulus, which should urge on to double fury the raging of the disease, or terminate it at once by sudden death.

How possible are these; but who stops to consider them? How absurd would it be to consider them. You administer the remedy with unhesitating confidence, and in a few days the returning health of your child shows that it is wise for

you to act, even in cases of life and death, on reasonable evidence, without waiting for the absolute certainty of moral demonstration.

Now this is exactly the case with 'the subject of the Christian religion. It comes purporting to be a message from heaven, and it brings with it just such a kind of evidence as men act upon in all their other concerns. The evidence is abundant and satisfactory; at the same time, however, any one who dislikes the truths or the requirements of this gospel may easily, like the sceptical clerk in the case above-mentioned, make objections and difficulties innumerable. A man may be an infidel if he pleases. There is no such irresistible weight of argument that the mind is absolutely forced to admit it, as it is to believe that two and three make five. In regard to this latter truth, such is the nature of the human mind, that there is not, and there cannot be an individual who can doubt it. In regard to Christianity, however, as with all other truths of a moral nature which regulate the moral conduct of mankind, there is no such irresistible evidence. The light is clear, if a man is willing to see; but it is not so vividly intense as to force itself through his eyelids, if he chooses to close them. Any one may walk in darkness if he will.

The evidences of Christianity are usually considered as of two kinds-historical and internal. There may properly be added a third, which I shall call experimental These three kinds are entirely distinct in their nature.

1. If we look back upon the history of Christianity, we find it was introduced into the world under very remarkable circumstances. Miracles were performed, and future events foretold, in attestation of its divine origin, and the founder was restored to life after being crucified by his enemies. These, with the various circumstances connected with them, constitute the historical evidence of Christianity.

2. If now we examine the book itself, its truths, its doctrines, its spirit, we find that it is exactly such in its nature and tendency as we should expect a message from Jeho vah to such beings as we, would be. This is the internai evidence.

3. And if we look upon the effects which the Bible produces all around us upon the guilt and misery of society, wherever it is faithfully and properly applied, we find it efficient for the purposes for which it was sent. It comes to cure the diseases of sin-and it does cure them. It is intended to lead men to abandon vice and crime, and to bring them to God-and it does bring them by hundreds and thousands. If we make the experiment with it, we find that it succeeds in accomplishing its objects. This we may call the experimental evidence.

These three kinds of evidence are so entirely distinct in their nature, that they apply to other subjects. You have a substance which you suppose is phosphorus. For what reason? Why, in the first place, a boy in whom you place confidence brought it for you from the chemist's, who said it was phosphorus. This is the historical evidence: it relates to the history of the article before it came into your possession. In the second place, you examine it, and it looks like phosphorus. Its color, consistence, and form, all agree. This is internal evidence: it results from internal examina tion. In the third place, you try it. It burns with a most bright and vivid flame. This last may be called experimental evidence; and it ought to be noticed, that this last is the best of the three. No matter what grounds of doubt and hesitation there may be in regard to the first and second kinds of evidence, if the article simply proves its properties on trial. If any one should say to you, "I suspect your messenger was not honest;" or, "This is too dark or too hard to be phosphorus ;" your reply would be, "Sir, there can be no possible doubt of it. Just see how it burns

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