and felf-fufficiency, inconfiftent with our condition; and the former is denying to God all intercourfe with his creatures, and impiously prefcribing bounds to his infinite wisdom and power. And not to examine that upon which our happiness both here and hereafter is affirmed to be, and at least it is poffible that it may be, dependent, is furely the greatest infatuation.

As this revelation profeffes to address itfelf to the understandings as well as the hearts of men, accordingly the proofs on which its claims are founded are adapted to reasonable creatures, capable of thinking and acting for themselves. They are not abfolute demonftrations, for this would have left no power of diffent; and confequently an affent could not be, what from the nature of man it was neceffary that it fhould be, an act of virtue: neither do they when humbly and fairly confidered fall far

fhort

fhort of demonftration: indeed when collected and confidered together, they afford fuch evidence as no unprejudiced mind can withftand, and fully as much as the nature of the thing can admit.

THE most particular and feemingly contradictory prophecies, literally fulfilled in one perfon feveral hundred years after they were written, and many of them constantly interpreted of the Meffiah, by that very people who rejected his authority and their own interpretations, when he came and fulfilled them: the most astonishing miracles confeffed by his very enemies to exceed all human power: the spotlefs life and peculiar character of their author; a character above all former comprehenfion of men, and confequently incapable of being feigned, and directly contrary to what the known prejudices either of Jews or Gentiles would have led them to feign, had they attempted it:

the

the barbarous treatment, and the painful and ignominious death which he voluntarily underwent to bear witness to the truth and fincerity of his pretenfions: his refurrection from the grave, evidenced by an intercourse of forty days with his difciples, and his appearance to no less than five hundred perfons at one time, and his visible and glorious afcenfion into heaven: his apoftles' integrity and extraordinary firmnefs: the power confered upon them by him of knowing the thoughts of mens' hearts, of foretelling future events, of fpeaking languages which they had never learnt, and of working the greatest miracles: the teftimony given by their deaths, and by thofe of an amazing number of converts of both fexes and every condition, to the truth of their own and of their master's doctrine: the purity, holiness, and excellence of that doctrine, above the most applauded fyftems of the most learned philofophers, fo well adapted to the conN dition

dition and circumftances of man, exalting his nature, and conducting him to happiness both in this world and the next: and laftly, befides the extraordinary fate of its chief oppofers the Jews, and their uncommon difperfion and fingular difcrimination among all the nations of the earth for more than one thousand feven hundred years; the propagation of this religion in almost every country, tho' in direct contradiction to the most favorite opinions and practices of mankind; and tho' preached at first by a few perfons poor and illiterate, and chofen from the lowest occupations, and strenuously opposed by all the power, wealth and learning of the world.

ALL these things fairly confidered, and they are within the comprehenfion of the moft uncultivated minds, cannot fail of producing the fulleft conviction: for the objections which from time to time have been made to the nature or circumftançes

of

of the evidence are fuch, as, if admitted, would involve all our knowledge in doubt, and render the world one continued scene of confusion: those which have been made either to the whole difpenfation or to fome of its parts, are fuch as were to be expected, from the nature of man and the subject of the difpenfation; man being a free agent and capable of error, and the gospel treating of the nature of God and of his univerfal scheme of providence. Befides this, the pride and vanity of mens' minds, and the corruption of their hearts continually prompt them to tranfgrefs fuch pure and holy laws, and render them unwilling to confefs their ignorance and guilt.

THAT fuch things would happen, the all wife author of the christian religion forefaw, and very precisely foretold in feveral parts of the new teftament: their happening therefore in conformity with his predictions, muft

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