網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

the truth of our Christian history. For that Josephus was acquainted with the chief events, his notice of John Baptist shows, and the records of the contemporary historian Tacitus, would have compelled him to know. Had the apostles then been practising any imposition upon mankind, had they proclaimed things which had not really taken place, he would have rejoiced to expose the deception. That he has not done so, can only be accounted for by the truth of the facts. The historian, a Jew, a contemporary, writing the narrative of the time, who had the fullest opportunity of knowledge, and whose bitterness to the Christian name doubtless resembled that of his countrymen, brings no charge of imposition or fraud, gives no account of things different from our own, holds his peace-surely the silence of such an individual proclaims aloud the fidelity of our history; whilst every word of his testimony, where he does speak, goes to confirm positively and decisively that fidelity."

9 I do not enter upon the disputed passage, where he notices briefly our Lord, and allows him to be the Messiah : though all external testimony, as well as the judgment of many of the best critics, is in its favour. I cannot but add here the following reflection of the writer just referred to, upon the history of Josephus, when taken together and as a whole, in convincing us of the truth of the gospel history. "No man, (says our author,) I think, can rise from a perusal

I have not time to dwell on the important testimony to be derived from the Mishna, a collection of Jewish Traditions, published about A. D. 180; and from the Talmuds, or Comments on those Traditions, which appeared about the years 300 and 500; and which, amidst much absurdity and keen contempt, admit all the facts of the Christian history.

4. I must not however omit that proof of the credibility which arises from the character of many of the converts to the Christian faith, who examined anxiously its pretensions, met its claims at first with prejudice and hatred, and ended in yielding to the undoubted facts and the holy doctrines derived from them. I enter not now on the subject of the propagation of the gospel, I merely say, that men of the finest talents-philosophers, orators, grammarians,

of the latter books of the Antiquities, and the account of the Jewish War, without a very strong impression that the state of Judæa, civil, political, and moral, as far as it can be gathered from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, is pourtrayed in these latter (the Gospels and Acts) with the greatest accuracy, and with the strictest attention to all the circumstances of the place and the times. It is impossible to impart this conviction to my readers in a paragraph; the nature of the case does not admit of it; it is the result of a thousand little facts, which it would be difficult to detach from the general narrative, and which, considered separately, might seem frivolous and fanciful." Blunt's Veracity, p. 120.

rhetoricians, lawyers-persons of every rank and station in society, from the humble slave to the attendants on the imperial court, examined the facts of our history, and yielded to the force of conviction, and persevered in acting on that conviction, in spite of strong previous prejudice, and subsequent opposition, ridicule, persecution, and death-and I affirm, that the credit which they gave to these facts, and which was the ground of their conversion then, is a strong confirmation of our faith in them now.

5. Nor can I pass unnoticed the circumstance, that the impostor Mahomet, who claimed to deliver to men a new revelation, (A.D. 612,) and was filled with the bitterest hatred of Christianity, ventured not to question the facts on which it rests. He speaks of John Baptist and our Lord by name, mentions our Lord's miraculous works, his death, his ascension, his apostles, and the unbelief of the Jews. Can concurring testimonies be pushed further?

6. I appeal, again, to the religious rites and usages springing out of the facts of Christianity, as recorded in the New Testament, and which have subsisted from that time to the present among all the nations of Christendom, as memorials of those facts, and resting upon them. Our history directs that baptism should

be the initiatory ordinance of Christianity; that religious assemblies should be holden; that eharitable contributions for the poor should be made; that the first day of the week should be observed, in remembrance of our Lord's resurrection; that a sacred supper should be celebrated, to show forth his death till his second coming; that an order of men should be appointed as pastors and instructors of the people. Now all these observances have been kept from the very time of the apostles in each church, in every part of the world-and if the broad facts from which they sprang had not been true, they never could have been universally established and persevered in without interruption, from that time to the present.10

7. I add only, that several ancient and authentic monuments of the events recorded in the gospels, have survived the wrecks of time, and attest the credibility of our history. Amongst the most striking and important proofs of early history, are coins, medals, inscriptions, marbles, struck or formed at the time, or soon after the time of the respective events, and extant still for the examination of mankind. Authentic testimonies of this nature are sought for with eagerness by antiquaries, and are allowed to

1. This argument will be stated more largely in the next Lecture.

have the greatest weight in all historical' enquiries. Now, it is the glory of Christianity, that, during eighteen centuries, every genuine relic of antiquity has confirmed the facts of her history. I alluded to this source of evidence on the question of authenticity; but its proper bearing is upon the credibility. Medals are struck to commemorate great events. Inscriptions record facts.10

10 I mention one of the last monuments that has been submitted to the public eye, and which, if it is found to be authentic, furnishes an additional evidence to the credibility. I quote it, to give a specimen of the way in which proofs are continually accumulating on the subject of Christianity. In the year 1812, a peasant of Ireland discovered an antique medal of gold, much injured by time, but which, upon examination, proved to be a dye or tessera, having on one side what appeared to be a head of our Saviour, and on the other an inscription almost illegible by decay. Soon after Dr. Walsh (the narrator, who has lately published the account) obtained a medal of the same dye from Rostoc in Germany, in a perfect state of preservation. It turns out, so far as can be judged, to be a tessera, struck by the first Jewish conIt is mentioned by Theseus Ambrosius, (about A. D. 1500,) and after him known to have been a subject of enquiry amongst the learned of Europe for two centuries. The head is a representation of our Lord, and the date is indicated by the Hebrew letter Aleph, which then, as now, denotes the number 1, and shows that it was struck in the first year after the Resurrection. The Hebrew words of the inscription on the reverse, are of the following import: "The Messiah has reigned he came in peace, and being made the light of man, he lives."

« 上一頁繼續 »