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the inftant curing of the most dangerous diforders, and the raifing of perfons, and efpecially of Jefus himself, from a state of actual death, with refpect to which men who had only eyes, ears, and other natural fenfes, could not poffibly be deceived ; whereas no vifible miracle of any kind was fo much as pretended to by either Mahomet or Swedenborg..

We also see the great difference of the ground of belief in thefe cafes in the time that was requifite to produce their effect. Mahomet was feveral years in perfuading any befides a very few perfons, particularly connected with him, and who had a profpect of being gainers by his fuccefs, of his divine miffion, and it was thirteen years before he had followers enow to venture to take the field with them, fo as to attack a caravan, to which they were led by the hope of plunder. As to Swedenborg, though he died feveral years ago, his followers are only juft now beginning to make themselves confpicuous. On the contrary, it is evident that Jefus might, if he had been fo difpofed, have muftered as large an army

as he chose within a month or two after he appeared in a public character.

Some are so incredulous as to fay, that, admitting all the facts recited in the gofpel history, viz. that the apostles, and other disciples of Jefus, had no doubt of his refurrection, and that their previous incredulity was overcome by the most fatisfactory evidence; yet that it was more probable that their fenfes, that of feeling, as well as thofe of feeing and hearing, were repeatedly imposed upon, than that there should have been a proper refurrection of a man who had been dead. But fuch a deception as this could not have been effected without a miracle; and for what end could fuch a miracle have been wrought? As it had all the effect of a real refurrection, it is liable to all the fame objections, and therefore if the one was produced, the other might be also.

If any person will fay either that the appearances recorded in the New Teftament are no proofs of a real refurrection, or (which has also been faid) that the real refurrection of Jefus would be no proof of

his divine miffion, and of the truth of his religion, fo that we could not thence infer the certainty of our own refurrection, they must be fo conftituted, as that no evidence whatever can produce that conviction in their minds. The Divine Being himself (and I must in this argument fuppose that there is such a Being) could not do it. For all that he could do to atteft the divine miffion of any perfon could only be his enabling him to work miracles, or to do fuch things as only he himself, the author of nature, could do. But no person, in the age of the apostles, or any fubfequent one, ever believed the facts, and doubted the conclufion; fo that the miracles were fully adequate to the purpose of them; and fince all men are, no doubt, constituted alike, the present objectors must be under the influence of a prejudice that nothing can overcome, and this must be a case exactly fimilar to infanity.

I now proceed to fhew that the folution of fuch difficulties as these, respecting the truth of revealed religion, may affist those who have fimilar difficulties with respect to Z4 natural

natural religion; and all great moral truths have, directly or indirectly, a connexion with each other.

Now it feems to be impoffible for any perfon to be convinced by historical eyidence (which is the moft intelligible of all evidence whatever) of the miracles, the death, and refurrection of Chrift, and at the fame time to have any doubt of the being and the providence of God, because the one evidently implies the other. Christ actually wrought miracles, and, after dying, rofe from the dead, there must have been a power that enabled him fo to do; and this must have been an intelligent, or a defigning, and a benevolent power, the laws of nature having been changed for great and good purposes.

If

It is in vain for any person to say, as fome, however, have done, that till we be fatisfied with refpect to the being of a God, which, in the order of nature, is the first of all religious truths, it is to no purpose to inquire into the evidence of chriftianity, For though it be moft convenient to teach, and to confider, any fyftem of truths in a

certain

In

certain order, the difcovery of them is al-
together independent of that order.
this cafe, the firft may be laft, and the last

first.

An Englishman, for example, may say, and plaufibly enough, that he ought to understand his own country, before he explores any other. But it may happen that he shall be carried to Afia, Africa, or America, before he can have feen much of his own country, and thereby have a better opportunity of exploring them than his own. Or, confidering the fun as the centre of our system, he might fancy that, till we know what that great body is, it is abfurd to give much attention to the planets, which depend upon it. But in this way he might live and die without acquiring any knowledge of them at all. Even the several propofitions in eometry may be learned in a very different order, as the different treatises on that branch of fcience evince, and yet be all equally well understood at the laft. In like manner may men attain to the knowledge of God, and of his pro

vide ice,

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