mong men, as any uncommon occur◄ rence in physics is an exception in that department of nature. If the latter, then, is termed a miracle, and supposed to give proof of the immediate interposition of supernatural power, so must the former; and thus we must conclude the religion of the Jews to be straightway derived from God. This interposition, too, is more distinctly established, as the evidences of it are less liable to error than those of the common miracles. It depends not on the testimony of individual witnesses: the history of it is certain: none of the infidels have denied what we have stated to be the Jewish religion; and, unless they can, on natural principles, account for any thing so uncommon, they must confess in it the immediate hand of the Lord.

But, why so particular an interference of heaven in the polity and religion of a peculiar people? A. mong that people arose a religion, which was to overspread the earth : the preservation among men of the

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knowledge of the true God was a necessary preparative for it; and the foretelling of it by prophecy was to be a convincing evidence of its truth. Both of these purposes were effected in the Jewish system; and, at the same time, those clear and perspicuous marks of supernatural power which we perceive in the Jewish dispensation, form a material branch of the evidence of that religion to which it was to give rise.

Thus have I shown, that the history of the Jewish religion constitutes a valuable part of the testimony of the Christian faith. Tracing it downwards, I shall now consider the coming of our Saviour: and shall, first, endeavour to demonstrate that it was such as was most likely to have been expected; and, next, that we have satisfactory evidences of the truth of it.

CHAP. III.

In the redemption of the human race, two great objects were naturally to have been looked for: the first, their being enlightened and instructed in the knowledge of those important truths which their own depravity had obscured, and their imbecility had hid from their eyes; and, secondly, some satisfaction, some propitiation was necessary for those transgressions which had been committed against heaven; and for the broken and despised laws of God. Now, both of these ends were attained in the religion of Christ. In Jesus was found a teacher, who, without the pomp of learning, which would have ill suited his

purpose of instructing the simple and humble, produced tem of morality and theology alled in all the schools of ns and Rome. Who among hilosophers has ever lectured as in his sermon upon the mount?* ch of them has ever prescribed ddress to the Deity so concise, o comprehensive and expressive we want, as the prayer recomed by Christ? Who, among the , has so beautifully pointed out periority of the works of nature of those of art, and so forcibly ted to reliance on the goodness Joar Creator? "Behold," said he, "the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father

With allusion to some part of that admirable discourse, Suetonius tells us, that it was a favourite saying of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, that there was more wisdom in the precepts of a Jewish Teacher, (by whom that Heathen and great man meant our Saviour,) than he had found in the works of all the phi losophers.

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feedeth them; are ye not much bet ter than they? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith !"* Equally distant from the voluptuousness of the Epicurean and the forced rigidity of the Stoic, in the lessons of Jesus was found a set of precepts, more adapted to the real state of human nature than what either of these eminent systems of philosophy can exhibit. Instead of that surrender to pleasure, and personal and sensual gratification, the fruits and production of the Epicurean school, the religion of Jesus enjoined purity, chastity, temperance; and these not in conduct only, but the heart, from whence proceeds every ac tion, must be guarded and reformed.

* Matthew vi. 26–28.