CREDIBILITY-DIRECT EVIDENCE.

I. The writers of the Bible, for the most part, did not write from tradition, or hearsay; but that which they had seen and heard they declared. They also wrote among the people of whom they wrote, and shortly after the events which they related had occurred, so that if their statements had been false, they would soon have been detected and exposed. But no such exposure ever took place.

II. The enemies of christianity in the early ages admitted the credibility of their writings. Julian admitted nearly all the facts in the gospels, although he used all his learning and influence to destroy christianity; and surely if he could have disproved these facts he certainly would, as that would have been the most effectual way to have accomplished his design.

III. The character of the writers shew that they were neither deceived, nor deceivers. 1. They were not deceived, for they were not enthusiastic or credulous. On the contrary, they received nothing without sufficient and satisfactory evidence. Moses, when he was called by God to deliver his brethren from Egypt, hesitated, and did not go until he had received the fullest evidence that his commission was divine; and the apostles did not believe in the resurrection of their Lord until they had seen and handled him, and he had eaten and drank in their presence. And so in every other case, consequently, we can rely on their statements. 2. They were not deceivers. There was nothing to induce them to deceive. The doctrines they taught were entirely opposed to the opinions and prejudices of the people. They must, therefore, have had a firm persuasion of both their truth and importance, or they would not have exposed themselves to the scorn and hatred of the people.

Galileo, who discovered the rotation of the earth round the sun and on its own axis, recanted, when brought before the ecclesiastical court for publishing his opinions, not because he was not fully persuaded of its truth, but because it was not of such importance as to warrant him to sacrifice his life for it. But the facts which the writers of the Bible taught were both true and important, and they suffered and died rather than recant. They could not have sought for honour, for they well knew that by propagating the gospel they would expose themselves to contempt. Nor could they have sought for riches, for they suffered the loss of all things. It was not ease that they sought for; the very nature of their enterprise led them to arduous labour and incessant toil. Nor was it pleasure, for if in this life only they had hope, they would have been of all men the most miserable.

Can there be any one found in this world who would go forth to propagate a falsehood without the least hope of acquiring wealth, honour, ease, or pleasure; and would persevere in it in the face of poverty, persecution, imprisonment, and even death? If you could suppose it, the individual must be one who had lost his reason. No sane person would

act thus.

Lastly, the commemorative ordinances are a proof of the credibility of the Bible.

I. Those of the Jews were: 1. Circumcision, by which they commemorated the covenant which God made with Abram. 2. The passover, to remind them of their deliverance from Egypt. 3. The feast of tabernacles, to impress their minds with the remembrance of their wandering state in the wilderness. And 4th, Pentecost, in remembrance of the giving of the law. Indeed, the very existence of the Jews, as a separate people to this day, is a convincing proof of the truth of the Bible.

II. Those of the christian baptism, the Lord'ssupper, and the christian sabbath. The four former are still kept by Jews wherever they are found, and the three latter by christians generally; and they are a standing and continuous proof of the verity of the facts which they commemorate.

CREDIBILITY.-OLD TESTAMENT.

We shall now consider the evidences of the credibility of the Old Testament that may be drawn from the writings, traditions, fables, opinions, and customs of the heathen world.

I. The creation of the world. 1. Moses informs us that in the beginning the earth was without form and void, and it was the opinion of the ancient heathen that the substance of the earth was originally in a chaotic mass. 2. The institution of the sabbath. Almost all the civilized nations in the world have esteemed one day in seven more sacred than the rest, although there is no natural cause for dividing time into weeks, as there is for dividing it into years, months, and days. 3. We read that the evening and the morning was a day. And several nations have reckoned their days from the evening. It is not yet one hundred years ago since President Edwards exhorted the people not to break the first hours of the sabbath by continuing their work during the Saturday evening.

II. That man was created holy, and with dominion over the animals. It was the opinion of the heathen that man once lived in a happy state, and that all the beasts lived in amity, none attempting to injure man, which period they called the golden age.

III. The fall of man. 1. It was fabled among the Romans, and others, that a woman by the name of Pandora, had a casket given to her by one of the gods,

which she was commanded not to open; but she disobeyed, and when she opened it, all the evils that are now in the world jumped out, and nothing was left in it but hope. 2. It was the serpent that beguiled Eve, and it is very remarkable that the serpent has been considered as the form of the evil principle by many nations. 3. Man is depraved. And that was acknowledged among the heathen. One of their writers observes, "That the seeds of evil are in every man ;" and another, "That the heart of a child is as soft as wax to receive evil impressions, but as hard as stone to resist virtuous ones."

IV. The institution of sacrifice. It has been, and still is, the custom of all nations to offer sacrifices as an atonement for their sins.

V. The translation of Enoch. It is fabled among the Hindoos, and others, that Burdoo was taken to heaven for his virtue without suffering death; and the period to which they refer is the same as that of Enoch's translation.

VI. The longevity of the antideluvians. Now, we have for evidence of this fact, all those who wrote antiquities among the Greeks, and Barbarians, Egyptians, and Chaldeans.

VII. The gigantic stature of the ancients. Acosta, in his history of India, makes mention of bones of an incredible size, and of a race of giants of great height.

VIII. The flood. All the writers of profane history make mention of this flood, and of the ark.

Nicholaus of Damascus, says, "There is a great mountain in Armenia, where it is reported many were saved at the time of the flood, and one who was carried in an ark came on shore on the top of it."

IX. The building of Babel. The sybyl makes mention of it, and says, "When all men were of one

language, they built a tower, as if they would ascend to heaven by it; but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every man his peculiar language.

X. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha. This may be proved from the appearance of the place where the catastrophe happened.

XI. The existence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Each of their names are mentioned by profane writers.

XII. The departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, and their passage through the Red Sea. Diodorus Siculus related that the Ichthyophage who lived near the Red Sea had a tradition that the whole of the bay was once laid bare to the very bottom, the waters retiring on the opposite shore, and afterwards returned with tremendous violence. And to this day the inhabitants of the neighbourhood have a tradition that a mighty army was destroyed in that bay.

XIII. The sun standing still in the time of Joshua, and the shadow of the sun-dial going backward in the time of Hezekiah. A profane writer observes that the sun twice rose where it ought to have set, and twice set where it ought to have risen.

Lastly, the fertility of Palestine. The infidel raises an objection against the statements of the Bible respecting the fertility of Palestine, as it is now in a state of sterility. This may be easily accounted for when we consider the tyrannical government under which it has been suffering for so many years.

The truth of the historical statements of the Old Testament are thus abundantly confirmed by those corroborating evidences which we have just enumerated. ANN JANE.