main point they were bound to consider; and not simply whether the success of this new doctrine was sufficient to warrant their acceptance of it.

Christianity, however, is well able to abide the test proposed by this learned Pharisee, because it is well able to abide the scrutiny which must first be undergone, in order to render that test efficient. Its continuance, moreover, down to the present day, affords evidence in its favour, similar, in some respects, to that of its first propagation. It has stood many a fiery ordeal since its first struggles with Jewish and heathen persecutors. It has emerged from ignorance and barbarism; it has overcome wit, learning, and malice; it has broken the bands of all these, as well as the utmost force of secular power, confederated against it. This we hold to be indeed a token, that it is of GOD, and cannot be overthrown. But wherefore do we deem it such? Because it tends to prove that the great leading facts upon which the credibility of Christianity depends were substantially true; since upon the certainty of those facts only could it possibly have obtained any acceptance whatever: and these being such as clearly manifest a divine interposition, the success of the religion grounded upon them

may thenceforth legitimately be urged in corroboration of its truth.

Let us take now a well-known instance of an opposite kind, and try it by the same rule.

Mahometanism has had wonderful success: and no one knew better than Mahomet himself how to impress upon the minds of his followers a belief that this was an indisputable proof that it came from GOD. His religion spread far and wide, like flame before the wind, and in its progress swept away Christian, together with Heathen, states and empires. It continues also to this day; shorn, indeed, of much of its splendour and renown, but still upholding the authority of the Koran over an incalculable extent of territory. This is a proud theme for the infidel historian. "If," says he, "you allege the suc

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cess of the Gospel as a testimony to the "truth of Jesus, how refuse the same testi

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mony in honour of the prophet of Mecca?" We answer, Bring your Prophet to the same test that we apply to Jesus and his Apostles, and instantly the parallelism vanishes. If success be only then a certain evidence of Divine favour when it is accompanied with some other criterion of its truth, when it does not supersede the investigation of other proofs, or when it is such as cannot rationally be ac

counted for as the work of mere human agents, then we affirm, that, in all these respects, instead of parallelism between the two cases, it is impossible to produce a stronger contrast than the respective parties exhibit the one to the other. The Arabian produced no voucher but the sword :—and is it a "strange thing" that the sword should make proselytes? Or did this resemble the policy of HIM who warned his followers, that they who took the sword should perish by the 66 sword a?" Mahomet interdicted inquiry into the truths of the Koran, and demanded implicit credence in its manifold inconsistencies and contradictions. Did this, again, resemble the Teacher who said, "Be ready always to

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give a reason of the hope that is in you b?" Mahomet ministered to the most corrupt propensities of his countrymen, by allowing every voluptuous indulgence they could crave. Shall this too be brought into parallel with the apostolical maxim, "Every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He " is pure?"-But why pursue the comparison?-Upon the principles by which every such question must be tried, if success be deemed a token, in the one case, of Divine

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a Matt. xxvi. 52.

b 1 Pet. iii. 15.

C

c 1 John iii. 3.

support, because that success was obtained in opposition to human power and human corruption, and because it was accompanied with the highest supernatural testimonies that could be borne to it ;-does it not, in the other case, shew itself to have been the entire work of man's device, because effected by the aid of every weapon of carnal warfare, and sanctioned by no one unequivocal testimony of higher authority?

But let us now descend from these more conspicuous subjects of contrast, to others not unconnected with them, though of inferior magnitude-the progress of Popery and of the Protestant Reformation.

If the Almighty hath manifestly interposed to prosper such a work as the Christian Revelation, against the combined efforts of Jews, Turks, Heathens, and Infidels, it may without presumption be expected, that his providence will still farther be watchful over it, to uphold it against such corruption or perversion as might otherwise frustrate the purpose for which it was bestowed. But if the external circumstances of religion be permitted to form the sole criterion of our judgment on this point, how shall we gainsay the triumphs of the Romish Church in the ascendency she so long enjoyed throughout almost

the whole western empire, and which she still enjoys to such an extent, as not to hesitate in appropriating to herself the title of the Catholic or Universal Church?

Well aware of the specious and imposing nature of this argument, Bellarmine and other distinguished champions of the see of Rome enumerate, among the essential characters of the true Church, its amplitude, its duration, and its temporal prosperity; tokens, it must be confessed, sufficiently discernible in the history of the papal power. But if all or either of these be necessary to certify us of the Divine favour, what shall we say of the condition of the whole Christian Church in its primitive state, before it obtained any countenance from the secular powers, and whilst it laboured under almost continual persecution? And, on the other hand, if these, when they do concur, are sure and certain tokens of the true Church, without any appeal to other evidence; may not the disciples of Mahomet lay claim to the same distinction? For whatever of amplitude, duration, or temporal prosperity, even in her proudest days, papal Rome might boast, will, perhaps, without difficulty, be paralleled in more than one epoch of Saracen or of Ottoman power.