fected with fo public and wifhed-for a declara-CHAP. tion? and those who are witneffes of it with VIII. us, can they be indifferent to it, or deny their attention ?

The eyes of every one follow the man, whom John only through obedience baptized; he prays at his coming out of Jordan: we all obferve him in this condition with a new attention. The heavens open; a dove, which defcends from thence, refts upon his head: we begin then to perceive, that he himself is defcended from heaven; and at the time that we are full of this thought, we hear an heavenly voice, which could be only that of the eternal Father, who acknowledged him for his well-. beloved Son, the fole object of his love and complacency. Is it poffible for us to be then miftaken, or to fall into fuch a blindness ?

But this is the very thing, fays a mistrustful and fearful man, which makes me afraid, that this. history is not in all its circumftances as certain as I could wish for if the whole happened as it is written, I cannot conceive why the whole multitude did not believe in Chrift, nor why they hesitated a moment to hear him with an entire docility, whom the heavenly Father had fo publicly declared to be his only Son. Is it poffible, that fo many ocular witnesses did not from that time become his difciples? is. it probable that they did not relate fuch a wonder to a great many people, or that they were not believed, or if they were believed, that those who heard them, should make no use of a thing of this confequence? One would think that after fuch a

miracle

PART miracle they could not defire another, and that IV. all the queftions were refolved.

You imagine then, I fhall answer him, that miracles fuffice to give a fincere faith, and lead to a true righteoufnefs? You imagine then that when ocular witneffes relate a true miracle to those that were abfent, these cannot doubt it, and that they must make a good use of it, fince they cannot doubt it? And very likely you imagine that a faithful recital of a miracle does not deferve lefs to be credited, when it is written, than when related vivâ voce. How comes it then that you doubt of this which paffed before witneffes, who were at first difciples of John, and afterwards of Chrift? Why do you refufe to yield to the testimony of the evangelifts, cotemporary authors, who were fo well informed, and fo fincere? and how would you have the truth of the most certain facts come down to us, if all the canals, through which it is to be tranfmitted, are fufpicious?

All the witneffes, you fay, of fuch a wonder, fhould from that time have become difciples of Chrift. Many were indeed brought over: but you must have little knowledge of mankind to imagine them all capable of being much affected with miracles, which are not the object of their paffions, and which even tend to reprefs their concupifcence and luft. They at first beheld them with admiration i. they spoke of them with joy; they thought themselves happy in having beheld them: but their heart, which remained obdurate, foon

diverted

diverted them from a thought which was oppo-CHAP. fite to felf-love, and procured none of those plea- VIII. fures it defired: and those who heard them spoken' of, being lefs fenfibly affected than those who had ocular demonftration, fooner loft the idea, and forgot them. There must be something more durable and more internal, than fight or memory, to convert men, and to make them fincere difciples of Chrift; and we may eafily reconcile the hiftorical credit of a miracle which proves him to be the Son of God, with a great indifference to his morality, and to goods which he only promises after death.

I agree to it, fays again the fame mistrustful and fearful man, and your reflections appear better founded than my crude notions; but I have ftill a certain dread and tremor, which impedes my thoroughly crediting a miracle, that would be truly decifive, had I a full and complete evidence of its certainty.

I am concerned (I reply to him) that one is continually obliged to prove to you the fincerity of the evangelifts, tho' you have reaped no benefit from fo many things which have been faid to eftablish it, and of which you seemed so often convinced. But the goodness of God, who forefaw your imbecillity, hath diverfified a thousand ways the proofs of the christian religion, and the principal facts upon which it is established; and I hope that on this occafion they will be as plain to you, as they have been on many others.

ARTICLE

PART.

IV.

ARTICLE III.

Proofs of the truth and certainty of the teftimony of the heavenly Father, which we ought to look upon as demonftrations.

Think, you know, that the baptism of Saint John was only a baptifm of repentance, preparative to that of the Meffiah; that it justified no one, but only declared the finful state of those who received it, without any other advantage than of exciting fentiments of humiliation and repentance, joined to the hopes of pardon thro' Chrift, which was only promifed *.

you

Would you have ever dreamt of fubjecting to fuch a baptifm a perfon you had acknowledged, or defired that the whole world fhould acknowledge as the Meffiah? would you have judged fuch an humiliation compatible with the majesty of the Son of God? would you have confounded the Saviour of man with the crowd of finners? would have subjected the Holy of Holies to the baptifm of his fore-runner and ambaffador, who prepared the way for him? is it just to imagine, that what was fo very remote from thoughts, fhould enter into other people's heads? is it reasonable to attribute to rational men, who intended to gain credit by probability, what appeared to you as mere folly, or

your

perhaps

* Acts xix. 4,

perhaps would never have occurred to your CHAP. imagination ? VIII.

Was it not in their power to feign any other occasion, more fuitable to the majefty of the Father, and fanctity of the Son? and if they were willing, that the heavens fhould open upon Chrift, a dove light upon his head, and a heavenly voice declare him the Son of God in the presence of those who came to the baptism of John; was it not infinitely more natural to cause all this to happen whilft John refifted his humility, than after his baptism had in fome measure degraded him, by feemingly ranking him among the number of finners?

How could the evangelifts believe, that it was confentaneous with justice and equity, that he who was most eminently just, should submit to a ceremony established for finners? and yet they make Chrift to fay *, that it was just and neceffary for him to fubmit. Upon what could they ground fuch a kind of neceffity? and how could a thing fo difficult to conceive after the event, appear to them a prescribed and rigorous duty?

But tho' we were to diffemble all this, how could we ever find either juftice or confiftency in the defign of the evangelifts, who make Chrift retire into the defart for forty days immediately after this public and august testi

mony,

* "Suffer it to be fo now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil "all righteoufnefs. Mark. iii. 15.

"And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilder"nefs." Matth. i. 12.

66

Jefus returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into "the wilderness." Luke iv. 1.

I