fpread of Chriftianity, and of the hold which it had got on the minds of the people in general; and this was in the most difadvantageous circumstances that can be imagined, if it had been an impofture. But this most striking evidence of the truth of Chriftianity we could not now have had, if the evidence of the refurrection of Jefus had been fuch, as to have convinced all the Jews, and all the world, as foon as he appeared. What had been the most fatisfactory to them would have been (from the nature of the thing) the least so to us.

When the perfecution of Christianity began, the facts on which it was founded were recent, fo that it was in the power of men of fenfe and enquiry to fatisfy themfelves concerning them; and we have seen that they were fufficiently interested so to do. But if one whole generation fhould have been, as we fay, infatuated,,fo as to have taken up the belief of these facts without any fufficient reafon, the next generation might have been fenfible of this, and have made more diligent fearch (and then it was not too late) and not have thrown

away

away their fortunes and their lives for nothing, as their fathers had done before them. But notwithstanding this, every enquiry continued to make more converts, till, without any aid from power, or from learning in the first inftance, the new religion completely established itself on the ruins of the old, and was embraced by perfons of all ranks without diftinction, the rich and the poor, the philofophers and the vulgar.

If all this could take place without there being any truth in the hiftory of the mira cles, the death, and the refurrection of Jefus, it must have been more extraordinary, nay, ftrictly speaking, more miraculous, than thofe events themselves. For human nature was the fame then that it is now; and that men, fuch as we now find them to be, fhould, in the circumftances that I have now defcribed, have been impreffed as the early converts to Chriftianity were; that' they fhould have been induced to believe a ftory which they might eafily have difcovered to be deftitute of all foundation, and have facrificed fo much as they did to their belief, must have been the greatest of all miracles;

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miracles; no natural cause being adequate to fuch an effect. It muft alfo have been fo ftupendous a miracle (operating on the minds of men, which is more extraordinary than any effect that is apparent to the fenses) without any rational end or object. Nay the Divine Being must have wrought this miracle with no other view than to puzzle and confound his creatures, and to involve fome of the most deferving of them in the greatest calamities. On the other hand, the miracles which gave birth to Christianity had the greatest and noblest of all objects, the instruction and reformation of the world. In fact, the proof of Chriftianity supplies the only probable method of accounting for paft and prefent appearances, and therefore what a true philofopher, whose object it is to enquire into the causes of things, will adopt, in preference to any

other.

It was, however, you clearly fee, of the greatest advantage to the evidence of the truth of Chriftianity in diftant ages, that the bulk of the Jewish nation fhould from the beginning have been hoftile to it;

while at the fame time the belief of fuch numbers of them, prejudiced as they must all have been against it, is an abundant proof of its truth. But when, by the long continued enmity of the Jews to the Christians, it shall be sufficiently evident, that it was no fcheme of that nation in general, and that, so far from giving it any aid in its infant ftate, they discountenanced it as much as it was in their power to do it; if ever they should be converted to Christianity, before or after their return to their own country (both which events are foretold in the Scriptures) it will be fuch a clear fulfilment of prophecy, as it seems probable that no power of incredulity will be able to refift; and then, as Paul fays, Rom. xi. 15. If the cafting away of the Jews be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

I fhall conclude this part of my discourse with obferving, that the truth of Chriftianity is founded upon plain facts, fuch as any persons who had the use of their senses might be judges of. Opinions of other kinds men may become fo fully perfuaded

of, as even to die for them, as well as Christians have done for their religion; but then the nature and ground of their faith have been different; they having been either misled by an implicit faith in perfons who they thought could not mislead them, or by reasoning wrong. That Mahomet, for example, or Swedenborg, had divine. miffions, many might be induced to believe. on their own confident affertions, having a good opinion of the men; or they might imagine that the conquefts of Mahomet and his followers, could not have been fo great and fo rapid, if his pretenfions had not been well founded. But is this fuch kind of evidence as that on which we be-. lieve the truth of Chriftianity; which neither requires that implicit faith be given to any perfon, nor any reafoning, except the plainest of all, viz. that if any perfon do fuch works as God only could enable him to do, he must be empowered by God to do them, and the evidence of their own fenfes that fuch works were done? The truth of Christianity refts on the evidence of fuch visible marks of divine power as