SERM. I. As foon as it appears above Ground and is discovered in Day-Light, it is rendered incapable of doing any further Detriment. Their Enemies, right or wrong, would endeavour to fully the Brightness of their Characters. And when one confiders them in their exalted Situation as Ambaffadors of God, a Spectacle to Mankind on the open Theatre of the World, they muft (plain and unlearned as they were) have acted their Parts with uncommon Addrefs not to have been discovered. Like Statues placed on an high Pedestal, they must have been fomewhat bigger than the Life, not to look lefs than it; I mean they must have been better than the common run of Men, not to have appeared worse than them; when their Actions and Characters would be scanned with all the Quick-fightedness of Malice, ever vigilant to feek Occafion against them.

In fhort, the Facts thus circumstanced prove themselves; and the only Reason why, at the Time and Place when and where they were faid to be done, they were believed to be true by Perfons tenacious of another Religion, is, that they were true; as the only Reason why a felf-evident Propofition which draws after it a Train of

un

unacceptable Confequences is admitted to SERM. I. be true, is, that it cannot be denied. All other Suppofitions are forced and unnatural, and fuch as would not be endured by any Man of common Senfe in any other Cafe.

Nay, no Account can be given, why the Chief Priefts and Rulers, who could fuborn the Soldiers to tell a fenfeless Falfhood about the Refurrection, did not attempt to difprove the other marvellous Facts, though convinced that they were true, but this; that they were fo notoriously true, it would have been of no Avail to have denied them. It would have been as ridiculous, at that Time and in that Place, to have fet about a Confutation of fuch overbearing Evidence, as it would have been to have denied a felf-evident Propofition.. They might as well have afferted that the Feast of Pentecoft was not obferved at Jerufalem, as that the Miracle of the Gift of Tongues was not wrought publickly at that Festival, when there were fo many living Witneffes from every Nation under Heaven to atteft the Truth of it.

Nay, fo far were the Ancient Jews, however virulent, from confronting the Evidence for Christianity, that the Jerufalem VOL. I.

C

Tal

SERM. I. Talmud *, which contains a Collection of

the Traditions of their Fore-fathers, and was compofed about three hundred Years after the Birth of our Saviour, has preferved the Memory of fome of our Saviour's Miracles; as that he walked on the Sea, and that he raised the Dead; and it mentions the very Perfons by Name with particular Circumstances, whom St. James miraculously cured, though their Diftempers were mortal, by the Name of Jefus Chrift. The State of the Queftion is now changed; in those early Times they did not (and the only Reason was, they could not) conteft the Reality of the Miracles; what they contefted was, the Inference from thence; the Truth of the Doctrines: The ableft of our modern Adverfaries own, the Doctrines must be allowed to be true, fuppofing the Miracles actually wrought; but deny that they were wrought. For thus One of the most fagacious of them fays, (and what he fays is very true) "God can never be fup"pofed often to permit Miracles to be done " in Confirmation of a falfe or pretended

"Miffion."

*See Bp. Chandler's Defence of Christianity, pages 429,

430.

Add to this, that feveral thoufands, who SERM. I. must be privy to the Impofture, if there was one, fealed the Truth of Christianity with their Blood. They, like Sampfon, and like him too with a Strength fuperior to their own, attempted to pull down the Temple of Heathenifm; and to lay the Edifice, the Work of Ages, low in the Duft; at the fame Time that they foresaw they fhould be buried in it's Ruins: and like him, destroyed more Enemies to the true Religion at and by their Deaths, than they did in their Lives.

Out of a numberless Lift of Martyrs let us fingle out St. Simeon Bishop of Jerusalem, laying down, at the Age of one hundred and twenty Years, that Life, for the Truth of Christianity, which he had conducted by the Precepts of it; whofe extreme old Age was of the lowest Confideration to make him venerable. Was this Perfon a deluded Zealot? No; he who was a near Relation of our Saviour, and in'timately converfant with him and the Apoftles, could not be ignorant of their Characters, Views and Actions; this admits of no Dispute, and needs no laboured Proof. Was he then an artful Deluder? But could

SERM. I. he, confcious that Chrift and his Apostles

were Deceivers, profefs his Faith in him to the laft, when he was three Days, as Hegefippus, (an early Writer of the fame Church) informs us, in dying by PieceMeal, under the most exquifite Tortures; while Death advanced by Degrees, in it's moft ghaftly Form? How could he, I fay, profefs his Faith to the laft, and rejoice in his Sufferings with fuch determined Chearfulness as furprised his Tormentors? Yes, fome will fay, Vain-glory is a very ftrong Paffion. Vain-glorious Wretch beyond Example! To be expanding all his Sails, and ftriving to gather in every Blast of Applaufe, at the fame Time that his weak Veffel, decayed by Age, was finking irretrievably in the Deep, by a moft violent Storm! Was this all he had in View, to make one short-lived Blaze, juft as the Candle was finking in the Socket, and then go out in everlasting Night? Certainly when Pain preffed rudely in, and boisterously, for a long Time, demanded to be heard; it would at last awaken him, however profound his Repofe might be, from an airy Dream, of an imaginary Exiftence after Death. Hopes of immortal Blifs, in Cafe

he

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