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salutary aids to succour our weakness; outward "and sensible signs to increase in ourselves and "others the knowledge and love of our common Fa"ther; or, in fine, necessary means to keep us within "the bounds of order, union, and obedience." Can any thing be more worthy of God than such an institution as this? ought we not to wish it true, though we were not able to demonstrate the truth of it? But as the principles and duties of this religion are worthy of God, so are the proofs of it such as may and ought to satisfy every reasonable man. The great Founder of it works innumerable miracles; not in a clandestine manner before a few select friends, or in any way liable to a just suspicion ; but before the face of a whole people, who were enemies, and incredulous. These miracles cannot be ascribed to the assistance of evil spirits, because they are destructive of their interests and dominion, and many of them besides too great to be effected by their power. There could be no agreement or collusion between the persons concerned, because they are done occasionally, and as it were by accident, as objects and opportunities are offered; and several of them are performed even upon the absent and the dead. This This power is not confined to the single person of the Prophet, but communicated to a great number of his disciples; who being appointed by him the principal witnesses and planters of his religion, go forth, and preach every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following k

These miracles of Jesus Christ sufficiently shew

that he was a teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that he did except God be with him. And had he pretended to be no more than a teacher sent from God, or some great prophet, his pretensions would be fully justified by his works; the same works that I do, says he, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me m. But he is not content with the general character of a prophet; he pretends to one of a peculiar kind: in short, he claims to be the Messiah of the Jews, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write". And therefore as in confirmation of this claim he has appealed to Moses and the prophets, to Moses and the prophets we must go. And it is very evident, that those things which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should do and suffer, he hath so fulfilled. The prophecies relating to the Messiah, the tribe and family out of which he should spring, the virginity of his mother, the time when he should come, the place where he should be born, the appearance he should make in the world, the cruel treatment he should receive from it, his death and burial; and yet notwithstanding this, his exaltation to such power, as to put all enemies under his feet; these, and several other predictions, pointing out him that was to come, were all exactly accomplished in Jesus Christ. The Jews are perplexed with their own prophecies; they know not how to reconcile the distress and the glory which are by turns foretold of the Messiah; and have therefore invented a fiction concerning two Messiahs, one of whom is only to suffer, and the other

1 John iii. 2. m John v. 36.

n John i. 45. o Acts iii. 18. .

to reign and prosper. But this solution is as much without necessity, as it is without foundation. All things are reconciled in Jesus Christ. We see him for a while in the most distressful scenes of life and death; we esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, cut off out of the land of the living P, and forsaken as it were by God and man. And yet after this we see him rising gloriously from the grave, and hear him declare to his disciples, that all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth: in consequence whereof he gives them a commission to go and teach all nations; and assures them in effect, that they should not want success, by adding, that he would be with them alway, even unto the end of the world.

We see this promise effectually made good, in what has been called the greatest miracle in Christianity, its establishment. A religion which takes its rise, as to all outward appearance, from a few poor and illiterate men, without eloquence, without interest, without power; a religion which neither gratifies the sensuality of men, nor flatters their pride on the contrary, it proposes to them the belief of mysteries which surpass their understanding, and the practice of a morality which sacrifices all their darling passions. It has the prejudices, the vices, the religions, the powers of the world to contend with. And the very Author of it declares, that whoever will follow him must be ready to forsake every thing else, and prepare for a state of sufferings and persecution. Yet under all these disadvan

tages, and in spite of all this opposition, this religion spreads through the world: it triumphs over all the arguments of philosophers, the edicts of emperors, the engines and instruments of idolatry, which opposed all its force against it. And since both earth and hell thus conspired to destroy it, we must needs think that its preservation and success can only be ascribed to Heaven.

But because it has been suggested, that there are certain ages and periods of the world when any thing of this kind will go down; i. e. when any religious imposture will make its way among ignorant and credulous men; let it just be remembered, that the time when the gospel made its appearance was not one of those dark and ignorant ages. On the contrary, it came upon the stage when the stage was crowded, as it were, with persons who hardly ever had their equals for learning, eloquence, and politeness. And their history and writings have spread such a light over that period, that there is no other remote one, with the state and transactions of which we are so well acquainted. We have by this means the pleasure of seeing several facts and customs, places and persons, and characters of persons, mentioned in the New Testament, confirmed by the collateral testimony of other writers. This is of itself no mean argument that the books of the New Testament are authentic, and of the date and value to which they pretend. For impostors generally blunder in some or other of these matters; and in undertaking to write about things of which they have no certain knowledge, their ignorance detects their fraud. But besides this, these books were received by all Christians, were read in their public assemblies, were

translated into different languages, were quoted by ecclesiastical writers; and even the writers on the other side, the ancient enemies and opposers of Christianity, do not tax the books that contain the accounts of it with being spurious. And lastly, the numerous and successive sectaries and heretics, which in every age have disturbed the peace of the church, plainly prove, that it was impossible either to forge or impose new sacred books, or to corrupt the old. For the orthodox and they would be a sort of spies upon the actions of one another; and no imposture of this kind could be contrived by one party, but what the other would soon find out and expose. "So that if we go back from age to age to Jesus "Christ himself, we shall see Christians, heretics, Jews, and pagans, all giving testimony to the same "facts and to the same books "."

I have laid before you, in as summary a way as I could, the principal evidence of our religion. It has been observed, that revelation was highly expedient and much wanted; that considering the perfections and goodness of God, there was some reason to hope for it; that the Christian revelation, both as to its doctrines and duties, contains nothing but what is worthy of God, and what may justly be supposed to proceed from him; and that it is positively proved to have proceeded from him by the miracles of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Moreover it was shewn, that as Christ appealed to the prophecies of the Old Testament, so in him the prophecies of the Old Testament, relating to the Messiah, were fulfilled; that the establishment of this religion was so