part of their character, if considered as without commission or guidance from Heaven. It could not be timidity; for to advance their cause they would confront every peril, and cheerfully surrender themselves to the dungeon, the scourge, and the stake. If it was wisdom, it was incompatible with blind enthusiasm; if it was craft, the same craft would have modified other parts of their conduct, repressed their burning zeal, and shewed them a less difficult and safer way to ease and distinction.

Here then I make my stand, and assert, that men, mad enough to embark without warrant in such an enterprise, would never have conducted it with so much dexterity and prudence. I argue that their disdain of these obvious means of extending their influence, and increasing their sect, implies a confidence in other means of persuasion, concerning which, if they could delude others, they could not delude themselves. The impostor would not have been scrupulous, nor the enthusiast cautious in his choice of means: It is not lawful to do evil

that good may come, is too lofty a maxim for a knave, too wise for a fanatic. In all their continued path along the edge of a precipice, they never lose their balance. They are neither intoxicated by success, nor hurried into precipitancy by opposition. But every instance of their prudence, their success itself, makes it more improbable that they should set forth as teachers of a new religion without rational grounds; every proof of sane and sober conduct heightens their value, as credible witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.

It is not enough to assert that the prudence of their conduct and the adaptation of their tenets to the mind of man forced their religion upon the world; we must reconcile their prudence with their unwarranted ambition; explain how they came to strike out this new and triumphant system of doctrine. It is not satisfactory to prove that the world was in some degree prepared for their reception, unless we can provide them with adequate means for subduing the hostile array of vices, passions, opinions, prejudices, interests, superstitions, which it

still opposed; and account for their avoiding all dangers and all temptations. What those means were, I am at a loss to conceive, unless the fulfilment of their master's promise: These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover ".

How they attained to that wisdom, of which their success is an irrefragable proof, unless by the constant illumination of the Holy Spirit, I am equally at a loss to conjecture. Exclude the Deity, nothing is explicable, conceivable, or credible; acknowledge Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, all is at once clear, rational, and satisfactory.

n Mark xvi. 17, 18,

LECTURE VIII.

1 COR. XV. 19.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

EVEN if we could have discovered human causes adequate to the success of the apostles; if we could have made out a plausible case to account for their triumph, when once embarked in the undertaking, it would still be necessary to divine adequate motives, which could have induced them to commence and persevere in their design. I see not one daring and eccentric adventurer set forth on a dazzling though desperate enterprise, but a number of men, suddenly seized with an unmeasured ambition, confederated for a similar object, and proceeding with patient and resolute perseverance towards their end. I see them all sacrificing ease, comfort, useful occupa

tions, the certainty of subsistence, even their domestic ties, some indeed more splendid prospects, to become itinerant teachers, inured to hardships, literally taking no thought for the morrow, committing themselves to the care and to the uncertain support of strangers. I see them set forth, unless by divine inspiration, or by assiduous labour, ignorant, or imperfectly acquainted with the languages of those whom they are to address. I see them set forth, if blind to some of these difficulties, yet with these difficulties confronting them on the threshold of their undertaking, and multiplying on all sides as they advance. Not one, as far as we can ascertain, recedes; no false, no irresolute, no perverse, no weary and dissatisfied brother is estranged or alienated. Their Master had selected twelve, and one of them was a devil; but Judas is the only traitor; the memory of Jesus is of geater authority than his personal presence. While great and apparently uncontemplated innovations take place in the design, while old prejudices are violently called into action, while differences of opinion and direct op