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SEAM.
IILl
INWARD WITNESS
TO
CHRISTIANITY.
41
of
it,
we shall find
that
every
true
christian
has
a suffici-
ent
argument and
evidence
to
support
his
faith,
without
being
able to prove the
authority of
any
of
the
canoni-
cal
writings.
He
may hold
'fast
his
religion,
and
be
as-
sured that
it
is
divine,
though
he
cannot
bring
any-learn-
ed
proof that
the book
that
contains
it
is
divine too.;
nay,
though
the
book
itself should
ever
happen
to
be
lost,
or destroyed And
this
will
appear
with
open and
easy
conviction,
by
asking
a
few
such questions
as
these
Was
not
this same gospel
preached
with
glorious suc-
cess
before the
new
testament
was
written? Were
not
the
sesame
doctrines
of
salvation by-Jesus Christ,
pub-
lished to the world
by
the
ministry
of
the apostles,
and
made
effectual to
convert thousands,
before they
set
themselves to commit
these
doctrines
to
writing? And
had
not
every sincere believer, every
true
convert, this
blessed witness
in himself,
that
christianity
was
from
God
?
Eight
or ten years had past
away,
'after
the
as-
cension
of
Christ, before any
part of
the New
Testa-
ment
was
written, (as
learned
men
conceive)
and what
unknown multitudes
of
christian converts
were
born
again
by
the
preaching
of
the word,
and
raised
to
a.di-
vine
and
heavenly
life,
long ere this book
was
half
finished
or
known, and
that
among heathens
as well as
Jews?
And though the scriptures
of
the ,Old
Testament
might
prepare
the minds
of
some
of
these
to
receive
the
gospel; yet
we
have
reason
to
'believe,
that
great
-ntim-
bers,
especially
of
the
Gentile
world, were
convinced
by
miracles and tongues,
and
some,
perhaps,
by
mere
narratives
and exhortations; and
became holy
believers;
each
of
them
the epistle
of
Christ written
in
the
heart,
and bearing
about
'with
them
a
noble
and
convincing
proof
that
this religion
was
divine, and
that without a
written
gospel,
without
epistles,
and without
a
bible.
Again,
In
the first
ages
of
Christianity,.
for
:several
hundred years together,
how few
among
the common
people were able to
read? Howfew could
get
the pos-
session
or
the
use
of
a
bible,
when all
sacred
as well as
profane
books
-must
be
copied
by
writing
?
How
few
of
the
populace,
in
a
large town
or
city,
could obtain
or
could
use any small
part
of
scripture,
before the..art
of
printing
-made
the
word of God
so
common? And
yet
millions
of
them were regenerated, sanctified, and saved