printer, or of a transcriber might chance, in some places, to insert one letter or word for another; and the various readings of this, as well as all other ancient books, prove that this has sometimes been the case. But those various readings are generally of such little importance, that he who can urge them as an objection against the assertion we are now maintaining, must have little judgment, or little integrity; and, indeed, after those excellent things which have been said on the subject by many defenders of Christianity, he must, if he has read their writings, have little modesty

too.

Since then it appears that the books in the New Testament, as they now stand in the original, are without any material alteration, such as they were when they came from the hands of the sacred authors, nothing remains to complete this part of the argument but to shew,

5. That the translation of them now

in the common use may be depended upon, as, in all particulars, agreeable to the original.

This is a fact of which the generality of readers are not able to judge immediately, though it is of the last importance; it is therefore with great pleasure we reflect, how ample evidence they may have another way, to make their minds easy on this head. We mean, by the concurrent testimony of others, in circumstances in which it cannot be imagined they would unite to deceive them.

There are few who preach the Gospel of the Son of God, but have examined this matter with the greatest care, and are able to judge in so easy a case; and who will all unanimously declare, that the common English translation is in the main faithful and judicious. We do not indeed, scruple, on some occasions to animadvert upon it; but these remarks never affect the fudamentals of religion, and seldom reach any further than the beauty of a fignre, or the connection of an argument

But the argument does not wholly rest on the unanimous suffrages of the teachers of the Gospel. The different sects of protestants in this kingdom bear witness to this truth. For it is certain that where a body of men dissent from the public establishment, and yet agree with the church from which they dissent, in using the same translation, though they are capable of examining and judging of it, is as great evidence as can be desired, that such a translation is right in the main. But the dissenters unanimously unite with us in bearing testimony to the oracle of God, as delivered in our own lan

guage: and consequently our translation may be depended upon.

Thus have I finished the first part of my argument, and shewn that the Christian religion is certainly true, and that the New Testament is ine. I shall next proceed to shew,

genu

II. That from allowing the New Testament to be genuine, it will un

deniably follow, that Christianity is a divine revelation.

And here a person is at first ready to be lost in the multiplicity of arguments which surround him. It is very easy to find proofs; but difficult to range and dispose them in such an order as best to illustrate and confirm each other. We shall therefore offer them in the following natural series:

The authors of the books contained in the New Testament were certainly capable of judging concerning the truth of the facts they asserted: their characters, so far as we can judge of them by their writings, render them worthy of regard; and they were under no temptation to attempt imposing on the world by such relations as they have given us, if they had been false. Nevertheless, it is certain in fact, they did gain credit, and succeeded in a most amazing manner, against all opposition. It is therefore certain, that the facts which they asserted were true; and if they were true, then it was reasonable for their contemporaries, and it is reasonable for us, to receive the Gospel as a divine revelation; especially if we consider what has happened to the world for the confirmation of it, since first propagated by them. This is the conclusion to which we must attend: and therefore let us seriously consider each of the steps by which we arrive at it.

It is exceedingly evident, that the writers of the New Testament cer

Let the common sense of mankind judge here. Did not Matthew and John certainly know whether they had personally, and familiarly, conversed with Jesus of Nazareth or not? Whether he had chosen them for his constant attendants and apostles? Whether they had seen him heal the sick, dispossess devils, and raise the dead? And whether they themselves had received from him such miraculous endowments as they declared he bestowed upon them? Did they not know whether he fell into the hands of his enemies and was publicly put to death or not? Did not John know whether he saw himexpiring on the cross or not? and whether he received from him a dying charge, which he records, ch.xiv. v.27? Did he not know whether he saw him wounded in the side with

a spear or not? and whether he did or did not see that effusion of blood. and water, which was an infallible argument of his being really dead? Concerning which, it being so material a circumstance, he adds, "He that saw it bare record; and he knoweth that he saith true;" i. e. that it was a case in which he could not possibly be deceived. And with regard to Christ's resurrection, did he not certainly know whether he saw our Lord again and again; and whether he handled his body, that he might be sure it was not a mere phantom? What one circumstance of his life could he certainly know, if he were mistaken in this?

Did not Luke know whether he was in the ship with Paul when that extraordinary wreck happened, by which they were thrown ashore on the island of Malta? Did he not know whether, while they were lodged together in the governor's house, Paul miraculously healed one of the family, and many other diseased persons in the island, as he positively asserts that he did in Acts xxviii?

Did not Paul certainly know whether Christ appeared to him on the way to Damascus or not? whether he was blind; and afterwards, on the prayer of a fellow disciple, received his sight? or was that a circumstance in which there could be room for mistake? Did he not know whether he received such extraordinary revelations and extraordinary powers, as to be able, by the laying

on of his hands, or, by the words of his mouth, to work miracles?

To add no more: Did not Peter know, whether he saw the glory of Christ's transfiguration, and heard that voice to which he so expressly refers, when he says, "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty, when there came such a voice to him; and this voice we heard," 2 Peter ch. i. ver. 16 to 18?

Now Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and Peter, are by far the most considerable writers of the New Testament; and surely when we reflect on these particulars, we must own that there are few historians, ancient or modern, that could so certainly judge of the truth of the facts which they have related. The reason why we have enlarged in stating so clear a case is, that it is the foundation of the whole argument; and that this branch of it alone cuts off Infidels from that refuge which they could generally choose, that of pleading the apostles were enthusiasts; and leaves them silent, unless they will say that they were imposters. For you evidently see, that could we suppose these facts to be false, they could by no means pretend an involuntary mistake: but must in the most criminal and aggravated sense, as St. Paul himself expresses it, 1 Cor. xv. 15, “Be found false witnesses of God." But how unreasonable it would be to charge them with so notorious a crime will in part appear, if we consider,

d

That the character of these writers, so far as we can judge by their can judge by their works, seems to render them worthy of regard; and leaves no room to imagine that they intended to deceive

us.

It would be unnecessary to shew at large, that they appear to have been persons of natural sense, and at the time of their writing, of a composed mind; for certainly no man that ever read the New Testament with attention, could imagine they were idiots or madmen. Let the discourses of Christ in the Evangelists, of Peter and Paul, in the Acts, as well as many passages in the Epistles, be perused, and we will venture to say, he who is not even charmed with them, must be a stranger to all the justest rules of polite criticism. But he who suspects that the writers wanted common sense, must himself be most evidently destitute of it; and he who can suspect they might possible be distracted, must himself, in this instance at least, be just as mad as he imagines them to have been.-It was necessary, however, just to touch upon this; because unless we are satisfied that a person be himself in what he writes, we cannot pretend to determine his character from his writings.

Having premised this, let us on perusing the New Testament, observe what evident marks it bears of simplicity, and integrity, of piety and benevolence; upon which we shall find them pleading the cause of its authors, with a nervous, though

gentle eloquence, and powerfully persuading the mind, that men who were capable of writing so excellently well must evidently appear to have strictly adhered to the rectitude of truth.

The manner in which they relate this narration is most happily adapted to gain our belief. For as they tell it with a great deal of circumstances, which by no means could be prudent in legendary writers, because it leaves so much the more room for confutation; tion; so they also do it in the most easy and natural manner. There is no air of declamation and harangue; nothing that looks like artifice and design; no apologies, no encomiums, no character, no reflections, no digressions but the facts are recounted with great simplicity, just as they appear to have happened; and those facts are left to speak for themselves in their great author. It is plain that the rest of these writers, as well as the apostle Paul, did not affect excellency of speech, or flights of eloquence, as the phrase signifies; but determined to know nothing, though amongst the most learned and polites save Jesus Christ and him crucified. A conduct which is the more to be admired, when we consider how extraordinary a theme their's was, and with what abundant variety of most pathetic declamation it would easily have furnished any common writer: so that one would really wonder how they could forbear it. But they rightly judged that a vain affectation of ornament, when recording such facts of their own knowledge, might perhaps have brought their sincerity

Their integrity, likewise, evidently appears in the freedom with which they mention those circumstances, which might have exposed their Master and themselves to the greatest contempt among prejudiced and inconsiderable men ; such as they knew they must generally expect to meet with. As to their Master, they scruple not to own, that his country was despised, his birth and education mean, and his life indigent; that he was most disdainfully rejected by the rulers, and accused of sabbath-breaking, blasphemy, and sedition: that he was reviled by the populace as a debauchee, a lunatic, and a demoniac; and, at last, by the united rage of both rulers and people, was publicly executed as the vilest of malefactors, with all imaginable circumstances of ignominy, scorn and abhorrence.

Nor do they scruple to own that terror and distress of spirit into which he was thrown by his sufferings, though this was a circumstance at which some of the Heathens took the greatest offence, as utterly unworthy so excellent and divine a person. As to themselves, the apostles readily confess not only the meanness of their original employment, and the scandal of their former life, but their judices, their follies, and their faults, after Christ had honoured them with so holy a calling. They acknowledge their lowliness of apprehension under so excellent a teacher; their unbelief, their cowardice, their ambition, their rash zeal, and their fool

pre

whole, they seemed every where to forget they were writing of themselves, and appear not at all solicitous about their own reputation; but only that they might represent the matter, just as it was, whether they went through honour or dishonour, through evil report or good report. Nor is this all; for it is certain that in their writings there are the most genuine traces, not only of a plain and honest, but a most pious and devout, a most benevolent and gene. rous disposition. These appear especially in the epistolatory parts of the New Testament, where, indeed, we should most reasonably expect to find them; and of these it may be confidently affirmed, that the greater progress any one as made in love to God, in zeal for his glory, in a compassionate and generous concern for the present and future happiness of mankind, the more humble, and candid, and temperate, and pure he is; the more ardently he loveth truth, and the more steadily he is determined to suffer the greatest extemity in its defence. In a word, the more his heart is weaned from the present world, and the more it is fired with the prospects of a glorious immortality, the more pleasure he will take in reading those writings; the more will he relish the spirit which discovers itself in them; and find that as face answers face in water, so do the traces of divine grace, which appear there answer to those which a good man feels in his own soul. Nay, it may be added, that the warm and genuine workings of that excellent and holy temper, which