apostles is in the present case supported also by another evidence of the most unsuspicious nature; the evidence arising from the uncontrollable order of events. The wonderful success of the apostles confirms to us the truth of miracles; the unexampled sufferings of the Jews evince the reality of prophecy.

Nor is this all. These very events are also the accomplishments of predictions delivered by Christ himself; and supply us therefore, when considered in this view, with a farther and distinct proof of his divine mission. There is likewise another series of events no less extraordinary, which concurs in leading us to the same conclusion; for the Mosaic dispensation itself, and the whole history of the people, among whom it took place, is one perpetual miracle preparatory to the introduction of Christianity.*

These things evidently surpass all the measures of human power and contrivance and if we believe that there is a God, whose providence directs the world; we can never believe, that he would permit so great a part of his government to bear so strong and uniform testimony to any other cause than that of religion and of truth.

Still the scrupulous reason of some men is not satisfied: the merest cavil unanswered, and the smallest doubt unremoved, cannot, it seems, be reconciled with the obligations of God in revealing his will.

Not to insist on the disrespectful freedom of such language, when applied to such a Being; are there not, we may ask, even in natural religion itself, as many and as great difficulties? and may not the real end and design of these bold reasoners, the securing of man's final happiness, be inconsistent with the preservation of the liberty of his conduct, which the asserters of human dignity should of all men least wish to part with? for that, in consequence of this liberty, men do frequently corrupt their nature with great and habitual vices, we cannot deny; and, that the happiness of such is consistent with justice, or even with possibility, we cannot prove.

That God is obliged to give us the very strongest evidence to

* These two arguments are more fully considered in the second and third of these discourses.

direct our actions, cannot be shown from any principles of reason; but that he is not obliged, may be safely inferred from this plain fact, that he has no where given it.

The prudential rules of common life are all founded on the probability, that such a course of life will be attended with such or such consequences: and the most sacred precepts of natural religion are guarded by no other sanction than the probability, that in this life virtue will on the whole be productive of happiness; and that the present disappointments and distresses of good men, how great or how many soever, will all be abundantly compensated hereafter, by the unmixed pleasures of an approving conscience, and the favor of a just God.

If then such be the lights, which before the introduction of Christianity were the sole guides of human conduct, and which are still its actual guides to great part of our species; to persist in asserting, that the Supreme Being is from his nature bound to dispense more, or even so much, is surely neither modest nor rational.

Our extravagant expectations therefore, on this subject, are contradicted by every conclusion that can be drawn from the usual conduct of the Deity in the government of the world, and they are also totally repugnant to the declared design of God in the promulgation of the Christian covenant.

Religion is constantly represented to us in a twofold view, as the object of our faith, and as the rule of our practice: were then either its evidence or its motives irresistible, it could not answer the ends of its appointment.

That the rewards and punishments, announced by the gospel, are sufficient to engage every exertion of our nature, to obtain or avoid them, is universally acknowleged; and yet the united force of both may be resisted: otherwise virtue and vice would be equally involuntary, merit and guilt unmeaning terms, and rewards and penalties the result of partiality and injustice.

To believe the gospel is uniformly required as an act of obedience, which will be rewarded, and which therefore may be either performed or neglected: for to command what cannot be performed, is unjust; and to command what cannot but be performed, is at least unnecessary.

It is therefore in strict conformity with its design, that the

6

evidence of the gospel is what is; sufficiently clear to engage our belief, and yet not so powerful as irresistibly to compel our

assent.

The sum of what has been said is this; that the proofs of Christianity are in the highest degree probable; and that we have no right to demand, and no reason to expect them to be more than probable.

To all reasonable men this kind of proof is a sufficient ground of belief; and if men will be unreasonable, it is difficult to fix on any that would be sufficient: with respect to practice at least,' we know not what we ask ;' the light of superior evidence might shine in vain, or shine only to inflame our guilt; for, if we hear not Moses and the prophets, neither should we be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.'

The only methods which the wisdom of God has adopted in revealing his will to mankind, are either immediate communications, or miracles, or testimony. The same revelation may be promulged and supported in the world by all these methods: original revelation informs the individual; miracles diffuse that knowlege through an intire age or nation; and the testimony of that age conveys the evidence, arising from those miracles, pure and uncorrupted to the latest posterity.

It may be doubted, whether any of these methods would effectually secure us against the attacks of prejudice and immorality. That testimony is to so great a degree ineffectual, is the very ground on which our complaints are founded; and the history of the Jews will furnish us with more numerous instances, in which the most splendid miracles, and even the voice of God himself, were equally unsuccessful. They heard Christ speak, as never man spake;' they saw his doctrines and pretensions confirmed by a magnificent display of miracles, which confessedly equalled whatever they had expected or even imagined in the character of their promised Messiah; they saw the lame run foremost in his train, the eye of the blind fixed in rapture on his divine benefactor, the tongue of the dumb loosed in hosannas to the Son of David, and even the dead themselves released from the imprisonment of the grave, to announce the power and mercy of their Redeemer,

All this they saw in vain; a bigoted attachment to their

own law, and a sordid attention to their own interest, prompted them to reject the claims of a religion, which they feared would prove fatal to both.

Nor had the law of Moses, to which they were now so partial, originally met with a more grateful reception. The voice of God on Sinai; a series of miracles, unexampled in the history of mankind, wrought for their preservation and defence; and a sucession of prophecies, some of which they saw closely followed by their event, and others gradually fulfilling on themselves and on their enemies,—were all unable to correct their unaccountable propensity to the absurdities of idol-worship.

Such was the conduct of the Jewish nation; and such might probably have been the conduct of any other people, if placed in the same circumstances: for surely the corruptions of the Jews will not be ascribed to any peculiarity of temper, if similar corruptions be found among Christians of the present age; who may be supposed to possess advantages, in the superior cultivation of their reason, at-least sufficient to counterbalance the disadvantage arising from this circumstance in their religion; that it is no longer confirmed by present miracles, or taught by inspired men.

. The prevailing faults of the Jews were, idolatry, too high an opinion of ceremonies, too low a one of morals, and a contempt and aversion for other nations.

And are there not Christians, too, who are idolatrous, if not to the same degree with the Jews, yet in a degree which is equally forbidden? Are there not, who substitute faith in the place of virtue, or who think by the ceremonies of penance to expiate the guilt of immoralities? And have not Christians treated the Jews with as much contempt, and persecuted even their own brethren with as much real hatred, as a Jew could possibly feel for a heathen? Or, if the latter species of intolerance have gradually declined among us, may it not be imputed, among other causes, to the prevalence of a fault which the Jews were never charged with, an indifference to all religion?

From the example then of the people of Israel, we may now venture to draw this general conclusion; that the obedience of man will by no means increase in proportion to the evidence of his religion.

The infidel, directed only by the lamp of reason, may sometimes tread those heights of moral excellence, which even the believer, whom ، the day-spring from on high hath visited,' will often fail to reach ; and the same light of revelation, which blazed from its very source with unheeded glory on the Jew, after being transmitted through many an age of darkness, still shines with ample, though diminished lustre, to guide and animate the hopes and virtues of the Christian.

But, as the argument from history will have little weight with those who are under the dominion of national or religious prejudice, the effects of removing the objections to religion shall be gathered from reason as well as experience and if we bear in mind what we have already seen, that the evidences of religion are on the whole sufficient, I am persuaded we shall find that this favorite measure is attended with no peculiar advantages, from which we can form any sanguine expectations of its success.

For as the generality of men have no doubts on this subject, the beneficial influence of superior religious evidence on the conduct of human life must be sought for, not so much in the great body of mankind, as among men of cultivated understandings and contemplative minds; and with regard to these, immorality can be no otherwise connected with religious doubts, than as it is either the cause of them or their effect. Now, certainly, so far as it is the cause of these doubts, no addition to the proofs of revelation has any tendency to lessen it. Of the other part of the proposition, which makes immorality the consequence of religious doubts, the truth is very questionable for if immorality were their natural effect, it would receive from them at least some color of excuse; but the obligations of Christianity, we are sure, subsist firm and intire under all the difficulties with which it is attended; for its evidence, notwithstanding these difficulties, though not irresistible, is, we must remember, still sufficient. Now, if we refuse to believe on sufficient evidence, it must plainly be owing to the influence of some unreasonable prejudice or passion: and if we refuse to act on such evidence, it certainly cannot be shown, from any rational principles, that the very strongest would induce us to reform our conduct; for our obligation to act de