by fufficient teftimony, by teftimony fuch as no ingenuous and unprejudiced mind can withstand, they ought ftill to produce in us the firmeft belief of the divine power of him who wrought them*.

It must be admitted at the fame time, that these miracles, being facts of a very uncommon and very extraor dinary nature, fuch as have never happened in our own times, and but very seldom even in former times, they require a much stronger degree of teftimony to support them than common hiftorical facts. And this degree of teftimony they actually have. They are fupported by a body of evidence fully adequate to the cafe; fully competent to outweigh all the difadvantages arifing from the great dif tance and the astonishing nature of the events in question.

1. In the first place, these miracles are recorded in four different hiftories, written very near the time of their be ing performed, by four different men, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; two of whom faw thefe miracles with their own eyes; the other two had their account from them who did the fame; and affirm, that "they had a perfect knowledge of every thing they relatet."

They were plain artless men, without the leaft appearance of enthusiasm or credulity about them, and rather flow than forward to believe any thing extraordinary and out of the common course of nature. They were perfectly competent to judge of plain matters of fact, of things which paffed before their eyes, and could certainly tell, without the leaft poffibility of being mistaken, whether a person whom they knew to be blind was actually restored to fight, and a perfon whom they knew to be dead was raised to life again by a few words fpoken by their master. They were men, who, from the fimplicity of their manners, were not at all likely to invent and publish falfehoods of fo extraordinary a nature; much lefs falfehoods by which they could gain nothing, and did in fact lofe every thing. There is not therefore, from the peculiar character of these * Mr. Hume's abftrufe and fophiftical argument against miracles, bas been completely refuted by Drs. Adams, Campbell, and Paley. + Luke, i. 3.

perfons, the leaft ground for disbelieving the reality of any thing they relate. Nor is there any reason to doubt wheth er the writings we now have under their names are those which they actually wrote. They have been received as fuch ever fince they were published; nor has any one argu ment been yet produced against their authenticity which has not been repeatedly and effectually confuted.

2. It is a very strong circumstance in favor of our Sav iour's miracles, that they were related by contemporary hiftorians, by thofe who were eye-witneffes of them, and were afterwards acknowledged to be true by those who liv ed nearest to the times in which they were wrought; and what is ftill more to the point, by many who were hostile to the Christian religion. Even the emperor Julian himself, that mot bitter adverfary of Christianity, who had openly apoftatized from it who profeffed the most implacable ha tred to it, who employed all his ingenuity, all his accutenefs and learning, which were confiderable, in combating the truth of it, in difplaying in the strongest colours every objection he could raise up against it; even he did not deny the reality of our Lord's miracles.* He admitted that Jefus wrought them, but contended that he wrought them by the power of magic.

3. Unless we admit that the founder of our religion did actually work the miracles afcribed to him by his historians, it is utterly impoffible to account for the fuccefs and establishment of his religion. It could not, in fhort, to all apperance, have been established by any other means.

Confider only for a moment what the apparent conditon of our Lord was, when he first announced his miffion among the Jews, what his pretenfions and what his doctries were, and then judge what kind of a reception he must have met with among the Jews, had his preaching been accompanied by no miracles. A young man of no education, born in

* Julian apud Cyrillum, L. vi, viii. x. Celfus alfo acknowledged the truth of the gofpel miracles in general, but afcribed them to the af fiftance of demons. "The Chriftians, fays he, feem to prevail, daimonōn tinōn onomafi kai kataklēsesi, by virtue of the names and the invo cation of certain demons," Orig. contra Celfum, ed. Cantab. i, i. p. 7•

an obfcure village, of obfcure parents, without any of thofe very brilliant talents or exterior accomplishments which usually captivate the hearts of men; without having previoufly written or done any thing that fhould excite the expectation, or attract the attention and admiration of the world, offers himself at once to the Jewish nation, not merely as a preacher of morality, but as a teacher fent from heaven; nay what is more as the Son of God him felf, and as that great deliverer, the Meffiah, who had been fo long predicted by the prophets, and was then for anxiously expected, and eagerly looked for by the Jewish people. He called upon this people to renounce at once a great part of the religion of their forefathers, and to adopt that which he propofed to them; to relinquifh all their fond ideas of a fplendid, a victorious, a triumphant Meffiah, and to accept in his room a despised, a perfecuted, and a crucified master: he required them to give up all their former prejudices fuperftitions, and traditions, all their favourite rites and ceremonies, and what was perhaps ftill dearer to them, their favourite vices and propenfities, their hypocrify, their rapacioufnefs, their voluptuoufnefs. Inftead of exterior forms he prescribed fanctity of manners; instead of washing their hands, and making clean their platters, he commanded them to purify their hearts and reform ther lives. Inftead of indulging in ease and luxury, he called upon them to take up their crofs and follow him through forrows and fufferings; to pluck out a right eye, and to cut off a right arm; to leave father, mother, brethren, and fifters, for his name's fake, and the gospel.

What now fhall we say to doctrines fuch as these delivered by fuch a perfon as our Lord appeared to be? Is it probable, is it poffible that the reputed fon of a poor me chanic could, by the mere force of argument or perfuafion, induce vaft numbers of his countrymen to embrace opinions and practices fo directly oppofite to every propensity of their hearts, to every fentiment they had imbibed, every principle they had acted upon from their earliest years? Yet the fact is, that he did prevail on multitudes to do fo; and therefore he must have had means of conviction fuperior to all human eloquence or reasoning; that is, he must have

convinced his hearers by the miracles he wrought, that all power in heaven and in earth was given to him, and that every precept he delivered, and every doctrine he taught, was the voice of God himself. Without this it is utterly impoffible to give any rational account of his fuccefs.

In order to fet this argument in a still ftronger point of view, let us confider what the effect actually was in a cafe where a new religion was propofed without any fupport from miracles. That fame impoftor Mahomet, to whom I before alluded, began his miffion with every advantage that could arife from perfonal figure, from infinuating manners, from a commanding eloquence, from an ardent enterprising fpirit, from confiderable wealth, and from powerful connections. Yet with all thefe advantages, and with every artifice and every dexterous contrivance to recommend his new religion to his countrymen, in the space of three years he made only about fix converts, and those principally of his own family, relations, and moft intimate friends. And his progress was but very flow for nine years. after this, till he began to make use of force; and then his victorious arms, not his arguments, carried his religion triumphantly over almost all the eastern world.

It appears therefore, that without the affiftance either of miracles or of the fword, no religion can be propagated with fuch rapidity, and to such an extent, as the Christian was, both during our Saviour's life time, and after his death. For there is, I believe, no inftance in the history of mankind of fuch an effect being produced, without either the one or the other. Now of force we know that Jefus never did make ufe; the unavoidable confequence is, that the miracles afcribed to him were actually wrought by him.

4. These miracles being wrought not in the midft of friends, who were difpofed to favor them, but of most bitter and determined enemies, whofs paffions and whofe prejudices were all up in arms, all vigorous and active against them and their author, we may reft affured that no falfe pretence to a fupernatural power, no frauds, no collufions, no impofitions, would be fuffered to pafs undetected and unexpofed, that every fingle miracle would be moft

critically and moft rigorously fifted and enquired into, and no art left unemployed to deftroy their credit and counteract their effect. And this in fact we find to be the cafe.Look into the ninth chapter of St. John, and you will fee with what extreme care and diligence, with what anxiety and folicitude the pharifees examined, and re-examined, the blind man that was restored to fight by our Saviour, and what pains they took to perfuade him, and to make him say, that he was not restored to fight by Jefus.

"They brought," fays St. John, "to the pharifees him that aforetime was blind; and the pharifees asked him how he had received his fight. And he faid unto them, Jefus put clay upon mine eyes and I washed, and did fee. A plain and fimple and honeft relation of the fact. But the Jews, not content with this, called for his parents, and asked them, faying, Is this your fon who ye fay was born blind? How then doth he now fee? His parents, afraid of bringing themselves into danger, very discreetly answered, We know that this is our fon, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now feeth we know not, or who hath opened his eyes we know not ; he is of age, afk him, he shall speak for himself. They then called the man again, and faid to him, Give God the praise, we know that this man (meaning Jefus) is a finner. The man's anfwer is admirable: Whether he be a finner or no, I know not; but this I know, that whereas I was blind, now I fee.-Since the world began, was it not known that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. And they answered him and faid, Thou waft altogether born in fin, and doft thou teach us? And they caft him out." A very effectual way it must be confeffed of confuting a miracle.

The whole of this narrative (from which I have only felected a few of the moft ftriking paffages) is highly curious and instructive, and would furnish ample matter for a variety of very important remarks. But the only use I mean to make of it at prefent, is to obferve, that it proves, in the clearest manner, how very much awake and

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