Saint Luke wrote his Gospel, and the Acts of the Apostles. He was the companion and fellow-traveller of Paul, as appears both from his speaking in the first person plural in his account of Saint Paul's travels,— "We went ;"" it was determined that we should sail into Italy;" "it came to pass when we were gone forth," and other passages of the same kind, which show that the writer of the history was one of the company.

We find him also with Saint Peter at Rome, when Saint Paul wrote the first chapter of his second epistle to Timothy. The preface to Saint Luke's Gospel is exceedingly worthy of notice: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things, which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed."

Now this short preface informs us of a great deal. It informs us, first, that the great facts of the Gospel history were most surely believed amongst the Christians of those times. It informs us, secondly, upon what grounds they are believed, namely, as they delivered them, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses. It acknowledges, thirdly, that he himself was not an eye-witness, but that he received the account from those who were writing as they delivered the instances. It asserts, fourthly, that Saint Luke had a perfect understanding of all things from the first, or, as it should have been rendered, he had penned and traced every account up to its source, to the fountain-head, and so

as to have no doubt in his mind; for he professes, you see, to inform Theophilus of the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke having, as I said before, to attend and accompany Saint Paul, was eye-witness of many things which he there relates; in particular, Luke was with Paul in the ship when that extraordinary wreck happened, by which they were thrown ashore on the island of Malta; he lodged with Paul in the same house when he miraculously healed one of the family, and many other diseased persons in the island. He must have known, therefore, with absolute certainty, the truth or falsehood of what he relates about it.

The thirteen epistles of Paul, though not properly historical, contain incidents, in connexion with the transactions of his life, of the miracles he saw or wrought, or references and allusions to those, which is the same thing; and in various places he refers to his miraculous conversion, particularly in the first chapter of Galatians, where he says he received his doctrine, "not of man, nor was he taught of men, but immediately by the revelation of Jesus Christ ;" and then, by way of proof of it, reminds them of our Saviour being revealed to him at the very time he was persecuting the church of Christ. The same in the twelfth chapter of his second epistle to the Corinthians: "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth); such an one caught up to the third heaven." And at the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, speaking of the different appearances of Christ after his resurrection, he adds, in reference to a vision he had of Christ at his conversion, "Last of all

he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." Upon other occasions, Saint Paul speaks in his epistles of the miracles himself had wrought. 2 Cor. xii. 13. "Truly," says he, "how the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders, and mighty deeds." To the Galatians, third chapter and fifth verse: "He therefore that ministereth to you the spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” To the Corinthians, in the first epistle, "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than you all." Now here could be no mistake. Saint Paul certainly knew whether he did or did not see Christ at his conversion; whether he did or did not show signs, or wonders, or mighty deeds at Corinth; whether he did or did not work miracles in Galatia; whether he did or did not speak with tongues. I lay the greatest stress upon the evidence of Saint Paul's epistles, because the very matter and manner of composition of them carry with them the force of demonstration, that the author of them was in earnest; not to mention that his appeal to the miracles he wrought, in the texts I have quoted, was with no desire of publicity and authority, or handing down the memory of these miracles to posterity, but merely for the sake of the argument in hand. The very mention of them, one may say, was accidental: so far was he from any design to impose the narrative of false miracles upon the world.

Next to Saint Paul's the epistle of Saint Peter may be produced in testimony of this authenticity. Saint Peter, you all know, was an apostle from the first to the last; a companion of our Saviour; admitted, together with James and John, to more privacy and intimacy with their master than the rest; and held a

long and remarkable conversation with Christ after his resurrection. If any one had an opportunity of knowing the truth of the transactions of Christ's life, it was he. Besides speaking in general in his epistles of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection (of all which he must have known the truth or falsehood), he bears witness in his second epistle to one memorable circumstance in Christ's history, which he himself, he tells us, saw and heard—and this was the transfiguration of Christ, at which, you read in the Gospel, he and James and John alone were present: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty: for he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory,

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;' and this voice, which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount." No testimony can be more explicitly authenticated and better founded than this.

James and Jude were both apostles; and, by their epistles, bear testimony to the general truth of the Christian religion, and, consequently, to the certainty of the resurrection of Christ; for I suppose it will not be disputed, but that any one who believed Christianity believed the resurrection of Christ. Of the facts of the resurrection these two, together with the other apostles, were eye-witnesses.

The miracles therefore, recorded in the New Testament, come down to us attested by Matthew and John; in the Acts of the Apostles, by Paul, Peter, James, and Jude, as eye-witnesses; by Saint Mark, to say the least of him, a companion and friend of those who had been

eye-witnesses of these miracles, and being upon the spot when the greater part of them was performed; by Saint Luke in his Gospel, an attendant upon Paul, who sifted every thing to the bottom, and gave these accounts as they were delivered by those who, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses: and their being so circumstanced, there is no possibility of mistake in any, or at least in the whole. It is quite a different case from a set of rumours and reports handed from one to another, and repeated after one another, of which each reporter, if he knew from whom he had it, pretends to know nothing more. It is different from accounts published in one country of what has been done or is doing in another, where the publisher of the accounts, from the very distance at which he is situated, can know nothing for himself. It is still more different from histories of travels, which appeared many ages before the history we have, and of which the historian could know very little of what he relates, and with little more authority than ourselves. The Gospel historians are sufficiently acquainted with the truth or falsehood of any or most of the facts they relate: if the facts be not so, it is wilful and designed deceit.

Again; and which is a second consideration. The facts themselves were of such a nature that they were capable of being known with absolute certainty-they were of such a nature as, if the accounts be allowed, were unquestionably miraculous. A diseased person, upon the application of a supposed remedy, either natural or supernatural, may recover from his disease; and it may remain in doubt how far the remedy was successful in the cure, because it cannot be known whether the disease would not have abated of itself, or whether imagination might not contribute to

VOL. VII.

K K