College of La Flêche, where he used his argument to expose the fiction of popish miracles-" perhaps you may think," he writes to Campbell, "the sophistry of it savors plainly of the place of its birth." Indeed, it does! But, contemptible as it may be thought, and oft-refuted as it has been, it is continually paraded by unbelievers, and must be continuall exposed by those who are set for the defense of the gospel. The Reverend Doctor Abbott, preaching in Oxford University, makes a fling at Paley's Evidences and Hora Paulinæ and with good reason-as, following in the wake of Hume, he eliminates every thing miraculous from the Gospel History, except a few cases of healing, which he would. say are no more miracles than those wrought at the tomb of the Abbé Paris-that is, they were the effects of imagination, etc., and not supernatural works at all. Truly, it behooves us to contend earnestly for the faith, when it is thus assailed in the foremost Christian university of the world! Whatever value may be assigned to the internal evidences of Christianity—and there is much, and it is fully admitted by the author of this book—yet he has done a good work in developing from the present advanced position of the science of apologetics the historical proofs of the divine original of our holy religion, demonstrating, as he has done in this treatise, that we have not followed cunningly-devised fables, and we are not deceived, nor are we deceiving others, when we affirm that the religion of Jesus is not of men, but is from heaven. Every believer in Christ is warranted in exclaiming, with the utmost confidence Hence, and forever, from my heart THOS. O. SUMMERS. Nashville, Tenn., April 13, 1880. |