Alexander, A. – Evidences of the Christian Religion

—Ti de kai aph’ heautōn ou krinete to dikaion; LUKE, XII. 57.ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD (1772-1851), American Presbyterian divine, was born, of Scottish-Irish descent, in that part of Augusta county which is now Rockbridge county, Virginia, on the 17th of April 1772. After completing his preliminary education in the little school at Lexington, Virginia, which later developed into Washington and Lee University, he came under the influence of the religious movement known as the “great revival” (1789-1790) and devoted himself to the study of theology. Licensed to preach in 1791, he was engaged for several years as an itinerant Presbyterian preacher in his native state, and acquired during this period the facility in extemporaneous speaking for which he was remarkable. He was president of Hampden-Sidney College from 1796 to 1807, with a short intermission (in 1801-1802), and in 1807 became pastor of Pine Street Church, Philadelphia. In 1812 he became first professor in the newly established Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, where he remained until his death at Princeton on the 22nd of October 1851, filling successively the chairs of didactic and polemic theology (1812-1840), and pastoral and polemic theology (1840-1851). He married, in 1802, Janetta Waddel, the daughter of the celebrated blind preacher, James Waddel (1739-1805), whose eloquence was described in William Wirt’s Letters of a British Spy (1803). Dr Alexander wrote a considerable number of theological works, which had a large ciruclation. Among these may be mentioned his Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian Religion (1825), which passed through several editions, and was translated into various languages; The Canon of the Old and New Testament Ascertained; or the Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions (1826); A History of the Israelitish Nation (1852), and Outlines of Moral Science (1852), the last two being published posthumously.See the biography (New York, 1854) by his son James W. Alexander.

Chapter 1. The right use of Reason in Religion. 5

Chapter 2. It is impossible to banish all religion from the world; and if it were possible, it would be the greatest calamity which could befall the human race. 15

Chapter 3. If Christianity be rejected, there is no other religion which can be substituted it its place; at least no other which will at all answer the purpose for which Religion is desirable. 23

Chapter 4. Revelation necessary to teach us how to worship God acceptably—the nature and certainty of a future state—and especially, the method by which sinners may obtain salvation. 37

Chapter 5. There is nothing improbable or unreasonable in the idea of a Revelation from God; and consequently, nothing improbable or unreasonable in such a manifest divine interposition, as may be necessary to establish a revelation. 68

Chapter 6. Miracles are capable of proof from testimony. 74

Chapter 7. The Miracles of the Gospel are credible. 89

Chapter 8. The Bible contains predictions of events, which no human sagacity could have foreseen, and which have been exactly and remarkably accomplished. 130

Chapter 9. No other Religion possesses the same kind and degree of evidence, as Christianity; and no other miracles are as well attested, as those recorded in the Bible. 154

Chapter 10. The Bible contains Internal evidence that its origin is divine. 173

Chapter 11. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, were written by the inspiration of God; and this inspiration, however it may be distinguished, was plenary; that is, the writers were under an infallible guidance, both as it relates to the ideas and words: and yet, the acquired knowledge, habits, and peculiar dispositions of the writers, were not superseded. 216

NOTES.

Note A. 243 Note B. 253 Note C. 255