In excluding from the Reprint some chapters of the two volumes which related expressly to the Biblical argument, or “Christian Evidences,” I have been influenced by several reasons--such as these: The first of them is this, that what may be regarded as the _religious_ aspect of the general subject has no direct claim to be included in the treatment of it. In the next place, I have believed--and think so decisively--that, for the very purpose of bringing the Biblical argument home, with the greatest force, to the convictions of intelligent young persons, the subject should be fully understood in its broadest aspect. When it is thus presented, and when it is thus understood, well-informed and ingenuous persons will see and feel, irresistibly, that, as compared with any other mass of facts belonging to literary antiquarianism, and to historic evidence, the Biblical evidence is many times more ample, and various, and is more unquestionably certain, than even the best and the surest of those masses of facts. There is yet another reason that has induced me to retrench, in this Reprint, much that, thirty years ago, might seem proper to the treatment of the subject. In this course of time a great change has had place upon the field of argument touching Christianity and its origin. Although disbelief may have spread widely of late, the argument concerning Christianity has been narrowed on every side of it. Much that, a while ago, was thought to need the production of proof, has, within a few years, quite ceased to be spoken of as questionable. Several elaborate and ingenious endeavours to bring, first, the _documents_ of Christianity, and then, the _historic import_ of those documents, into doubt, have signally failed, and in fact they are abandoned as nugatory and hopeless. It would, therefore, be a superfluous labour at this time to defend positions which have ceased to be assailed. The course of adverse thought, at this time, in relation to the religion of Christ--the only religion concerning which any question can be raised--has this tendency, namely, to divert attention by all means, and as much as possible, from _the past_; and to engage all attention, and to concentrate it, upon the _present moment_, and upon its tangible and secular interests. This is now the aim of those writers, in the departments of Philosophy--physical and abstract, who would subvert Christianity, and who labour to do so by drawing the thoughts of the educated classes away from it--away from its neighbourhood. If it be so, then it must be well for those who take the other side, to do what they may for calling back the same classes, and for challenging them to acquaint themselves anew with History, and to assure themselves of its incontestible certainty. STANFORD RIVERS, _February, 1859_. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE INTENTION OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT 1