of proof from human teftimony, which it is poffible for a fufficient number of competent witneffes to fee and to hear.

SOME things may feem to be fupernatural, which are really not fo: fuch are the tricks of the jugler; whereof when we are told the contrivance, we are furprised to find it fo eafy, and almoft afhamed of having ever wondered at it. Some other things appeared fupernatural to those only who are ignorant of their caufes and fuch are many facts in electricity, magnetism, and other parts of experimental philofophy.

Bur the mighty works of our Saviour are quite of a different kind. To raise the dead to life, to cure the most violent disease by fpeaking a word, to walk on the surface of a ftormy fea :--thefe; and many other things recorded in the gospel, are truly miraculous; and fuch as, to human apprehenfion, that power only can perform, which having established the course of nature, is alone able to change it.

Or this fort of miracles the author of our religion not only wrought many, but also imparted to his apostles the power of doing the fame.And, what was ftill more wonderful, if any thing could be more fo, he himself, after having been crucified, in the prefence of a great multitude,

and pierced with a lance, and found to be dead, and after lying part of three days in the grave, rose to life, re-animated that body which had been mangled on the cross, paffed forty days on earth after his refurrection, during which time he frequently converfed with his disciples, and in open day, and while he was speaking to them, visibly ascended from the earth,till a cloud received him out of their fight. These miracles tranfcend all power but what is divine. So that, if we admit the gospel history to be true, we must believe, that our Lord was what he declared himself to be, a perfon invested with divine power, and employed in a divine miffion. The truth of the history may be proved from many confiderations.

It might be proved from the existence, and fingular nature, of the religion of Jefus. On the fuppofition that the gospel is true, the peculiar character of this religion, its present state, and the various revolutions it has undergone, may be eafily accounted for: on the contrary supposition, nothing in the whole compass of human affairs is more unaccounable, than the rise and progress of Christianity. Its hiftory may be traced from the prefent age up to that of the apoftles. Since that period, down to these times, fo writers speak of this gospel, and concur in fo many particulars.

E.

many

concerning it, that there is not perhaps any other ancient record, for whofe authenticity fo many vouchers could be produced. And we know for certain, that many intelligent perfons of the primitive church, who had the best opportunities of knowing the truth of the matter, and whose fupreme concern it was to inquire into it, and not fuffer themselves to be mistaken, believed and afferted the truth of the gofpel, and fuffered death in confirmation of their faith and teftimony. Can any thing like this be urged in favour of Xenophon, Salluft, or Ticitus; whofe authority, notwithstanding the world is not much inclined, and in general has no great reason, to call in queftion ?

HAD the evangelifts written the history, and the apostles preached the doctrines of a man who lived before they were born, or whom neither they nor their contemporaries had ever feen, their teftimony would not perhaps have been above fufpicion. But I fhall not misrepresent the cir cumstances, or the conduct of those extraodinary teachers, if I fuppofe them to have addreffed their countrymen the Jews, who were the first hearers of the gospel, in words like these : • We tell 'you of this man, our divine master, many things "which ye yourselves know to be true; and no

thing, in regard to which ye may not, if ye can'didly inquire, fatisfy yourselves by the testimony of creditable witneffes who heard and faw what 'we affirm. From perfifting in falfhood we have nothing to hope; and ye in detecting it can have nothing to fear. The power of the flate is in 'your hands: exert yourselves to the utmoft;

and confute us if ye can.' Suppose an addrefs of this kind to be made to the French nation, concerning a hiftory of well-known events that had happened in France; and suppose the only anfwer returned by public authority to be as follows:

On the fubject ye mention we command you ' and your adherents to be filent on pain of death:" of which party, let me afk, would the world judge moft favourably? Would it not be faid,. nothing could be more fair, than what is declared on the one fide; and that on the other there at once appeared invincable prejudice and implacable malignity.

BUT what motives could thofe Jews have to wish the gospel might be false, and to fhut their eyes against the light with so much obftinacy and perfeverance? Motives they had of the most cogent nature; motives, which among any people it might be difficult to prevail against, but which from the inherent perverfeness of the Jewish na

tion could hardly fail to derive infurmountable ftrength.

FOR first, if the Jewifh rulers, after the death of our Lord, had acknoweldged him to be the Mesfiah, they must have acknowledged themselves the perpetrators of the most dreadful crime that ever difgraced a nation; and from rulers fo haughty a confeffion fo humiliating could hardly be looked for. Nor fecondly, was it to be expected, that they could bear to think of the abrogation of the law of Mofes, which had fubfifted fo long; which did fo much honour to their nation, temple, and capital city; which taught them to confider themfelves as God's peculiar people; and from which their priests, fcribes, and elders, who we find were the most inveterate enemies of the new religion, derived fo many dignities and emoluments.

THEY might alfo, thirdly, from many political confiderations, be unwilling to receive the gospel, and inclined to look on the men who taught it as the enemies of their country. For if the Meffiah was now come, then all their flattering hopes of a glorious conqueror, who, fhould rescue them from the Roman yoke, and exalt them above all nations, were at an end for ever. And then they might be apprehenfive, that the Romans, fome of whom, as we learn from Tacitus, and Suetonius, knew