tus, Suetonius, and Dion. That a great light or a new ftar appeared in the east, which directed the wife men to our Saviour: This is recorded by Chalcidius. That Herod, the King of Palestine, fo often mentioned in the Roman history made a great flaughter of innocent children, being so jealous of his fucceffor, that he put to death his own. fons on that account: This character of him is given by feveral hiftorians, and this cruel fact mentioned by Macrobius, a heathen Author, who tells it as a known thing, without any mark of doubt upon it, That our Saviour had been in Egypt: This Gelfus, though he raises a monstrous story upon it, is fo far from denying, that he tells us our Saviour learned the arts of magic in that country. That Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judæa, that our Saviour was brought in judgment before him,, and by him condemned and. crucified: This is recorded by Tacitus. That many miraculous cures and works out of the ordinary courfe of nature were wrought by him: This is confeffed by Julian the Apoftate, Porphyry, and Hierocles, all of them not only Pagans, but profeffed enemies and perfecutors of Chriftianity. That our Saviour foretold feveral things, which came to pafs according to his predictions: This was attested by Phlegon in his annals, as we are affured by the learned Origen against Celfus. That at the time when our Saviour died, there was a miraculous darknefs and a great earthquake: This is recorded by the fame Phlegon the Trallian, who was likewife a Pagan and Freeman to Adrian the Emperor. We may here obferve, that a native of Trallium, which was not fituate at fo great a distance from Paleftine, might very probably be informed of fuch remarkable events as had paffed among the

Jews

Jews in the age immediately preceding his own times, fince feveral of his countrymen with whom he had converfed, might have received a confufed report of our Saviour before his crucifixion, and probably lived within the Shake of the earthquake, and the Shadow of the eclipfe, which are recorded by this Author. That Christ was worshipped as a God among the Chriftians, that they would rather fuffer death than blafpheme him; that they received a facrament, and by it entered into a vow of abftaining from fin and wickedness, conformable to the advice given by St. Paul; that they had private affemblies of worShip, and used to join together in Hymns: This is the account which Pliny the younger gives of Christianity in his days, about feventy years. after the death of Chrift, and which agrees, in all its circumstances with the accounts we have in holy writ, of the firft ftate of Christianity after the crucifixion of our Bleffed Saviour. That St. Peter, whofe miracles are many of them recorded in holy writ, did many wonderful works, is owned by Julian the apoftate, who therefore reprefents him as a great Magician, and one who had in his poffeffion a book of magical fecrets left him by our Saviour. That the devils or evil spirits were fubject to them, we may learn from Porphyry, who objects to Christianity, that fince Jefus had begun to be worshipped, Efculapius and the rest of the gods did no more converse with men. Nay, Celfus himself affirms the fame thing in effect, when he says, that the power which feemed to refide in Christians, proceeded from the ufe of certain names, and the invocation of certain dæmons. Origen remarks on this paffage, that the Au

thor

thor doubtless hints at those Chriftians who put to flight evil fpirits, and healed thofe who were poffeffed with them; a fact which had been often feen, and which he himself had seen, as he declares in another part of his difcourfe against Celfus. But at the fame time he affures: us, that this miraculous power was exerted by the use of no other name but that of Jefus, to which were added feveral paffages in his hiftory, but nothing like any invocation to Demons.

III. Celfus was fo hard fet with the report of our Saviour's miracles, and the confident atteftations concerning him, that though he often intimates he did not believe them to be true, yet knowing he might be filenced in fuch an anfwer, provides himself with another retreat, when beaten out of this; namely, that our Saviour was a magician. Thus he compares the feeding of fo many thoufands at two different times with a few loaves and fishes, to the magical feafts of thofe Egyptian impoftors, who would prefent their fpectators with vifionary entertainments that had in them neither fubftance nor reality which by the way, is to fuppofe, that a hungry and fainting multitude were filled by an apparition or ftrengthened and refreshed with fhadows. He knew very well that there were fo many witneffes and actors, if I may call them fuch, in thefe two miracles, that it was impoffible to refute fuch multitudes, who had doubtlefs fufficiently fpread the fame of them, and was therefore in this place forced to refort to the other folution, that it was done by magic. It was not enough to say that a miracle which appeared to fo many thousand eye-witneffes was a forgery of Chrift's difciples,

and

and therefore fuppofing them to be eye-witneffes, he endeavours to fhew how they might be deceived.

IV. The uncontroverted heathens, who were preffed by the many authorities that confirmed our Saviour's miracles, as well as the unbelieving Jews, who had actually seen them, were driven to account for them after the fame manner; For, to work by magic in the heathen. way of speaking, was in the language of the Jews to caft out devils by Beelzebub the Prince of the devils. Our Saviour, who knew that unbelievers in all ages would put this perverse interpretation on his miracles, has branded the malignity of thofe men, who contrary to the dictates of their own hearts started fuch an unreasonable objection, as a blafphemy against the Holy Ghoft, and declared not only the guilt, but the punishment of fo black a crime. At the fame time he condefcended to fhew the vanity and emptiness of this objection against his miracles, by reprefenting that they evidently tended to the deftruction of thofe powers, to whofe affiftance the enemies of his doctrine then afcribed them. An argument, which, if duly weighed, renders the objection fo very frivolous and groundless, that we may venture to call it even blafphemy against common sense. Would Magic endeavour to draw off the minds of men from the worship which was paid to stocks and ftones, to give them an abhorrence of those evil fpirits who rejoiced in the most cruel facrifices, and in offerings of the greateft impurity; and in fhort to call upon mankind to exert their whole ftrength in the love and adoration of that one being, from whom they derived their exif

tence,

tence, and on whom only they were taught to depend every moment for the happiness and continuance of it? Was it the business of magie to humanize our natures with compaffion, forgiveness, and all the inftances of the most extenfive charity? Would evil fpirits contribute to make men fober, chafte, and temperate, and in a word to produce that reformation, which was wrought in the moral world by thofe doctrines of our Saviour, that received their Sanction from his miracles? Nor is it poffible to imagine, that evil fpirits would enter into a combination with our Saviour to cut off all their correfpondence and intercourfe with mankind, and to prevent any for the future from addicting themselves to those rites and ceremonies, which had done them fo much honour. We fee the early effect which Chriftianity had on the minds of men in this particular, by that number of books, which were filled with the fecrets of magic, and made a facrifice to Christianity by the converts mentioned in the Acts of the Apoftles. We have likewife an eminent inftance of the inconfiftency of our Religion with magic, in the hiftory of the famous Aquila. This Perfon, who was a kinfman of the Emperor Trajan, and likewife a man of great learning, notwithstanding he had embraced Chriftianity, could not be brought off from the ftudies of magie, by the repeated admonitions of his fellow-chriftians: fo that at length they expelled him their fociety, as rather choofing to lofe the reputation of fo confiderable a Profelyte, than communicate with one who dealt in fuch dark and infernal practices. Besides we may obferve, that all the favourers of magic were

the