then let him pronounce according to his confcience, if, to take it at its loweft, the reafons on the one. hand are not much stronger than they are on the other. For I found he was fo poffeffed with the general conceit, that a mixture of knaves and fools had made all extraordinary things be eafily believed, that it carried him away to determine the matter without fo much as looking on the hiftorical evidence for the truth of Chriftianity, which he had not enquired into, but had bent all his wit and ftudy to the fupport of the other fide. As for that, that believing is at best but an opinion; if the evidence be but probable, it is fo; but, if it be fuch that it cannot be queftioned, it grows as certain as knowledge for we are no lefs certain that there is a great town called Conftantinople, the feat of the Ottoman empire, than that there is another called London. We as little doubt that queen Elizabeth, once reigned as that king Charles now [in 1680] reigns in England. So that believing may be as certain, and as little fubject to doubting, as seeing or knowing.

There are two forts of believing divine matters; the one is wrought in us by our comparing all the, evidences of matter of fact, for the confirmation of revealed religion, with the prophecies in the fcripture; where things were punctually predicted, fome ages before their completion; not in dark and

doubtful

doubtful words, uttered like oracles, which might bend to any event; but in plain terms, as the foretelling that Cyrus by name fhould fend the Jews back from the captivity, after the fixed period of feventy years; the hiftory of the Syrian and Egyptian kings, fo punctually foretold by Daniel; and the prediction of the deftruction of Jerufalem, with many circumstances relating to it, made by our Saviour joining these to the excellent rule and defign of the fcripture in matters of morality, it is at leaft as reasonable to believe this as any thing else in the world. Yet fuch a believing as this is only a gcneral perfuafion in the mind, which has not that effect, till a man, applying himself to the directions fet down in the fcriptures, (which, upon fuch evidence, cannot be denied to be as reasonable as for a man to follow the prefcriptions of a learned physician, and, when the rules are both good and eafy, to fubmit to them for the recovery of his health,) and, by following thefe, finds a power entering within him, that frees him from the flavery of his appetites and paffions, that exalts his mind above the accidents of life, and fpreads an inward purity in his heart, from which a ferene and calm joy arifes within him and good men, by the efficacy thefe methods have upon them, and from the returns of their prayers, and other endeavours, grow affured that these things are true and anfwerable to the pro

mifes they find registered in fcripture. All this, he faid, might be fancy: but to this I answered, that, as it were unreasonable to tell a man that is abroad and knows he is awake, that perhaps he is in a dream and in his bed, and only thinks he is abroad; or that, as fome go about in their fleep, fo he may be afleep ftill; fo good and religious men know, though others might be abused by their fancies, that they are under no fuch deception; and find they are neither hot nor enthufiaftical, but under the power of calm and clear principles. All this he faid he did not understand; and that it was to affert or beg the thing in queftion; which he could not comprehend.

As for the poffibility of revelation, it was a vain thing to deny it; for, as God gives us the fenfe of feeing material objects by our eyes, and has opened in fome a capacity of apprehending high and fublime things, of which other men feemed utterly incapable; fo it was a weak affertion that God cannot awaken a power, in fome mens minds, to apprehend and know fome things in fuch a manner that others are not capable of it. This is not half fo incredible to us as fight is to a blind man; who yet may be convinced there is a ftrange power of feeing that governs men, of which he finds himself deprived. As for the capacity put into fuch mens hands to deceive the world, we are at the fame time to confider,

that,

that, befides the probity of their tempers, it cannot be thought but God can fo forcibly bind up a man, in fome things, that it fhould not be in his power to deliver them, otherwife than as he gives him in commiffion. Befides, the confirmation of miracles is a divine credential to warrant fuch persons in what they deliver to the world, which cannot be imagined can be joined to a lie, fince this were to put the omnipotence of God to atteft that which no honeft man would do. For the bufinefs of the fall of man, and other things, of which we cannot perhaps give ourfelves a perfect account, we, who cannot fathom the fecrets of the council of God, do very unreafonably to take on us to reject an excellent fyftem of good and holy rules, because we cannot fatisfy ourfelves about fome difficulties in them. Common experience tells us, there is a great diforder in our natures, which is not eafily rectified: all philofopherswere fenfible of it, and every man that defigns to govern himself by reafon feels the ftruggle between it and nature: so that it is plain there is a lapfe of the high powers of the foul.

But why, faid he, could not this be rectified by fome plain rules given; but men must come and fhew a trick, to perfuade the world they speak to them in the name of God? I anfwered, that religion, being a defign to recover and fave mankind, was to be fo opened as to awaken and work upon C 6

all

all forts of people; and generally men of a fimplicity of mind were those that were the fittest objects for God to fhew his favour to; therefore it was neceffary that messengers fent from heaven should appear with fuch alarming evidence as might awaken the world, and prepare them, by fome aftonishing figns, to liften to the doctrine they were to deliver. Philofophy, that was only a matter of fine fpeculation, had few votaries; and, as there was no authority in it to bind the world to believe its dictates, fo they were only received by fome of nobler and refined natures, who could apply themselves to, and delight in fuch notions. But true religion was to be built on a foundation that should carry more weight on it, and to have such convictions as might not only reach those who were already disposed to receive them, but roufe up fuch as, without great and fenfible excitation, would have otherwise slept on in their ill courses.

Upon this and fome fuch occafions, I told him, I saw the ill use he made of his wit, by which he flurred the gravest things with a flight dash of his fancy; and the pleasure he found in fuch wanton expreffions, as calling the doing of miracles the fhewing of a trick, did really keep him from examining them with that care which such things required.

For the Old Teftament, we are fo remote from

that