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honoured of men as fathers and teachers in divine things, they never allow themselves to forget that they had only one Father, who is in heaven, and one teacher, who is the Messiah. The unimpassioned, yet not unfeeling, manner in which they relate his cruel sufferings, without letting one harsh or severe epithet escape them, reflecting upon the conduct of his enemies, is as unexampled as it is inimitable, and forms an essential distinction between them and all who have either gone before or followed them, literate and illiterate, artful and artless, sceptical and fanatical. On the whole-if these men were impostors, as our deistical gentlemen would have us believe, they were the most extraordinary ones the world ever beheld.

To suppose them deceived, in matters which were the objects of their senses, or, if not deceived, to suppose such men to have planned the deception of the world, and to have adopted the method which they took to execute their plan, are alike attended with insurmountable difficulties. There is only one way of avoiding these, and that is by admitting that they spoke the truth, and were under the influence of the Holy Spirit—but, let this be conceded, and the divine origin of Christianity follows as an unavoidable consequence.

Having made these remarks respecting the Evangelists, let me now direct your attention to the characters of the holy apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. These men were personally conversant with him, they had seen the Lord--they were immediately called and chosen to the office they were infallibly inspired to give forth divine revelation, and they were invested with the power of working miracles, such as speaking with divers tongues, healing the sick, curing the lame, raising the dead, discerning of spirits, and conferring gifts upon others. To them, in the first instance, did Christ give his commission to go into all the world and preach his Gospel to every creature; and the Acts of the Apostles shows us how they executed this commission. They went every where preaching the word; the Lord accompanying them with signs following. And here let me remind you of the astonishing success of their ministry, as recorded in some of my former Lectures-success which is only to be accounted for by admitting 'that the divine blessing accompanied their labours. But,

above all things, look at the holiness of their lives-their selfdenyiug and disinterested labours-the suffering which they endured, and that without murmur and complaint, nay with rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to undergo it in so righteous a cause-and, lastly, the voluntary sacrifice of their lives, which they were at liberty, any hour of the day, to forego by recanting, had conscience permitted them; how is it possible to account for the conduct of these men, but upon the principle that they had the most entire and perfect satisfaction in the cause in which they were embarked-that it was of God and not of man?

In fine, from the remarks now offered on the subject of the credibility of the evangelists and apostles, may we not be allowed to infer that Christianity does not go a begging for its evidence. It does not decline a fair examination; it consents to meet opposition; it courts enquiry: but in the character of its opponent it requires certain qualifications which have not always appeared in the contest. It asks an intimate acquaintance with the system itself an acquaintance formed, not through the medium of human creeds, but by a direct application to the evangelic records. It solicits an extensive knowledge of the peculiar languages in which those records were originally composed-of the various readings grounded on different manuscripts-of heathen and Jewish testimonies-of the customs and moral state of those countries where Christianity was first published-of the concessions and objections of the earliest unbelievers-and of the general history of the church. The more of those acquirements are found in an investigator, the less has the religion of Jesus to fear. Thus furnished, some have hastily attacked it, but the contest has almost invariably terminated in their conviction. And in many instances, where persons have opened the sacred pages with the disrespect of unbelievers, they have closed them with the reverence of Christians, saying, “To whom, Lord, shall we go but unto thee ? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

LECTURE VII.

History of Christianity from the close of the Acts of the Apostles to the end of the first century-Destruction of the Jewish Temple and Polity-Banishment of the Apostle John, and his Epistles to the seven churches of Asia, A. D. 63 to 100.

It is a common observation, among the writers of Ecclesiastical History, that there is a chasm in the subject from the period when Luke concludes the Acts of the Apostles, which is about the year 62, to the end of the century. The learned Joseph Scaliger, among others, has remarked that, "from the end of Luke's history to the time of Pliny the Younger, ecclesiastical annals are uncertain: and Frederic Spanheim, in his Ecclesiastical Annals, appears to have adopted that opinion. But, with all due deference to these high authorities, I profess myself of a different mind. So far from this interval of forty years being barren of authentic incident, I think it will appear, upon a closer inspection, that the case is quite the reverse. The destruction of the Jewish temple, polity, and worship—the vengeance exercised on the Jews for their rejection of the Messiah—the fulfilment of the prophecies of Christ in those events -the expulsion of the Jews from the land of their forefathers and the total abrogation of the Sinai Covenant-all which took place during the period in question, with other important events to be hereafter noticed, will supply abundant materials for the present Lecture.

The Messiah was foretold in ancient prophecy under the character of A PROPHET, Deut. xviii. 18, and all who are conversant with the New Testament must know that, during the discharge of his public ministry, he abundantly justified his claim

to the prophetic character. As in all things he must have the pre-eminence, so in this instance he was eminently distinguished from other prophets by the clearness, the extent, and the importance of his predictions. He foretold many events which would seem to be regulated by the caprice of men; and others which depend purely upon the will of God. He foretold some events so near at hand, that we find the Scripture recording both the prophecy and its fulfilment. Of this class were the predictions of his own death and resurrection and ascension into heaven, the down-pouring of the Holy Spirit, and the setting up of his kingdom, &c. He foretold other events which took place a few years after the canon of Scripture was closed, and the complete fulfilment of which we learn from contemporary historians. Of this class was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, and the distress and misery that should come upon that devoted people, when the measure of their iniquity should be filled up by their crucifixion of the Son of God; and this is the subject on which I must now endeavour to fix your

attention.

We have, as you all probably know, in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, a remarkable prophecy which our Lord delivered concerning the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem. We find, from the context, that Jesus had been teaching in the temple and had closed his discourse with a pathetic lamentation over the distress which awaited the Jewish nation. As he was retiring from the temple towards the Mount of Olives, the disciples, struck with the severity of an expression which he had used-" Behold your house is left unto you desolate❞—as if to move his compassion and mitigate the sentence, pointed out to him, as he passed along, the buildings of the temple, and the goodly stones and gifts with which it was adorned. This led him to remark, "Verily, I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down"-a proverbial expression, denoting the complete destruction of that stupendous superstructure. The multitude probably pressing around our Lord as he went out of the temple, the disciples forbore to ask any particular explica

We have the same subject also in Mark xiii. and Luke xxi.

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tion of his words till they were come to the Mount of Olives. That mount was at no great distance from Jerusalem, and its site was over against the temple, so that any person standing or taking a seat upon it had the whole building full in view. Deeply impressed with what they had heard, and anxious to receive the fullest information concerning the fate of the city of their solemnities, the disciples next propound the question to their divine master-"Tell us," say they, "when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world" or Jewish age.

In reply to this enquiry, Jesus first gives them a number of signs, which should attend or precede this great event: such as, that many false Messiahs, or impostors, should arise, deceiving many-that great calamities were to happen during the interval -that his own followers should be severely persecuted, which would be the occasion of much apostacy and treachery on the part of many who bore his name and, finally, that false teachers should arise in the churches, who either from an attachment to the laws of Moses (as in the case of the Judaizers), or from the pride of false philosophy, would corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel. Such were the signs that should announce that the time was at hand, when the destruction of the temple should take place. He then foretels the circumstances of the siege.

1. Jerusalem was to be encompassed with armies; or, as it is expressed ver. 15," the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, should be seen standing in the holy place.' Another circumstance by which our Lord marks the siege is the unparalleled distress that was then to be endured: "There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time: no, nor ever shall be," ver. 21. A third circumstance mentioned is the shortening of the siege for the elect's sake, ver. 22; intimating that the pressure of calamity would be such as must inevitably issue in the ruin or extirpation of the whole Jewish people, should it be protracted. And, lastly, the extent of this distress, which is intimated by a bold figure: "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even to the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be: For wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered