language of adoration and love, My Lord, and my God! But his former conduct shewed that he was not credulous, nor disposed to receive the report as a truth, however defirable, withour fufficient evidence.

II. As they were competent judges, fo they were upright and faithful witneffes. There is no more room to fufpect that they had a defign to deceive others, than that they were mistaken or deceived themselves. For

1. If we judge of them by their writings, we muft, at leaft, allow them to have been well-meaning men. They profefs to aim at promoting the knowledge and honour of the true God, and thereby to promote the morality and happiness of mankind. Their conduct was uniformly confiftent with their profeffion, and their doctrines and precepts, were evidently fuited, to answer their design. of the New Teftament were, penmen confeffedly, men in private life, most of them deftitute of literature, and engaged in low occupations, till they became the difciples of Jefus. Is it probable, that men, who fpeak fo honourably of God, who inculcate, upon their fellow-creatures, fuch an entire devotedness to his will and fervice, fhould

The

be

be impoftors themselves? Is it at all credible, that a few men, in an obfcure fituation, fhould form a confiftent and well concerted plan, fufficient to withstand and overcome the prejucices, habits, and customs, both of Jews and Heathens; to institute a new religion; and, without the affiftance of intereft or arms, to spread it rapidly and fuccessfully, in a few years, throughout the greatest part of the Roman empire? Or is it poffible, that fuch men could, at their first effort, exhibit a fcheme of theology and morality, fo vaftly fuperior to the united endeavours of the philofophers of all ages? A learned man in France, attempted to prove (for what will not learned men attempt?) that most of the Latin poems, which are attributed to thofe whom we call the Claffic writers, and particularly the Æneid of Virgil, were not the production of the authors whofe names they bear, but grofs forgeries, fabricated by monks, in the dark ages of ignorance, and fuccessfully obtruded upon the world as genuine, till be arose to detect the impofture. He gained but few profelytes to his abfurd paradox. Yet, to fuppofe that men who could only exprefs their own dull fenti

VOL. II.

S

atiments, in barbarous Latin, were capable of writing with the fire and elegance of Virgil, when they undertook to impose upon the world; or to affirm that the Principia of Sir Ifaac Newton, was in reality written by an ignorant plow-man, and only fent abroad under the fanction of a celebrated name; cannot be more repugnant to true taste, sound judgment, and common fenfe, than to imagine, that the Evangelifts and Apoftles, were, from their own refources, capable of writing fuch a book as the New Teftament. The whole of which muft ftand or fall with the doctrine of our Lord's refurrection.

2. But farther, They could not poffibly propofe any advantage to themselves, in their endeavours to propagate the Christian religion, if they had not been affured, that the crucified Jefus, whom they preached, was rifen from the dead, and had taken poffeffion of his kingdom. Knowing whom they had believed, filled with a constraining fenfe of his love, and depending upon his promife and power, to support them, in the fervice to which had called them, they were neither ashamed, nor afraid, to proclaim his gofpel, and to invite and enjoin finners every

where

where to put their trust in him. Otherwife, they had nothing to expect but fuch treatment as they actually met with, for profeffing their belief of his refurrection and especially for the pains they took to publish it first among the people who had put him to death, and afterwards among the Heathens. It required no great sagacity to foresee, that this doctrine would be an offence to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks*. They were, in fact, despised, hated, opposed, and perfecuted, wherever they went; and those who efpoufed their caufe, were immediately expofed to a participation in their fufferings. Nor was there the leaft probability that the event could be otherwife. Impoftors there have been many, but we cannot conceive that any set of men, would deliberately, and by confent, contrive an imposture, which, in the nature of the thing, could procure nothing to them, or to their followers, but contempt, ftripes, imprisonment, and death.

3. Even if we could for a moment fuppose them capable of fo wild and wicked an undertaking, as, under pretence of the fer

vice of God, to provoke and dare the hatred of mankind, by afferting and propagating an offenfive falfhood, it would be impoffible, upon that ground, to account for the fuccefs which they met with. If this counsel and caufe had not been of God, it must have come to nought *. But by preaching Jesus and his refurrection, in defiance of all the arts and rage of their enemies, they mightily prevailed over the established customs, and inveterate prejudices of mankind, and brought multitudes into the belief of their doctrine, against all disadvantages. The Lord confirmed their word with figns following. The miracles which were wrought in the name of Jefus, were numerous, notorious, and undeniable. And the moral effects of their preaching, though too frequent and univerfal to be ftyled miraculous, were fuch, as can only be, with reafon, afcribed to a divine power. The pillars of paganism, the superftitions of idol worship, though, in every country, connected and incorporated with the frame of civil government, and guarded for ages, not more by popular veneration, than for reafons of ftate, were very foon fhaken, * Acts v. 38.

and,