other. The enemies of Christianity, sensible of this, have endeavoured to prove a revelation needless, from the sufficiency of natural light. They have likewise laboured to shew, as you have just now heard, that miracles can be no proof of a revelation. But, these arguments failing, they have had recourse to an attack on the miracles themselves, by a ludicrous attempt to represent them as empty and senseless allegories; by observing, that all religions, howsoever absurd or false in themselves, have ever pleaded miracles for vouchers; and insinuating, that the miracles, pretended to by all religions, are equally legendary and incredible; and by sophistical arguments, levelled against the credibility of the scriptural miracles in particular. Thus hath distaste to the duties raised objections to the proofs of our religion; and the wrong head hath but schemed what the corrupt heart had suggested.

We are not to wonder, that the propagators of a false religion should pretend to miracles, inasmuch as there is no other way of proving any religion, whether true or false. But, with men of sense and candour, the pretended can no more bring the real miracle into suspicion, than the hypocrisy of one man can bring the imputation of villany on another. Credit is necessary to the execution of every dishonest practice; he therefore who carries on such practices, in order to credit, gives all the signs he can, of an honest and upright meaning. But does this prove, there is no such thing as honesty in the world? Or ought this to have any other effect on us, than to rouse us to a cautious circumspection in our dealings with mankind? But, after we have sufficiently distinguished the real from the counterfeit honest man, what then remains, but that we are to have nothing to do with the one, and to repose an entire confidence in the other? Just so we ought to deal in matters of religion. If a religion talks nonsense to me, or tells me what I know to be false, I need never stay to inquire about its vouchers, but turn from it, as I would do from a man, whom I knew to be a fool, or a liar. But if nothing of either kind occurs, nay, if the revelation under inquiry seems not only agreeable to reason, but proposes matters of great consequence to me, whereof I was not well aware before, it is then worth my while to examine its vouchers; for howsoever excellent it

may appear in its doctrines and institutions, yet I cannot receive it as infallibly right and true, that is, as the dictates of God himself, till I find it can plead the genuine signs of divine authority. If I find its signs can stand the test of a close scrutiny, why should I be staggered in my reliance on these, merely because I see another religion, which I know to be nothing but imposture, pretending to the like signs, when, with half an eye, I can perceive those signs are as spurious, as the religion they are brought to prove is in itself both false and pernicious?

That the miraculous vouchers for Christianity are fully qualified to stand the severest test of reason, hath been so often, and so unanswerably, proved, that to go about the proof of it here, would be either to repeat what others have better said, or to add the light of a candle to that of the sun. In consequence, however, of the principles I have laid down in regard to miracles, I must observe to you, that those related in Scriptures, as wrought in confirmation of our religion, were open and glaring facts, performed before multitudes of people, at all times, and in all places, as the performers were summoned to the work at the discretion of every one who stood in need of their assistance; that they were performed without preparation, without natural instruments, without human means; that they were acts of the highest beneficence and compassion; that they were unsparingly dispensed, in prodigious numbers, throughout a great variety of countries, and for a long course of years, as often as misery, no otherwise to be relieved, called for help; that they were such as no power but his, who can create, reverse, annihilate, as he pleases, could possibly effect; touching the sick into health! speaking the dead into life! walking on the surface of the sea! rebuking the winds and waves, and in a moment, reducing an outrageous storm to a calm, by two or three words! What other performances could more evidently demonstrate the finger of God? If an unassisted man can do these things, can thus arrest the course of nature, what difference is there between the power of God and man? But he who performed them, and best knew by what power he did them, ascribed them to God alone, and pleaded them in proof of such a religion as, of all others, stood least in need of external proofs; because it

speaks itself divine, in the distinguishing purity of all its precepts, and the visible superiority of its wisdom.

Here the caviller again puts in his word. Christ, he says, could not always exercise his miraculous power, Mark vi. 5, but only when the faith of the person disordered assisted his own cure; whereas the evidence of his mission arising from the performance of his miracles, the miracle ought to have been previously exhibited, that the faith might follow.

It is said, indeed, that Christ could do no mighty work in his own country, because of their unbelief;' but it is also said, in the same place, that he laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them.' Our blessed Saviour did not come into the world to cast pearls before swine,' nor to heal such scornful wretches, as were made infidels purely by their pride. At the time when he was repulsed by his countrymen, they had sufficient evidence both of his wisdom and power; for they could say, What wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?" They, nevertheless, asked, with the utmost contempt, 'Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?' Were miracles to be thrown away on people in this way of thinking? When it is said, he could do no mighty work' among such, the evangelist, no doubt, meant, that he could not, consistently with his mission, and with the infinite dignity of his person, exhibit the effects of his divine power, in a place where they were to be treated with contempt, or, at best, only gazed at, as food for their impertinent curiosity. It was for the same reason that the saucy desire of Herod was not gratified, nor any miracles wrought, by way of experiment; but only when the wants and distresses of mankind, of the humble, and of the well disposed, rendered them proper objects of compassion. As to faith in the sick, it was not always made necessary to his cure; for the absent were often healed, and the dead raised to life. But as often as faith might be reasonably expected, it was required; because they who did not believe what Moses and the prophets had said concerning Christ, were very unworthy, and, in all probability, as unfit, to receive farther opportunity of conviction by the miracles of our Saviour. Miracles, indeed, must go before faith, where no foundation of belief could have been previously laid; but where it could, and through pride and contempt was not, new

missions, either from above or below, could not in reason be expected, although by a Herod, a Dives, or the very eminent inhabitants of Nazareth, who were too great truly to believe, unless on the preaching of a man of quality. With such personages religion, and its proofs, never had, never can have, any thing to do. They have infinitely more respect for a civil lie from the mouth of a dignified sharper, than for a plain truth from the worthiest man that lives, if his hands have ever earned him a morsel of bread. The objectors of rank and figure take it very ill too, for the same reason, I suppose, that Christ did not prove the miracle of his resurrection by a personal appearance before Pilate, Herod, the high-priest, and sanhedrim; as if religion, after repeated neglects and contempts, were to wait on the grandees with evidence proportionable to the infidel slowness of their assent. Our blessed Saviour, however, judged infinitely better in not meanly courting the testimony of men, who had already basely bought, sold, and complimented away, his life; men corrupt enough to be capable of stifling any truth, or vouching any falsehood, or, in short, committing any villainy, that might help to support a grandeur, already raised on vile intrigues, and infamous enormities, of the same kind.

But, after all, they who object, that faith ought to follow the miracles, and not go before them, as Christ required it should, do not consider, that the miracles were by no means wrought merely for the sake of the persons on whom they were wrought, but chiefly for the conviction of others, and indeed of all mankind. Christ shews this was the intention, when he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead; for he saith, John xi. 14, 15, Lazarus is dead; and I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there (to the intent ye may believe).' Here conviction and faith are made the natural consequence of a miracle performed on one who was dead; that is, in a case where the faith of the person to be restored was out of the question. Such was the effect proposed by all the other miracles. They were not to be performed, it is true, for the benefit of hardened and contemptuous infidels, but of such persons as had that degree of faith, which might be reasonably expected of them; and were not performed even on them, but in order principally to the conviction of millions, who neither had, nor could have, the faith intended,

without them. The objection, therefore, is impertinent; because the thing it requires, is the very thing proposed, and provided for, by all the miracles.

As we have already shewn, that real miracles are the only conceivable proofs of a true revelation, and that those which vouch Christianity to us, were real miracles, it now only remains to be shewn, that these miracles were actually wrought. But here, as in the last head, I am prevented by such performances, as have put this matter beyond all question. Yet I shall, as briefly as I can, sketch out the evidence, on which we believe the miracles of our blessed Saviour were really exhibited, as they are set forth in the New Testament.

There is no historical fact better known, than that Christianity took its rise in an age when human learning, philosophy, and refinements of all kinds, were carried as high as the wit of man was able to push them. It is equally well known, that this system of religion was not propagated by policy, by power, or by men of great abilities and address, but by men every way unqualified for great attempts, in opposition to all the learning, all the bigotry, all the force and cruelty, that both Judaism and Paganism could muster against it. It is notwithstanding farther known, that our religion made a most rapid progress over the world, and, in the space of two centuries, drew in above one half of the Roman empire, and had, moreover, rooted itself in many other nations beyond the verges of that empire.

Now, to a rational man, this must seem utterly unaccountable, by all the rules and methods from whence success in human affairs is always known to proceed. In this instance, the illiterate baffle the learned, the simple outwit the politic, and the weak subdue the strong, with infinitely greater expedition, than was ever known in any other, where the contrary qualities had the ascendant. Hence it is but natural to suppose the interposition of some power more than human. As Christianity confessedly inculcates a pure, a rational, and a most operative system of morality, this must be supposed a good rather than an evil power.

If the mind, after having taken this distant view of Christianity, in its marvellous progress, hath the curiosity to draw a little nearer, and inquire into the ancient records of a phenomenon so very extraordinary, it finds all ascribed, as