our public rights were lost, copies which had been as universally received and acted upon as the Four Gospels have been, would have been received in evidence in any of our courts of justice, without the slightest hesitation. The entire text of the Corpus Juris Civilis is received as authority in all the courts of continental Europe, upon much weaker evidence of its genuineness; for the integrity of the Sacred Text has been preserved by the jealousy of opposing sects, beyond any moral possibility of corruption; while that of the Roman Civil Law has been preserved only by tacit consent, without the interest of any opposing school, to watch over and preserve it from alteration.

$10. These copies of the Holy Scriptures having thus been in familiar use in the churches, from the time when the text was committed to writing; having been watched with vigilance by so many sects, opposed to each other in doctrine, yet all appealing to these Scriptures for the correctness of their faith; and having in all ages, down to this day, been respected as the authoritative source of all ecclesiastical power and government, and submitted to, and acted under in regard to so many claims of right, on the one hand, and so many obligations of duty, on the other; it is quite erroneous to suppose that the Christian is bound to offer any further proof of their genuineness or authenticity. It is for the objector to show them spurious; for on him, by the plainest rules of law, lies the burden of proof. If it were the case of a claim to a franchise, and a

1 The arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the Holy Scriptures are briefly, yet very fully stated, and almost all the writers of authority are referred to, by Mr. Horne, in his Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, vol. 1, passim. The same subject is discussed in a more popular manner in the lectures of Bp. Wilson and of Bp. Sumner of Chester, on the Evidences of Christianity. In America the same question, as it relates to the Gospels, has been argued by Bp. McIlvaine, in his Lectures, and by Mr. Norton, in his Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. "The direct historical evidence for the genuineness of the Gospels," the latter observes, "consists in the indisputable fact, that throughout a community of millions of individuals, scattered over Europe, Asia and Africa, the Gospels were regarded with the highest reverence, as the works of those to whom they are ascribed, at so early a period, that there could be

copy of an ancient deed or charter were produced in support of the title, under parallel circumstances on which to presume its genuineness, no lawyer, it is believed, would venture to deny its admissibility in evidence, nor the satisfactory character of the proof.'

11. Supposing the reader, therefore, to admit that it is not irrational, nor inconsistent with sound philosophy, to believe that God has made a special and express revelation of his character and will to man, and that the sacred books of our religion are genuine, as we now have them, our present object is, to compare the testimony of the Four Evangelists, as witnesses to the life, doctrine, and miracles of Jesus Christ, in order to determine the degree of credit to which, by the rules of evidence applied in human tribunals, they are justly entitled. The proper inquiry will be, not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, for this is not the manner in which evidence is examined in courts of justice; but, whether there is sufficient probability that it is true. The subject of inquiry is matter of fact, and not matter of abstract mathematical truth. The latter alone is susceptible of that high degree of evidence which we call demonstration, which excludes the possibility of error, and which therefore may reasonably be required in support of every mathematical deduction. But the proof of matters of fact rests upon moral evidence alone; by which is

no difficulty in determining whether they were genuine or not, and when every intelligent Christian must have been deeply interested to ascertain the truth. And this fact does not merely involve the testimony of the great body of Christians to the genuineness of the Gospels; it is in itself a phenomenon admitting of no explanation, except that the four gospels had all been handed down as genuine from the Apostolic age, and had everywhere accompanied our religion as it spread through the world." See Norton's Evidences, &c. vol. 1. Additional Notes, p. ccxc.

'In a recent case in the House of Lords, an old manuscript copy, purporting to have been extracted from ancient Journals of the House, which were lost, and to have been made by an officer, whose duty it was to prepare lists of the peers present and absent, was held admissible evidence, upon a claim of peerage. See the case of the Slane Peerage, 5 Clark and Finelly's Reports, p. 24. See also the case of the Fitzwalter Peerage, 10 Clark and Finelly's Reports, p. 948.

meant not only that species of evidence which is employed in cases respecting moral conduct, but all the evidence which we do not obtain either from our own senses, from intuition, or from demonstration. In the ordinary affairs of life we do not require nor expect demonstrative evidence, because it is inconsistent with the nature of matters of fact, and to insist on its production would be unreasonable and absurd. And it makes no difference, whether the facts to be proved relate to this life or to the next, the nature of the evidence required being in both cases the same. The error of the skeptic consists in pretending or supposing that there is a difference in the evidence, where there is no difference in the nature of the things to be proved, and in demanding demonstrative evidence concerning things which are not susceptible of any other than moral evidence alone, and of which the utmost that can be said, is, that there is no reasonable doubt of their truth.'

$ 12. In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition, the previous question to be determined is, when may it be said to be proved? The answer plainly is, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence, is meant such as the nature of the thing to be proved requires; and by satisfactory evidence, is meant that amount of proof, which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind, beyond any reasonable doubt. The circumstances which will amount to this degree of proof can never be previously defined; the only legal test to which they can be subjected is, their sufficiency to satisfy the mind and conscience of a man of common prudence and discretion, and so to convince him, that he would venture to act upon that conviction in matters of the highest concern and importance to his own interest. If, therefore, the subject is a problem in mathematics, its truth is to be shown by the certainty of demonstrative evidence. But if it is a question of fact in human affairs, nothing more than moral evidence can be required, for this is the best evidence which,

'See Gambier's Guide to the Study of Moral Evidence, p. 121. 1 Stark. Evid. 514; 1 Greenl. on Evid. 4.

from the nature of the case, is attainable. Now as the facts, stated in Scripture History, are not of the former kind, but are cognizable by the senses, they may be said to be proved when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence which, as we have just observed, would, in the affairs of human life, satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man. When we have this degree of evidence, it is unreasonable to require more. A juror would violate his oath, if he should refuse to acquit or condemn a person charged with an offence, where this measure of proof was adduced.

13. Proceeding further, to inquire whether the facts related by the Four Evangelists are proved by competent and satisfactory evidence, we are led, first, to consider on which side lies the burden of establishing the credibility of the witnesses. The very statement of such a question startles us, because, in the affairs of ordinary life, the uniform course is to presume every witness to be credible until the contrary is shown; the burden of proof lying on the objector. But this only serves to show the injustice with which the writers of the Gospels have ever been treated by infidels; an injustice silently acquiesced in even by Christians; in requiring the Christian affirmatively, and by positive evidence, aliunde, to establish the credibility of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be considered, and in permitting the testimony of a single profane writer, alone and uncorroborated, to outweigh that of any single Christian. This is not the course in courts of chancery, where the testimony of a single witness is never permitted to outweigh the oath even of the defendant himself, interested as he is in the cause; but, on the contrary, if the plaintiff, after having required the oath of his adversary, cannot overthrow it by something more than the oath of one witness, however credible, it must stand as evidence against him. But the Christian writer seems, by the usual course of the argument, to have been deprived of the common presumption of charity in his favor; and, reversing the ordinary rule of administering justice in human tribunals, his testimony is unjustly presumed to be false, until it is proved to be true. This treatment,

moreover, has been applied to them all in a body; and, without due regard to the fact, that, being independent historians, writing at different periods, they are entitled to the support of each other, they have been treated, in the argument, almost as if the New Testament were the entire production, at once, of a body of men, conspiring, by a joint fabrication, to impose a false religion upon the world. It is time that this injustice should cease; that the testimony of the Evangelists should be admitted to be true, until it can be disproved by those who would impugn it; that the silence of one sacred writer, on any point, should no more detract from his own veracity or that of the other historians, than the like circumstance is permitted to do among profane writers; and that the Four Evangelists should be admitted in corroboration of each other, as readily as Josephus and Tacitus, or Polybius and Livy.'

This subject has been treated by Dr. Chalmers, in his Evidences of the Christian Revelation, chapter iii. The following extract from his observations will not be unacceptable to the reader. "In other cases, when we compare the narratives of cotemporary historians, it is not expected that all the circumstances alluded to by one will be taken notice of by the rest; and it often happens that an event or a custom is admitted upon the faith of a single historian; and the silence of all other writers is not suffered to attach suspicion or discredit to his testimony. It is an allowed principle, that a scrupulous resemblance betwixt two histories is very far from necessary to their being held consistent with one another. And, what is more, it sometimes happens that, with cotemporary historians, there may be an apparent contradiction, and the credit of both parties remain as entire and unsuspicious as before. Posterity is, in these cases, disposed to make the most liberal allowances. Instead of calling it a contradiction, they often call it a difficulty. They are sensible that, in many instances, a seeming variety of statement has, upon a more extensive knowledge of ancient history, admitted of a perfect reconciliation. Instead, then, of referring the difficulty in question to the inaccuracy or bad faith of any the parties, they, with more justness and more modesty, refer it to their own ignorance, and to that obscurity which necessarily hangs over the history of every remote age. These principles are suffered to have great influence in every secular investigation; but so soon as, instead of a secular, it becomes a sacred investigation, every ordinary principle is abandoned, and the suspicion annexed to the teachers of religion is carried to the dereliction of all that candor and liberality with which every other document of antiquity is judged of and appreciated. How does it happen that the authority of Jose

of