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These Things now, with others that I might name, are very confiderable Evidences of the Truth of our Religion, which those that were contemporary with our Saviour could not have. So that putting all these Things together, I think we may safely draw our Conclufion, viz. That we now have as great or greater Arguments to convince us of the Truth of Chrift's Revelation, as, or than they had who were Witnesses of what he did and taught. And confequently those that are not perfuaded now by the Evidence of it, would not have been perfuaded, though they had seen with their Eyes, or heard with their Ears, the Publication of the Gofpel: Which is in effect to fay, They would not have been perfuaded, tho' one had rifen from the Dead.

But notwithstanding all this that I have faid, it is to be feared, the Thing will not eafily go down with many of us; but ftill, with the Rich Man in the Parable, after all that Abraham had faid concerning Mofes and the Prophets, we will infift on our former Notion: Nay, but if one came to us from the Dead, we should repent. The Motives that are offered to us in the Gofpel, are old and ftale to us, we find by long Experience, that they make no great Impreffions upon us : But if we were vifited in fuch an extraordinary way as the Rich Man here defired for his Brethren, we should then undoubtedly be prevailed upon. Thus I believe feveral of us think: But that we have little Ground for

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fuch a Fancy; nay, indeed if we were tried in this way, that it is Ten to One, we should find our felves miftaken; this may farther convince us, viz.

If God fhould indeed vouchsafe to work a Miracle, or to fend an Apparition for the Conviction of an obftinate Unbeliever, or vicious Perfon: Yet fuch a one would as eafily find out Shifts and Ways to evade the Force of fuch an Argument, and to binder the Effects it ought to have upon him, as he formerly did, to put off the ftanding Motives and Arguments of Religion. And confequently, there is little Probability, that he who is deaf to Mofes and the Prophets, will be perfuaded by one from the Dead.

This is the Second Point I laid down for the Proof of our Saviour's Propofition, and I come now to speak to it.

I deny not indeed, but if an Apparition fhould be made to a wicked Perfon among us: If, for Inftance, one of our Companions fhould, after he is dead, in a terrible manner come to any of us, and, in a doleful Tone and Language, tell us how it goes with him in the other World; tell us, that there is indeed a God that judges the Earth, that there is a Heaven, that there is a Hell, (all which Things he, as well as we, made it our Bufinefs to banish out of our Minds as much as we could;) and acquaint us what an infinite unfpeakable Happiness he hath loft, by living loofly and carelefly, as we now do; and that he is damned, irrecoverably, and for ever damned, for that Infidelity, and those lewd

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-Courses we shared with him in the Guilt of, and do ftill continue to purfue; that all thofe Revels we had together, all those Pranks and Debauches we were joint Actors in, do now, as to him, end in unfupportable Anguish and Pains, in the gnawing of a Worm that never dies, and in a Life of everlafting Burnings; and that this fhall certainly be our Portion, as well as his, unless we do prevent it by a speedy Reformation of our Lives.

I fay, if one of our Friends fhould come from the Dead, and tell us all this, there is no doubt but it would ftrike us with infinite Horror and Amazement. It would be the most confounding Scene that ever our Eyes beheld, the most awakening Lecture that ever our Ears heard, and fuch Impreffions it would, in all likelihood, make upon us, as would not fuddenly be worn out.

But here is the Point, Whether all this would be effectual for the working a perfect Change of Life, a lafting Reformation, upon a Man that hath long refifted the ordinary Means of Conversion, and by long Custom of Sinning hath made a Course of Vice almoft natural to him? We fay, in all probability, it would not be effectual for the reforming fuch a Man; because it would be fo eafy after the firft Heats which the Vifion occafioned were over, to find out colourable Excufes and Evafions, why he fhould not purfue a Reformation, which his Soul fo much hated, and which his prefent Interefts and Appetites were fo much against.

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For, Firft of all, Though he was never fo fenfibly fmit at the firft; yet after a little time, the infinite Love he bears to that Course of Life, which this Vifion came to testify againft, would put him upon Inventions for the rendring the Credit of his very Senfes doubtful and fufpected. Many Reasons would be fuggefted to him from his bribed Understanding, why he fhould not in this Cafe believe his own Eyes. For why might not all this be a mere Delufion, the Effects of a melancholy diftempered Fancy, a Bufincfs wholly tranfacted on the Stage of his Imagination?

That he had fuch an Apparition, and that he was horribly frighted with it, he cannot doubt but whether this Apparition was really prefented to his outward Senfes, and was not only the Fiction of his own heated and disturbed Brain, he thinks he hath Reason to doubt.

For he remembers, that even in Dreams, Things have been as lively reprefented to him, and made as great Impreffions on him, as the fame Things could have been or done if he had been awake: and he knows very well, that Fancy hath a ftrange Power over a Man's Judgment, even when his Eyes are wide open; efpecially if the Circumftances of being alone, of Melancholy and Penfiveness, and fome particular Accidents, do concur to the raifing of it.

How many People meet with Goblins in their Night-walks, and fee Armies fighting in the Air, and affuredly perfwade themselves and

and others that they do fo? When as, in Truth, the one is nothing elfe but Trees; and the other but Clouds formed into fuch Shapes by the Power of their Imagination. How many Perfons in Feverish Diftempers fee plainly Fiends and Devils ftanding at their Beds-feet, ready to take them away, and hear dreadful Noises? But yet none is fo fimple as to believe these to be Realities, but only the Ef fects of their prefent Frenzy. And why may not this Bug-bear of a Vifion, that did at first fo fright the Man, be a thing of the fame kind, a meer Creature of his own difordered Fancy?

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It is certainly not impoffible for a, Man, whofe Concernment it is not to believe any thing of this Nature, at laft to bring himself to fuch an Opinion.

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Especially when he is helped forward by the concurrent Votes of all his Jolly Companions, whom he tells the thing to; who, to be fure, will not fail to laugh heartily, and make very merry with his Story; and, if it be poffible, to droll it out of his Head, by perfuading him, that the whole Matter was but the Refult of Melancholy and a crazed Brain; and that if he ftill continues to believe it, he is fitter for Bedlam than their Company..

But Secondly, Suppofing he cannot thus eafily baffle the Credit of his Senfes; but is forced to believe, that what he faw and heard was more than a Fancy or Imagina tion; yet that inveterate Principle of Vice

...VOL. I.

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