fouls, that it is a vain thing for us to raise an hypothefis out of the conjectures we have about it, or to reject one because of some difficulties that occur to us; fince it is as hard to understand how we remember things now as how we fhall do it in another ftate only we are fure we do it now; and fo we fhall be then, when we do it.

When I preffed him with the fecret joys that a good man felt, particularly as he drew near death, and the horrors of ill men, especially at that time, he was willing to afcribe it to the impreffions they had from their education: but he often confeffed, that, whether the bufinefs of religion was true or not, he thought those who had the perfuafions of it, and lived fo that they had quiet in their confciences, and believed God governed the world, and acquiefced in his providence, and had the hope of an endless bleffed nefs in another state, the happiest men in the world; and faid, he would give all that he was mafter of, to be under thofe perfuafions, and to have the fupports and joys that muft needs flow from them. I told him, the main root of all corruptions in mens principles was their ill life; which, as it darkened their minds, and difabled them from difcerning better things, fo it made it neceffary for them to seek out fuch opinions as might give them eafe from thofe clamours that would otherwife have been raised within them. He did not deny, but that,

after the doing of fome things, he felt great and severe challenges within himself; but he faid, he felt not thefe after fome others which I would perhaps call far greater fins than thofe that affected him more fenfibly. This, I faid, might flow from the disorders he had caft himself into, which had corrupted his judgment, and vitiated his tafte of things; and, by his long continuance in, and frequent repeating of, fome immoralities, he had made them fo familiar to him, that they were become as it were natural; and then it was no wonder if he had not fo exact a fenfe of what was good or evil; as a feverish man cannot judge of taftes.

He did acknowledge, the whole fyftem of religion, if believed, was a greater foundation of quiet than any other thing whatfoever; for all the quiet he had in his mind was, that he could not think fo good a being as the Deity would make him miferable. I asked, if, when by the ill courfe of his life he had brought fo many difeafes on his body, he could blame God for it, or expect that he should deliver him from them by a miracle? He confcffed there was no reafon for that. I then urged, that, if fin fhould caft the mind, by a natural effect, into endless horrors and agonies, which being feated in a being not fubject to death, muft last for ever, unless some miraculous power interpofed, could he

accufe

accufe God for that which was the effect of his own choice and ill life?

He faid, they were happy that believed; for it was not in every man's power.

And upon this we difcourfed long about revealed religion. He faid, he did not understand the bufinefs of infpiration: he believed the penmen of the fcriptures had heats and honefty, and fo wrote; but could not comprehend how God fhould reveal his fecrets to mankind. Why was not man made a creature more difpofed for religion, and better illuminated? He could not apprehend how there fhould be any corruption in the nature of man, or a lapfe derived from Adam. God's communicating his mind to one man was the putting it in his power to cheat the world: for prophecies and miracles, the world had been always full of strange stories; for, the boldness and cunning of contrivers meeting with the fimplicity and credulity of the people, things were easily received; and, being once received, paffed down without contradiction. The incoherences of ftile in the fcriptures, the odd tranfitions, the feeming contradictions, chiefly about the order of time, the cruelties enjoined the Ifraelites in destroying the Canaanites, circumcifion, and many other rites of the Jewish worship, feemed to him unfuitable to the divine nature; and the first three chapters of Genefis he thought could not be C 3

true,

true, unless they were parables. This was the fubflance of what he excepted to revealed religion in general, and to the Old Teftament in particular.

I answered to all this, that believing a thing upon the teftimony of another, in other matters where there was no reason to suspect the testimony, chiefly where it was confirmed by other circumftances, was not only a reasonable thing, but it was the hinge on which all the government and juftice in the world depended; fince all the courts of justice proceed upon the evidence given by witneffes; for the use of writings is but a thing more lately brought into the world. So then, if the credibility of the thing, the innocence and difintereftednefs of the witneffes, the number of them, and the publickeft confirmations that could poffibly be given, do concur to perfuade us of any matter of fact, it is a vain thing to fay, because it is poffible for fo many men to agree in a lie, that therefore thefe have done it. In all other things a man gives his affent, when the credibility is ftrong on the one fide, and there appears nothing on the other fide to balance it. So, fuch numbers agreeing in their teftimony to these miracles, (for inftance, of our Saviour's calling Lazarus out of the grave the fourth day after he was buried, and his own rifing again after he was certainly dead,) if there had been never fo many impoftures in the world, no man can with any reasonable colour pre

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tend this was one. We find, both by the Jewish and Roman writers that lived in that time, that our Saviour was crucified, and that all his difciples and followers believed certainly that he arose again. They believed this upon the teftimony of the apoftles, and many hundreds who faw it and died confirming it. They went about to perfuade the world of it with great zeal, though they knew they were to get nothing by it but reproach and fufferings; and by many wonders which they wrought, they confirmed their testimony. Now, to avoid all this, by faying it is poffible this might be a contrivance, and to give no prefumption to make it fo much as probable that it was fo, is, in plain English, to say, 66 we are refolved, let the evidence be what it will, 68 we will not believe it."

He said, if a man fays he cannot believe, what help is there? for he was not master of his own belief, and believing was at highest but a probable opinion. To this I answered, that, if a man will let a wanton conceit poffefs his fancy against these things, and never confider the evidence for religion on the other hand, but reject it upon a flight view of it, he ought not to fay he cannot, but he will not, believe and, while a man lives an ill course of life, he is not fitly qualified to examine the matter aright. Let him grow calm and virtuous, and, upon due application, examine things fairly, and