mirable outline and compression of the historical testimony to the leading facts of the history of redemption, and the early propagation of its doctrine, and to the authenticity of the books of the New Testament contained in the first part of his work. The reader is there enabled to take in, at one view, the substance of the multifarious and complicated testimony of a long chain of Christian Fathers, acknowledging and constantly quoting our present scriptures; of Jewish and heathen writers; of versions, commentaries, harmonies, rites, ceremonies, and controversies; of attacks and concessions of ancient adversaries; of agreements of early sects who differed on all other points; of probabilities arising from the state of opinion in the Roman world; from the condition of society in that age, and from the universal and unchangeable motives of human action in all times forming together an immense mass of external evidence to which all that could be collected in support of the best attested and most undoubted facts of ancient history, or in proof of the genuineness of the most unquestioned and admired remains of ancient genius, can bear no sort of comparison.

The materials of this argument are to be found more at large in other authors, and especially in the works of Dr. Lardner, who has collected and arranged the numerous authorities bearing upon

this subject with an accuracy of research, and a patient diligence, which have been well characterized in the epithet applied to him, I think by Gibbon, of the "laborious Lardner," and who is moreover entitled to the higher praise of never colouring or exaggerating the force of any testimony which he adduces, and whose fidelity in citation has never been impeached. But here his merit ends, and the materials which he so industriously and faithfully collected have derived a tenfold value and usefulness in the hands of Paley, from their arrangement and application, from that condensation of the whole immense mass of learning and authority, which reduces it as it were into a portable form, and fits it for the grasp of an ordinary mind; and, above all, from the practical, business-like good sense with which the argument is managed, the inferences clearly and candidly drawn, and the whole brought to concur in one irresistible conclusion.

Leslie's "Short Method with the Deists,"* in which the historical, the ritual, and other external evidences of revelation are summed up in four short rules, pointing out as many criteria of the certainty of any historical fact, the co-existence of all of which renders its truth demonstrable, is another work which bears the stamp of

* See note A at the conclusion.

the same peculiar talent, is marked by the same clearness of understanding, and the same power of lucid arrangement and vigorous generalization. "Leslie," said Dr. Johnson, (making an exception in his case from his sweeping censure of the English non-jurors as wholly deficient in logical talent,)" was a reasoner indeed, and a reasoner not to be reasoned against." He wasted much of his talent in controversies of a very narrow and wholly transient interest, and without any exemption from that extravagance and intolerance, which, in the strife of civil and religious faction, so often degrade the loftiest, and blind the acutest minds; but this little tract is an admirable and lasting specimen of the manner in which he could seize the prominent points of an extensive and complicated inquiry, and place them before his readers in one distinct and vivid light. In fact, almost all of reasoning or inference, that is to be found in the numerous authors who have written upon the historical evidences of Christianity, though they may have taken widely different courses to arrive at their conclusions, may be disposed of under the four heads of Leslie's method.

There is scarce an authority, or an argument, which has ever been adduced in corroboration of those leading facts asserted in our Scriptures, which, if established, involve the reception of

their doctrines, and the authority of the books asserting them, which does not tend to confirm one or other of his great points:-1st. That these facts were sensible, i. e. such as men's eyes, ears, and outward senses could judge of. 2d. That they were notorious-taking place publicly, in the presence of many and competent witnesses. 3d. That there are now existing memorials of the facts, such as public and significant actions, customs, rites, established societies of men, observations of days, public readings of the books in which they are related, all expressly commemorating these events. 4th. That such memorials commenced at the time assumed as that of the occurrence of the facts, or the publication of the books; there being not only direct proof of that period of commencement, but also no other period being at all probable from argument or conjecture, and still less from positive history.

It is evident, that no stronger proof can be given of any fact not within the immediate memory of the present, or at least of the last preceding generation, than may be afforded by the concurrence of all these circumstances; and in running over in my own mind the most noted events and institutions of antiquity, I can find none, with the single and very striking exception of the history of the Roman law, and the authenticity of its code, digest, and institutes, which,

tried by these rules, is supported by any thing like the same strength of testimony as the history of the miracles and death of Jesus Christ, of the miraculous propagation of his religion, and the universal reception by his followers of the books which we now hold as sacred.

A scholar, possessing the learning, ingenuity, and paradoxical spirit of Bentley, Warburton, or Hardouin, might doubtless raise many objections against the authenticity of Cæsar's Commentaries, or Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and might allege many arguments to refute the narrative of Cæsar's wars in Gaul, or Cyrus' attempt to gain the throne of Persia; or against any other books, and almost any other facts of ancient history. Such objections or arguments could never produce any, even the slightest degree of conviction, and yet it must be often very difficult to refute them conclusively.

But neither Grecian and Roman antiquity, nor that of the lower empire, has transmitted to us any writings except the commonly received books of the New Testament, and those of the civil law, which are evidenced by numerous other works, comprising a vast body of wholly peculiar learning, too voluminous, complicated and characteristic, to have possibly been framed for the purpose of imposition, which are altogether founded upon their authority, and whether agree