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   Title: The Evidences of the Christian Religion, with Additional
   Discourses . . .
   Creator(s): Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
   Print Basis: Greenfield: Printed by John Denio, 1812
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All
   LC Call no: BT 1100 A27 1812
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    THE

                                   EVIDENCES

    OF THE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION,

    WITH

  ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES ON THE
  FOLLOWING SUBJECTS, viz.

   Of God, and his Attributes.

   Dignity of the Scripture Language.

   The Power and wisdom of God in the Creation.

   Against Atheism and Infidelity.

   The Providence of God.

   The Worship of God.

   Against the Modern Freethinkers.

   Advantages of Revelation above Natural Reason.

   Immortality of the Soul, and a Future State.

   Excellency of the Christian Institution.

   Death and Judgment.
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   Collected from the Writings of

   The Right Hon. JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq.
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Greenfield:

  Printed by JOHN DENIO.

   Sold by him in Greenfield, by Thomas & Whipple,
   Newburyport, Henry Whipple, Salem, and by
   Thomas D1ckman, Springfield.

   1812.
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PREFACE.

   THE character of Mr. Addison, and his writings, for justness of
   thought, strength of reasoning, and purity of style, is too well
   established to need a recommendation; but their great ornament, and
   that which gives a lustre to all the rest, is his appearing throughout
   a zealous advocate for virtue and religion against profaneness and
   infidelity. And because his excellent discourses upon those subjects he
   dispersed among his other writings, and are by that means not so
   generally known and read as they deserve, it was judged to be no
   unseasonable service to religion at this time to move the Bookseller to
   publish them together in a distinct volume, in hopes that the
   politeness and beauty peculiar to Mr. Addison's writings would make
   their way to persons of a superior character, and a more liberal
   education; and that, as they come from the hands of a layman, they may
   be the more readily received and considered by young gentlemen as a
   proper manual of religion.

   Our modern sceptics and infidels are great pretenders to reason and
   philosophy, and are willing to have it thought that none who are really
   possessed of those talents, can easily assent to the truth of
   Christianity. But it falls out very unfortunately for them and their
   cause, that those persons within our own memory, who are confessed to
   have been the most perfect reasoners and philosophers of their time,
   are also known to have been firm believers, and they laymen; I mean Mr.
   Boyle, Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, and Mr. Addison; who, modestly
   speaking, were as good thinkers and reasoners as the best among the
   sceptics and infidels at this day. Some of them might have their
   particular opinions about this or that point in Christianity, which
   will be the case as long as men are men; but the thing here insisted on
   is, that they were accurate reasoners, and, at the same time, firm
   believers.

   Mr. Boyle, the most exact searcher into the works of nature that any
   age has known, and who saw atheism and infidelity beginning to shew
   themselves in the loose and voluptuous reign of King Charles II.
   pursued his philosophical inquiries with religious views, to establish
   the minds of men in a firm belief and thorough sense of the infinite
   power and wisdom of the great Creator.

   This account we have from one who was intimately acquainted with him,
   (Dr. Burnet) and preached his funeral sermon. "It appeared to those who
   conversed with him in his inquiries into nature, that his main design
   in that (on which, as he had his own eye mot constantly, so he took
   care to put others often in mind of it,) was to raise in himself and
   others vaster thoughts of the greatness and glory, and of the wisdom
   and goodness of God. This was so deep in his thoughts, that he
   concludes the article of his will, which relates to that illustrious
   body, the Royal Society, in these words: Wishing them a happy success
   in their laudable attempts to discover the true nature of the works of
   God and praying that they, and all other searchers into physical
   truths, may cordially refer their attainments to the glory of the great
   Author of nature, and the comfort of mankind." The same person also
   speaks thus of him: "He had the profoundest veneration for the great
   God of heaven and earth that ever I observed in any person. The very
   name of God was never mentioned by him without a pause, and a visible
   stop in his discourse."

   And of the strickness and exemplariness of the whole course of his
   life, he says, "I might here challenge the whole tribe of Libertines to
   come and view the usefulness, as well as the excellence of the
   Christian religion, in a life that was entirely dedicated to it."

   Against Atheists he wrote his Free Inquiry into the received Notion of
   Nature, (to confute the pernicious principle of ascribing effects to
   nature, which are only produced by the infinite power and wisdom of
   God;) and also his Essay about final Causes of Things Natural, to shew
   that all things in nature were made and contrived with great order, and
   every thing for its proper end and use, by an all wise Creator.

   Against the Deists he wrote a treatise of things above reason; in which
   he makes it appear that several things, which we judge to be contrary
   to reason, because above the reach of our understanding are not
   therefore to be thought unreasonable because we cannot comprehend them,
   since they may be apparently reasonable to a greater and more
   comprehensive understanding. And he wrote another treatise, to show the
   possiblity of the resurrection of the same body.

   The veneration he had for the holy scriptures, appears not only from
   his studying them with great exactness, and exhorting others to do the
   same, but more particularly from a distinct treatise, which he wrote on
   purpose to defend the scripture style, and to answer all the objections
   which profane and irreligious persons have made against it. And
   speaking of morality, considered as a rule of life, he says; "I have
   formerly taken pains to peruse books of morality, yet since they have
   only a power to persuade, but not to command, and sin and death do not
   necessarily attend the disobedience of them, they have the less
   influence: for since we may take the liberty to question human writers,
   I find that the methods they take to impose their writings upon us may
   serve to countenance either truth or falsehood."

   His zeal to propagate Christianity in the world appears by many and
   large benefactions to that end, which are enumerated in his funeral
   sermon "He was at the charge of the translation and impression of the
   New Testament into the Malayan language, which he sent over all the
   East-Indies. He gave a noble reward to him that translated Grotius's
   incomparable book of the Truth of the Christian Religion into Arabic;
   and was at the charge of a whole impression, which he took care to
   order to be distributed in all the countries where that language is
   understood. He was resolved to have carried on the impression of the
   New Testament in the Turkish language; but the company thought it
   become them to be the doers of it, and so suffered him only to give a
   large share towards it.--He was at seven hundred pounds charge in the
   edition of the Irish Bible, which he ordered to be distributed in
   Ireland; and he contributed largely both to the impression of the Welsh
   Bible, and of the Irish Bible in Scotland. He gave, during his life,
   three hundred pounds to advance the design of propagating the Christian
   religion in America; and as soon as he heard that the East-India
   Company were entertaining propositions for the like design in the East,
   he presently sent an hundred pounds for a beginning and an example, but
   intended to carry it much farther, when it should be set on foot to
   purpose. He had designed, though some accidents did, upon great
   considerations, divert him from settling it during his life, but not
   from ordering it by his will, that a liberal provision should be made
   for one who should, in a very few well-digested sermons, every year,
   set forth the truth of the Christian religion in general, without
   descending to the subdivisions amongst Christians; and who should be
   changed every third year, that so the noble study and employment might
   pass through many hands, by which means many might become masters of
   the argument.

   In. his younger years he had thoughts of entering into holy orders: and
   one reason that determined him against it was, that he believed he
   might in some respects be more serviceable to religion, by continuing a
   layman. "His having no interests with relation to religion, besides
   those of saving his own soul, gave him as he thought, a more
   unsuspected authority in writing or acting on that side. He knew the
   profane crew fortified themselves against all that was said by men of
   our profession, with this, that it was their trade, and that they were
   paid for it; he hoped therefore that he might have the more influence
   the less he shared in the patrimony of the church."

   Mr. Locke, whose accurate talent in reasoning is much celebrated, even
   by the sceptics and infidels of our times, showed his zeal for
   Christianity, first, in his middle age, by publishing a discourse on
   purpose to demonstrate the reasonableness of believing Jesus to be the
   promised Messiah; and, after that, in the last years of his life, by a
   very judicious commentary upon several of the epistles of St. Paul.

   He speaks of the Miracles wrought by our Saviour and his apostles in
   the strongest manner, both as facts unexceptionably true, and as the
   clearest evidences of a divine mission. His words are these: "The
   evidences of our Saviour's mission from heaven is so great, in the
   multitude of his miracles he did before all sorts of people (which the
   divine providence and wisdom had so ordered, that they never were nor
   could be denied by any of the enemies and opposers of Christianity,)
   that what he delivered cannot but be received as the oracles of God,
   and unquestionable verity." And again, "After his resurrection, he sent
   his apostles amongst the nations, accompanied with miracles; which were
   done in all parts so frequently, and before so many witnesses of all
   sorts in broad daylight, that, as I have often observed, the enemies of
   Christianity have never dared to deny them; no not Julian himself, who
   neither wanted skill nor power to inquire into the truth; nor would
   have failed to have proclaimed and exposed it, if he could have
   detected any falsehood in the history of the gospel, or found the least
   ground to question the matter of fact published by Christ and his
   apostles. The number and evidence of the miracles done by our Saviour
   and his followers, by the power and force of truth, bore down this
   mighty and accomplished emperor, and all his parts in his own
   dominions. He durst not deny so plain matter of fact; which being
   granted, the truth of our Saviour's doctrine and mission unavoidably
   follows, notwithstanding whatsoever artful suggestions his wit could
   invent, or malice should offer to the contrary.

   To those who ask, "What need was there of a Saviour? what advantage
   have we by Jesus Christ?" Mr. Locke replies, "It is enough to justify
   the fitness of any thing to be done by resolving it into the wisdom of
   God, who has done it; whereof our harrow understandings and short views
   may utterly incapacitate us to judge. We know little of this visible,
   and nothing at all of the state of that intellectual world (wherein are
   infinite numbers and degrees of spirits out of the reach of our ken or
   guess), and therefore know not what transactions there were between God
   and our Saviour in reference to his kingdom. We know not what need
   there was to set up a Head and a Chieftain in opposition to THE PRINCE
   OF THIS WORLD, THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR, &c. whereof there
   are more than obscure intimations in scriptures. And we shall take too
   much upon us, if we should call God's wisdom or providence to account,
   and pertly condemn for needless all that our weak and perhaps biased
   understanding cannot account for." And then shews at large the
   necessity there was of the gospel revelation, to deliver the world from
   the miserable state of darkness and ignorance that mankind were in, 1.
   As to the true knowledge of God, 2. As to the worship to be paid him,
   3. As to the duties to be performed to him. To which he adds the mighty
   aids and encouragements to the performance of our duty, 1. From the
   assurance the gospel gives of future rewards and punishments; and, 2.
   From the promise of the Spirit of God to direct and assist us.

   The holy scriptures are every where mentioned by him with the greatest
   reverence. He calls them the Holy Books, the Sacred Text, Holy Writ,
   and Divine Revelation and exhorts Christians "to betake themselves in
   earnest to the study of the way to salvation, in those holy writings
   wherein God has revealed it from heaven, and proposed it to the world;
   seeking our religion where we are sure it is in truth to be found,
   comparing spiritual things with spiritual." And, in a letter written
   the year before his death to one who asked this question, "What is the
   shortest and surest way, for a young Gentleman to attain to a true
   knowledge of the Christian religion, in the full and just extent of
   it?" his answer is, "Let him study the holy scripture, especially the
   New Testament. Therein are contained the words of eternal life. It has
   God for its Author; salvation for its end; and truths without any
   mixture of error, for its matter." A direction that was copied from his
   own practice, in the latter part of his life, and after his retirement
   from business; when, for fourteen or fifteen years, he applied himself
   especially to the study of the holy Scriptures, and employed the last
   years of his life hardly in any thing else. He was never weary of
   admiring the great views of that sacred book, and the just relation of
   all its parts. He every day made discoveries in it, that gave him fresh
   cause of admiration."

   Of St. Paul in particular, upon several of whose epistles he drew up a
   most useful commentary, he says, "That he was miraculously called to
   the ministry of the gospel, and declared to be a chosen vessel:--That
   he had the whole doctrine of the gospel from God by immediate
   revelation:--That for his information in the Christian knowledge, and
   the mysteries and depths of the dispensation of God by Jesus Christ,
   God himself had condescended to be his instructor and teacher:--That he
   had received the light of the gospel from the Fountain and Father of
   light himself:---and, That an exact observation of his reasonings and
   inferences, is the only safe guide for the right understanding of him,
   under the Spirit of God, that directed these sacred writings."

   And the death of this great man was agreeable to his life; for we are
   informed by one who was with him when he died, and had lived in the
   same family for seven years before, that the day before his death he
   particularly exhorted all about him to read the holy scriptures: That
   he desired to be remembered by them at evening prayers; and being told,
   that if he would, the whole family should come and pray by him in his
   chamber, he answered, he should be very glad to have it so, if it would
   not give too much trouble: That an occasion offering to speak of the
   goodness of God, he especially exalted the love which God shewed to
   man, in justifying him by faith in Jesus Christ; and returned God
   thanks in particular for having called him to the knowledge of that
   divine Saviour.

   About two months before his death he drew up a letter to a gentleman
   (who afterwards distinguished himself by a very different way of
   thinking and writing) and left this direction upon it, "To be delivered
   to him after my decease." In it are these remarkable words, "This life
   is a scene of vanity that soon passes away, and affords no solid
   satisfaction, but in the consciousness of doing well, and in the hopes
   of another life. This is what I can say upon experience, and what you
   will find to be true, when you came to make up the account."

   Sir Isaac Newton, universally acknowledged to be the ablest philosopher
   and mathematician that this or perhaps any other nation has produced,
   is also well known to have been a firm believer, and a serious
   Christian. His discoveries concerning the frame and system of the
   universe were applied by him, as Mr. Boyle's inquiries into nature had
   been, to demonstrate, against Atheists of all kinds, the being of a
   God, and illustrate his power and wisdom in the creation of the world.
   Of which a better account cannot be given, than in the words of an
   ingenious person who has been much conversant in his philosophical
   writings: "At the end of his mathematical principles of natural
   philosophy he has given us his thoughts concerning the Deity, wherein
   he first observes, that the similitude found in all parts of the
   universe, makes it undoubted that the whole is governed by one supreme
   Being, to whom the original is owing of the frame of nature, which
   evidently is the effect of choice and design. He then proceeds briefly
   to state the best metaphysical notions concerning God. In short, we
   cannot conceive either of space or time otherwise than as necessarily
   existing; this being therefore, on whom all others depend, must
   certainly exist by the same necessity of nature; consequently wherever
   space and time is found there God must also be. And as it appears
   impossible to us that space should be limited, or that time should have
   had a beginning, the Deity must be both immense and eternal "

   This great man applied himself, with the utmost attention, to the study
   of the holy scriptures, and considered the several parts of them with
   art uncommon exactness; particularly, as to the order of time, and the
   series of prophecies and events relating to the Messiah. Upon which
   head he left behind him an elaborate discourse, to prove, that the
   famous prophecy of Daniel's weeks, which has been so industriously
   perverted by the Deists of our times, was an express prophecy of the
   coming of the Messiah, and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

   Mr. Addison, so deservedly celebrated for an uncommon accuracy in
   thinking and reasoning, has given abundant proof of his firm belief of
   Christianity, and his zeal against infidels of all kinds, in the
   writings that are here published of which it is certainly known that a
   great part of them were his own compositions.

   I mention not these great names, nor the testimonies they have given of
   their firm belief of the truth of Christianity, as if the evidences of
   our religion were to be finally resolved into human authority, or tried
   in any other way than by the known and established rules of right
   reason; but my design in mentioning them is,

   1. To shew the very great assurance of those who would make the belief
   of revelation inconsistent with the due use of our reason; when they
   have known so many eminent instances, in our own time, of the greatest
   masters of reason, not only believing revelation, but zealously
   concerned to establish and propagate the belief of it.

   2. The remembrance of this will also be a means, on one hand, to hinder
   well meaning people from being misled by the vain boasts of our modern
   pretenders to reason; and, on the other hand, to check the inclination
   of the wicked and vicious to be misled, when both of them have before
   their eyes such fresh and eminent instances of sound reasoning, and a
   firm faith, joined together in one and the same mind.

   3. Further, as, these were persons generally esteemed for virtue and
   goodness, and notwithstanding their high attainments, remarkable for
   their modesty and humility; their examples shew us, that a thong and
   clear reason naturally leads to the belief of revelation, when it is
   not under the influences of vice or pride.

   4. And filially, as they are all laymen, there is no room for the
   enemies of revealed religion, to allege that they were prejudiced by
   interest, or secular considerations of any kind. A suggestion that has
   really no weight, when urged against the writings of the clergy in
   defence of revelation, since they do not desire to be trusted upon
   their own authority, but upon the reasons they offer; lawyers and
   physicians are not less trusted, because they live by their
   professions; but it is a suggestion that easily takes hold of weak
   minds, and especially such as catch at objections, and are willing to
   be caught by them. And, considering the diligence of the adversary in
   making proselytes, and drawing men from the faith of Christ; equal
   diligence is required of those who are to maintain that faith, not only
   to leave men no real ground, but even no colour or pretence for their
   infidelity.

   The following discourses, except that concerning the Evidences of
   Christian Religion, were all published in separate papers some years
   ago, and afterwards collected into volumes, with marks of distinction
   at the end of many of them, to point out the writers. Mr. Addison's are
   there distinguished by some one of the letters of the word CLIO; and
   the same marks of distinction are here continued; as are also the rest,
   where any letter was found at the end of the discourse.

   ^* [*] ^* Mr. Addison having left his treatise on the truth of the
   Christian religion unfinished, the Publisher, to make it somewhat more
   complete, selected, from the Spectator, several papers (mostly the
   author's) on the being and perfections of God, the nature of religion,
   the immortality of the soul, and a future state; and printed them with
   it. But though the treatise and the other papers are well calculated to
   prove the truth of, and recommend the Christian religion to, the faith
   and practice of mankind; yet their influences will be but small, till
   men are awakened out of that insensibility into which they are fallen,
   and brought to believe how much they are interested in the great truths
   Christianity reveals. To beget thought and excite inquiry it was judged
   the following extract from Mons. Pascal's Thoughts, against an
   atheistical indifference, would neither be an improper, nor an
   unacceptable introduction to the subsequent papers.
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INTRODUCTION.

   IT were to be wished that the enemies of religion would at least bring
   themselves to apprehend its nature before they oppose its authority.
   Did religion make its boast of beholding God with a clear and perfect
   view, and of possessing him without a covering or veil, the argument
   would bear some colour, when men should alledge, that none of thethings
   about them do indeed afford this pretended evidence, and this degree of
   light. But since religion, on the contrary, represents men as in a
   state of darkness, and of estrangement from God; since it affirms him
   to have withdrawn himself from their discovery, and to have chosen in
   his word, the very style and appellation of Deus absconditus; lastly,
   since it employs itself alike, in establishing these two maxims, that
   God has left in his church certain characters of himself, by which they
   who sincerely seek him shall not fail of a sensible conviction--and yet
   that he has, at the same time, so far shaded and obscured these
   characters as to render them imperceptible to those who do not seek him
   with their whole heart; what advantage is it to men who profess
   themselves negligent in the search of truth, to complain so frequently
   that nothing reveals and displays it to them? For this very obscurity
   under which they labour, and which they make an exception against the
   church, does itself evince one of the two grand points which the church
   maintains, (without affecting the other) and is so far from
   overthrowing its doctrines, as to lend them a manifest confirmation and
   support.

   If they would give their objections any strength, they ought to urge,
   that they have applied their utmost endeavour, and have used all means
   of information, even those which the church recommends, without
   satisfaction. Did they express themselves thus, they would indeed
   attack religion in one of its chief pretensions. But I hope to shew, in
   the following papers, that no rational person can speak after this
   manner, and I dare assert that none ever did. We know very well how
   men, under this indifference of spirit, behave themselves in the case.
   They suppose themselves to have made the mightiest efforts towards the
   instruction of their minds, when they have spent some hours in reading
   the scriptures, and have asked some questions of a clergyman concerning
   the articles of faith. When this is done, they declare to all the world
   they have consulted books and men without success. I shall be excused,
   if I refrain from not telling such men (what I have often told them)
   that this neglect of theirs is insupportable. It is not a foreign or a
   petty interest which is here in debate; we are ourselves the parties,
   and all our hopes and fortunes are the depending stake.

   The immortality of the soul is a thing which so deeply concerns, so
   infinitely imports us, that we must have utterly lost our feeling, to
   be altogether cold and remiss in our enquiries about it. And all our
   actions, or deigns, ought to bend so very different a way, according as
   we are either encouraged or forbidden to embrace the hope of eternal
   rewards, that it is impossible for us to proceed with judgment and
   discretion, otherwise than as we keep this point always in view, which
   ought to be our ruling object and final aim.

   Thus is it our highest interest, no less than our principal duty, to
   get light into a subject on which our whole conduct depends. And
   therefore, in the number of wavering and unsatisfied men, I make the
   greatest difference imaginable between those who labour with all their
   force to obtain instruction, and those who live without giving
   themselves any trouble, or so much as any thought, in this affair.

   I cannot but be touched with a hearty compassion for those who
   sincerely groan under this dissatisfaction; who look upon it as the
   greatest of misfortunes, and who spare no pains to deliver themselves
   from it, by making these researches their chief employment and most
   serious study. But as for those who pass their life without reflecting
   on its issue, and who, for this reason alone, because they find not in
   themselves a convincing testimony, refuse to seek it elsewhere, and to
   examine to the bottom, whether the opinion proposed be such as we are
   wont to entertain by popular simplicity and credulity, or such as
   though obscure in itself, yet is built on solid and immoveable
   foundations, I consider them after quite another manner. The
   carelessness which they betray in an affair where their person, their
   interest, their whole eternity, is embarked, rather provokes my
   resentment than engages my pity; nay, it strikes me with amazement and
   astonishment; it is a monster to my apprehension. I speak not this as
   transported with the pious zeal of a spiritual and rapturous devotion.
   On the contrary, I affirm, that the love of ourselves, the interest of
   mankind, and the most simple and artless reason, do naturally inspire
   us with these sentiments; and that to see thus far, is not to exceed
   the sphere of unrefined, uneducated men.

   It requires no great elevation of soul to observe, that nothing in this
   world is productive of true contentment; that our pleasures are vain
   and fugitive, our troubles innumberable and perpetual; and that after
   all, death, which threatens us every moment, must, in the compass of a
   few years, (perhaps of a few days) put us into the eternal condition of
   happiness, or misery, or nothing. Between us and these three great
   periods, or states, no barrier is interposed but life, the most brittle
   thing in all nature; and the happiness of heaven being certainly not
   designed for those who doubt whether they have an immortal part to
   enjoy it, such persons have nothing lest but the miserable chance of
   annihilation, or of hell.

   There is not any reflection which can have more reality than this, as
   there is none which has greater terror. Let us set the bravest face on
   our condition, and play the heroes as artfully as we can, yet see here
   the issue which attends the goodliest life upon earth!

   `Tis in vain for men to turn aside their thoughts from this eternity
   which awaits them, as if they were able to destroy it, by denying it a
   place in their imaginations. It subsists in spite of them; it advanceth
   unobserved: and death, which is to draw the curtain from it, will, in a
   short time, infallibly reduce them to the dreadful necessity of being
   forever nothing, or forever miserable.

   We have here a doubt of the most affrighting consequence, and which
   therefore to entertain may be well esteemed the most grievous of
   misfortunes; but, at the same time, it is our indispensable duty not to
   lie under it without struggling for deliverance.

   He then who doubts, and yet seeks not to be resolved, is equally
   unhappy and unjust. But if withal he appears easy and composed; if he
   freely declares his indifference; nay, if he takes a vanity in
   professing it, and seems to make this most deplorable condition the
   subject of his pleasure and joy, have not words to fix a name on so
   extravagant a creature. Where is the very possibility of entering into
   these thoughts and resolutions? what delight is there in expecting
   misery without end? what vanity in finding one's self encompassed with
   impenetrable darkness? or what consolation in despairing forever of a
   comforter?

   To sit down with some sort of acquiescence under so fatal an ignorance,
   is a thing unaccountable beyond all expression: and they who live with
   such a disposition ought to be made sensible of its absurdity and
   stupidity, by having their inward reflections laid open to them, that
   they may grow wise by the prospect of their own folly. For behold how
   men are wont to reason, while they obstinately remain thus ignorant of
   what they are, and refuse all methods of instruction and illumination!

   Who has sent me into the world, I know not; what the world is, I know
   not, nor what I am myself. I am under an astonishing and terrifying
   ignorance of all things. I know not what my body is, what my senses, or
   my soul. This very part of me which thinks what I speak, which reflects
   upon every thing else, and even upon itself, yet is as mere a stranger
   to its own nature as the dullest thing I carry about me. I behold these
   frightful spaces of the universe with which I am encompassed; and I
   find myself chained to one little corner of the vast extent, without
   understanding why I am placed in this seat rather than any other; or
   why this moment of time, given me to live, was assigned rather at such
   a point, than at any other of the whole eternity which was before me,
   or of all that which is to come after me. I see nothing but infinities
   on all sides, which devour and swallow me up, like an atom; like a
   shadow, which endures but a single instant, and is never to return. The
   sum of my knowledge is, that I must shortly die; but that which I am
   most ignorant of, is this very death which I feel myself unable to
   decline.

   As I know not whence I came, so I know not whither I go; only this I
   know, that at my departure out of the world, I must either fall forever
   into nothing, or into the hands of an incensed God, without being
   capable of deciding which of these two conditions shall eternally be my
   portion. Such is my state; full of weakness, obscurity, and
   wretchedness. And from all this I conclude, that I ought therefore to
   pass all the days of my life, without considering what is hereafter to
   befall me; and that I have nothing to do but to follow my inclinations,
   without reflection or disquiet, in doing all that which, if what men
   say of a miserable eternity prove true, will infallibly plunge me into
   it. `Tis possible I might find some light to clear up my doubts; but I
   shall not take a minute's pains, nor stir one foot in the search of it.
   On the contrary, I am resolved to treat those with scorn and derision
   who labour in this inquiry with care; and so to run, without fear or
   foresight, upon the trial of the grand event; permitting myself to be
   led softly on to death, utterly uncertain as to the eternal issue of my
   future condition.

   In earnest, `tis a glory to religion to have so unreasonable men for
   its professed enemies; and their opposition is of so little danger,
   that it serves to illustrate the principal truths which our religion
   teaches. For the main scope of Christian faith is to establish these
   two principles, the corruption of nature; and the redemption by Jesus
   Christ. And these opposers, if they are of no use towards demonstrating
   the truth of the redemption, by the sanctity of their lives, yet are,
   at least, admirably useful in shewing the corruption of nature, by so
   unnatural sentiments and suggestions.

   Nothing is so important to any man as his own estate and condition;
   nothing so great, so amazing, as eternity. If therefore we find persons
   indifferent to the loss of their being, and to the danger of endless
   misery, `tis impossible that this temper should be natural. They are
   quite other men in all other regards: they fear the smallest
   inconveniences; they see them as they approach, and feel them if they
   arrive; and he who passeth days and nights in chagrin or despair, for
   the loss of employment, or for some imaginary blemish in his honour, is
   the very same mortal who knows that he must lose all by death, and yet
   remains without disquiet, resentment or emotion. This wonderful
   insensibility with respect to things of the most fatal consequence, in
   a heart so nicely sensible of the meanest trifles, is an astonishing
   prodigy, an unintelligible inchantment, a supernatural blindness and
   infatuation.

   A man in a close dungeon, who knows not whether sentence of death is
   passed upon him, who is allowed but one hour's space to inform himself
   concerning it, and that one hour sufficient, in case it have passed, to
   obtain its reverse, would act contrary to nature and sense, should he
   make use of this hour not to procure information, but to pursue his
   vanity or sport. And yet such is the condition of the persons whom we
   are now describing: only with this difference, that the evils with
   which they are every moment threatened do infinitely surpass the bare
   loss of life, and that transient punishment which the prisoner is
   supposed to apprehend. Yet they run thoughtless upon the precipice,
   having only cast a veil over their eyes, to hinder them from discerning
   it, and divert themselves with the officiousness of such as charitably
   warn them of their danger.

   Thus, not the zeal alone of those who heartily seek God demonstrates
   the truth of religion, but likewise the blindness of those who utterly
   forbear to seek him, and who pass their days under so horrible a
   neglect. There must needs be a strange turn and revolution in human
   nature, before men can submit to such a condition; much more, ere they
   can applaud and value themselves upon it. For, supposing them to have
   obtained an absolute certainty that there was no fear after death, but
   of falling into nothing; ought not this to be the subject rather of
   despair than of jollity? And is it not therefore the highest pitch of
   senseless extravagance, while we want this certainty, to glory in our
   doubt and distrust?

   And yet after all, it is too visible, that man has so far declined from
   his original nature, and as it were departed from himself, as to
   nourish in his heart a secret seed plot of joy, springing up from these
   libertine reflections. This brutal ease or indolence, between the fear
   of hell and of annihilation, carries somewhat so tempting in it, that
   not only those who have the misfortune to be sceptically inclined, but
   even those who cannot unsettle their judgment, do yet esteem it
   reputable to take up even a counterfeit diffidence. For we may observe
   the largest part of the herd to be of this latter kind, false
   pretenders to infidelity, and mere hypocrites in atheism. There are
   persons whom we have heard declare that the genteel way of the world
   consists in thus acting the bravo. This is that which they term
   throwing off the yoke, and which the greater number of them profess,
   not so much out of opinion, as out of gallantry and complaisance.

   Yet, if they have the least reserve of common sense, it will not be
   difficult to make them apprehend, how miserably they abuse themselves,
   by laying so false a foundation of applause and esteem. For this is not
   the way to raise a character, even with worldly men, who as they are
   able to pass shrewd judgment on things, so they easily discern, that
   the only method of succeeding in our temporal affairs is to approve
   ourselves honest, faithful, prudent, and capable of advancing the
   interest of our friends; because men naturally love nothing but that
   which some way contributes to their use and benefit. But now what
   benefit can we any way derive from hearing a man confess, that he has
   eased himself of the burden of religion; that he believes no God, as
   the witness and inspector of his conduct; that he considers himself as
   absolute master of what he does, and accountable for it only to his own
   mind? Will he fancy that we shall be hence induced to repose a greater
   degree of confidence in him hereafter, or to depend on his comfort, his
   advice or assistance in the necessities of life? Can he imagine us to
   take any great delight or complacency, when he tells us, that he doubts
   whether our very soul be any thing more than a little wind and smoke;
   nay, when he tells it us with an air of assurance, and a voice that
   testifies the contentment of his heart? is this a thing to be spoken of
   with pleasantry? or ought it not rather to be lamented with the deepest
   sadness as the most melancholic reflection that can strike our
   thoughts?

   If they would compose them to serious consideration, they must perceive
   the method in which they are engaged to be so very ill chosen, so
   repugnant to gentility, and so remote even from that good air and grace
   which they pursue, that, on the contrary, nothing can more effectually
   expose them to the contempt and aversion of mankind, or mark them out
   for persons defective in parts and judgment. And indeed should we
   demand from them an account of their sentiments, and of the reasons
   which they have to entertain this suspicion in religious matters, what
   they offered would appear so miserably weak and trifling, as rather to
   confirm us in our belief. This is no more than what one of their own
   fraternity told them with great smartness, on such an occasion. If you
   continue (says he) to dispute at this rate, you'll infallibly make me a
   Christian. And the gentleman was in the right: for who would not
   tremble to find himself embarked in the same cause with so forlorn, so
   despicable companions.

   And thus it is evident; that they who wear no more than the outward
   mask of these principles are the most unhappy counterfeits in the
   world; in as much as they are obliged to put a continual force and
   constraint on their genius, only that they may render themselves the
   most impertinent of all men living.

   If they are heartily and sincerely troubled at their want of light, let
   them not dissemble the disease. Such a confession could not be reputed
   shameful; for there is really no shame, but in being shameless. Nothing
   betrays is much weakness of soul, as not to apprehend the misery of
   man, while living without God in the world: nothing is a surer token of
   extreme baseness of spirit, than not to hope for the reality of eternal
   promises: no man is so stigmatized a coward, as he that acts the bravo
   against Heaven. Let them, therefore, leave these impieties to those who
   are born with so unhappy a judgment as to be capable of entertaining
   them in nearest. If they cannot be Christian men, let them however be
   men of honour. And let them, in conclusion, acknowledge that there are
   but two sorts of persons who deserve to be styled reasonable, either
   those, who serve God with all their heart, because they know him; or
   those who seek him with all their heart, because as yet they know him
   not.

   If then there are persons who sincerely inquire after God,, and who,
   being truly sensible of their misery, affectionately desire to be
   rescued from it, it is to these alone that we can in justice afford our
   labour and service, for their direction in finding out that light of
   which they feel the want.

   But as for those who live without either knowing God, or endeavouring
   to know him, they look on themselves as so little deserving their own
   care, that they cannot but be unworthy the care of others: and it
   requires all the charity of the religion which they despise, not to
   despise them to such a degree, as even to abandon them to their own
   folly. But since the same religion obliges us to consider them, while
   they remain in this life, as still capable of God's enlightening grace;
   and to acknowledge it as very possible, that, in the course of a few
   days, they may be replenished with a fuller measure of faith than we
   now enjoy, and we ourselves, on the other side, fall into the depths of
   their present blindness and misery; we ought to do for them what we
   desire should be done to us in their case, to intreat them that they
   would take pity on themselves, and would, at least, advance a step or
   two forward, if perchance they may come into the light. For which end
   it is wished, that they would employ, in the perusal of this piece,
   some few of these hours which they spend so unprofitably in other
   pursuits. `Tis possible they may gain somewhat by the reading; at least
   they cannot be great losers. But if any than apply themselves to it,
   with perfect sincerity, and with an unfeigned desire of knowing the
   truth, I despair not of their satisfaction, or of their being convinced
   by so many proofs of our divine religion as they will here find laid
   together."
     __________________________________________________________________

  THE

                                   EVIDENCES

  OF THE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. I.

   I. General division of the following discourse, with regard to Pagan
   and Jewish authors, who mention particulars relating to our Saviour.

   II. Not probable that any such should be mentioned by Pagan writers who
   lived at the same time, from the nature of such transactions.

   III. Especially when related by the Jews.

   IV. And heard at a distance by those who pretended to as great miracles
   of their own.

   V. Besides, that no Pagan writers of that age lived in Judea, or its
   confines.

   VI. And because many books of that age are lost.

   VII. An instance of one record proved to be authentic.

   VIII. A second record of probable, though not undoubted, authority.

   I. THAT I may lay before you a full state of the subject under our
   consideration and methodise the several particulars that I touched upon
   in discourse with you, I shall first take notice of such Pagan authors
   as have given their testimony to the history of our Saviour; reduce
   these authors under their respective classes, and shew what authority
   their testimonies carry with them. Secondly, I shall take notice of [1]
   Jewish authors in the same light.

   II. There are many reasons why you should not expect that matters of
   such a wonderful nature should be taken notice of by those eminent
   Pagan writers, who were contemporaries with Jesus Christ, or by those
   who lived before his disciples had personally appeared among them, and
   ascertained the report which had gone abroad concerning a life so full
   of miracles.

   Supposing such things had happened at this day in Switzerland, or among
   the Grisons, who make a greater figure in Europe than Judea did in the
   Roman Empire, would they be immediately believed by those who live at a
   great distance from them? or would any certain account of them be
   transmitted into foreign countries, within so short a space of time as
   that of our Saviour's public ministry? Such kinds of news, though never
   so true, seldom gain credit, till some time after they are transacted,
   and exposed to the examination of the curious, who, by laying together
   circumstances, attestations, and characters of those who are concerned
   in them, either receive or reject what at first none but eye-witnesses
   could absolutely believe or disbelieve. In a case of this sort, it was
   natural for men of sense and learning to treat the whole account as
   fabulous: or, at farthest, to suspend their belief of it, until all
   things stood together in their full light.

   III. Besides, the Jews were branded not only for superstitions
   different from all the religions of the Pagan world, but in a
   particular manner ridiculed for being a credulous people: so that
   whatever reports of such a nature came out of that country, were looked
   upon by the Heathen world as false, frivolous, and improbable.

   IV. We may further observe, that the ordinary practice of magic in
   those times, with the many pretended prodigies, divinations,
   apparitions, and local miracles among the Heathens, made them less
   attentive to such news from Judea, till they had time to consider the
   nature, the occasion, and the end of our Saviour's miracles, and were
   awakened by many surprising events, to allow them, any consideration at
   all.

   V. We are indeed told by St. Matthew, that the fame of our Saviour,
   during his life, went throughout all Syria; and that there followed him
   great multitudes of people from Galilee, Judea, Decapolis, Idumea, from
   beyond Jordan, and from Tyre and Sidon. Now, had there been any
   historians of those times and places, we might have expected to have
   seen in them some account of those wonderful transactions in Judea; but
   there is not any single author extant, in any kind, of that age, in any
   of those countries.

   VI. How many books have perished in which possibly there might have
   been mention of our Saviour? Look among the Romans, how few of their
   writings are come down to our times! In the space of two hundred years
   from our Saviour's birth when there was such a multitude of writers of
   all kinds, how small is the number of authors that have made their way
   to the present age.

   VII. One authentic record, and that the most authentic Heathen record,
   we are pretty sure is lost, I mean the account sent by the governor of
   Judea, under whom our Saviour was judged, condemned, and crucified. It
   was the custom in the Roman Empire, as it is to this day, in all the
   governments of the world, for the prefects and viceroys of distant
   provinces, to transmit to their sovereign a summary relation of every
   thing remarkable in their administration. That Pontius Pilate, in his
   account, would have touched on so extraordinary an event in Judea, is
   not to be doubted: and that he actually did, we learn from Justin
   Martyr, who lived about a hundred years after our Saviour's death,
   resided, made converts, and suffered martyrdom at Rome, where he was
   engaged with philosophers, and in a particular manner with Crescens the
   Cynic, who could easily have detected, and would not fail to have
   exposed him, had he quoted a record not in being, or made any false
   citation out of it. Would the great apologist have challenged Crescens
   to dispute the cause of Christianity with him before the Roman senate,
   had he forged such an evidence? Or would Crescens have refused the
   challenge, could he have triumphed over him in the detection of such a
   forgery? To which we must add, that the apology which appeals to this
   record, was presented to a learned emperor, and to the whole body of
   the Roman senate. This father, in his apology, speaking of the death
   and suffering of our Saviour, refers the emperor for the truth of what
   he says to the acts of Pontius Pilate which I have here mentioned.
   Tertullian, who wrote his apology about fifty years after Justin,
   doubtless referred to the same record, when he tells the governor of
   Rome, that the emperor Tiberius having received an account out of
   Palestine in Syria, of the divine person who had appeared in that
   country, paid him a particular regard, and threatened to punish any who
   should accuse the Christians; nay, that the emperor would have adopted
   him among the deities whom they worshipped, had not the senate refused
   to come in to his proposal. Tertullian, who gives us this history, was
   not only one of the most learned men of his age, but, what adds a
   greater weight to his authority in this case, was eminently skilful and
   well read in the laws of the Roman Empire. Nor can it be said, that
   Tertullian grounded his quotation upon the authority of Justin Martyr,
   because we find he mixes it with matters of fact which are not related
   by that author. Eusebius mentions the same ancient record, but as it
   was not extant in his time, I shall not insist upon his authority in
   this point. If it be objected that this particular is not mentioned in
   any Roman historian, I shall use the same argument in a parallel case,
   and see whether it will carry any force with it. Ulpian the Great Roman
   lawyer gathered together all the imperial edicts that had been made
   against the Christians; but did any one ever say that there had been no
   such edicts, because they were not mentioned in the histories of those
   Emperors? Besides, who knows but this circumstance of Tiberius was
   mentioned in other historians that have been lost; tho' not to be found
   in any still extant? Has not Suetonius many particulars of this Emperor
   omitted by Tacitus, and Herodian many that are not so much as hinted at
   by either! As for the spurious acts of Pilate, now extant, we know the
   occasion and time of their writing, and had there not been a true and
   authentic record of this nature, they would never have been forged.

   VIII. The story of Abgarus, king of Edessa, relating to the letter
   which he sent to our Saviour, and to that which he received from him,
   is a record of great authority; and though I will not insist upon it,
   may venture to say, that had we such an evidence for any fact in Pagan
   history, an author would be thought very unreasonable who should reject
   it. I believe you will be of my opinion, if you will peruse, with other
   authors who have appeared in vindication of there letters as genuine,
   the additional arguments which have been made use of by the late famous
   and learned Dr. Grabe, in the second volume of his Spicilegium.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1] The author did not live to write this second part.
     __________________________________________________________________

SEC. II.

   I. What facts in the history of our Saviour might be taken notice of by
   Pagan authors.

   II. What particular facts are taken notice of, and by what Pagan
   authors.

   III. How Celsus represented our Saviour's miracles.

   IV. The same representation made of them by other unbelievers, and
   proved unreasonable.

   V. What facts in our Saviour's history not to be expelled from Pagan
   writers.

   I. WE come now to consider what undoubted authorities are extant among
   Pagan writers: and here we must premise, that some parts of our
   Saviour's history may be reasonably expected from Pagans. I mean such
   parts as might be known to those who lived at a distance from Judea, as
   well as to those who were the followers and eye-witnesses of Christ.

   II. Such particulars are most of these which follow, and which are all
   attested by some one or other of those Heathen authors, who lived in or
   near the age of our Saviour and his disciples. "That Augustus Caesar
   had ordered the whole empire to be censed or taxed," which brought our
   Saviour's reputed parents to Bethlehem: this is mentioned by several
   Roman historians, as Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion. "That a great light,
   or a new star, appeared in the east, which directed the wise men to our
   Saviour:" this is recorded by Chalcidius. "That Herod, the king of
   Palestine, so often mentioned in the Roman history, made a great
   slaughter of innocent children," being so jealous of his successor,
   that he put to death his own sons on that account: this character of
   him is given by several historians: and this cruel fact mentioned by
   Macrobius, a Heathen author, who tells it as a known thing, without any
   mark or doubt upon it. "That our Saviour had been in Egypt:" this
   Celsus, though he raises a monstrous story upon it, is so far from
   denying, that he tells us, our Saviour learned the arts of magic in
   that country. "That Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; that our
   Saviour was brought in judgment before him and by him condemned and
   crucified:" this is recorded by Tacitus. "That many miraculous cures
   and works, out of the ordinary course of nature, were wrought by him;
   this is confessed by Julian the apostate, Porphyry, and Hierocles, all
   of them not only Pagans, but professed enemies and persecutors of
   Christianity. "That our Saviour foretold several things which came to
   pass according to his predictions;" this was attested by Phlegon in his
   annals, as we are assured by the learned Origen against Celsus. "That
   at the time when our Saviour died, there was a miraculous darkness, and
   a great earthquake:" this is recorded by the same Phlegon the Trallian,
   who was likewise a Pagan, and freeman to Adrian the emperor. We may
   here observe, that a native of Trallium, which was not situate at so
   great a distance from Palestine, might very probably be informed of
   such remarkable events as had passed among the Jews in the age
   immediately preceding his own times, since several of his countrymen
   with whom he had conversed might have received a confused report of our
   Saviour before his crucifixion, and probably lived within the shake of
   the earthquake, and the shadow of the eclipse, which are recorded by
   this author. "That Christ was worshipped as a God among the Christians;
   that they would rather suffer death than blaspheme him: that they
   received a sacrament, and by it entered into a vow of abstaining from
   sin and wickedness," conformable to the advice given by St. Paul: "That
   they had private assemblies of worship, and used to join together in
   hymns;" this is the account which Pliny the younger gives of
   Christianity in his days, about seventy years after the death of
   Christ, and which agrees in all its circumstances with the accounts we
   have in holy writ, of the first state of Christianity after the
   crucifixion of our blessed Saviour. "That St. Peter, whose miracles are
   many of them recorded in holy writ, did many wonderful works," is owned
   by Julian the apostate, who therefore represents him as a great
   magician, and one who had in his possession a book of magical secrets,
   left him by our Saviour. "That the devils or evil spirits were subject
   to them," we may learn from Porphyry, who objects to Christianity, that
   since Jesus had begun to be worshipped, Esculapius, and the rest of the
   Gods, did no more converse with men. Nay, Celsus himself affirms the
   same thing in effect, when he says, that the power which seemed to
   reside in Christians proceeded from the use of certain names, and the
   invocation of certain demons. Origen remarks on this passage, that the
   author doubtless hints at those Christians who put to flight evil
   spirits, and healed those who were possessed with them: a fact which
   had been often seen, and which he himself had seen, as he declares in
   another part of his discourse. against Celsus. But at the same time he
   assures us, that this miraculous power was exerted by the use of no
   other name but that of Jesus; to which were added several passages in
   this history, but nothing like any invocation to demons.

   III. Celsus was so hard set with the report of our Saviour's miracles,
   and the confident attestations concerning him, that though he often
   intimates that he did not believe them to be true, yet knowing he might
   be silenced in such an answer, provides himself with an other retreat,
   when beaten out of this, viz. that our Saviour was a magician. Thus he
   compares the feeding of so many thousands, at two different times, with
   a few loaves and fishes, to the magical feasts of those Egyptian
   impostors, who would present their spectators with visionary
   entertainments, that had in them neither substance nor reality: which,
   by the way, is to suppose, that a hungry and fainting multitude were
   filled by an apparition, or strengthened and refreshed with shadows. He
   knew very well that there was so many witnesses and actors, if I may
   call them such, in these two miracles, that it was impossible to refute
   such multitudes, who had doubtless sufficiently spread the fame of
   them, and was therefore in this place forced to resort to the other
   solution, that it was done by magic. It was not enough to say that a
   miracle, which appeared to so many thousand eye-witnesses, was a
   forgery of Christ's disciples; and therefore supposing them to be
   eye-witnesses, he endeavours to shew how they might be deceived.

   IV. The unconverted Heathens, who were pressed by the many authorities
   that confirmed our Saviour's miracles, as well as the unbelieving Jews,
   who had actually seen them, were driven to account for them after the
   same manner: for, to work by magic, in the Heathen way of speaking,
   was, in the language of the Jews, to cast out devils by Beelzebub the
   prince of the devils. Our Saviour, who knew that unbelievers, in all
   ages, would put this perverse interpretation on his miracles, has
   branded the malignity of those men, who, contrary to the dictates of
   their own hearts, started such an unreasonable objection as a blasphemy
   against the Holy Ghost, and declared not only the guilt, but the
   punishment of so black a crime. At the same time he condescended to
   shew the vanity and emptiness of this objection against his miracles,
   by representing, that they evidently tended to the destruction of those
   powers, to whose assistance the enemies of his doctrine then ascribed
   them: an argument, which, if duly weighed, renders the objection so
   very frivolous and groundless, that we may venture to call it even
   blasphemy against common sense. Would magic endeavour to draw off the
   minds of men from the worship which was paid to stocks and stones; to
   give them an abhorrence of those evil spirits, who rejoiced in the most
   cruel sacrifices, and in offerings of the greatest impurity; and, in
   short, to call upon mankind to exert their whole strength in the love
   and adoration of that one Being, from whom they derived existence, and
   on whom only they were taught to depend every moment for the happiness
   and continuance of it? Was it the business of magic to humanize our
   natures with compassion, forgiveness, and all the instances of the most
   extensive charity?, Would evil spirits contribute to make men sober,
   chaste, and temperate; and, in a word, to produce that reformation
   which was wrought in the moral world by those doctrines of our Saviour
   that received their sanction from his miracles? Nor is it possible to
   imagine, that evil spirits would enter into a combination with our
   Saviour to cut off all their correspondence and intercourse with
   mankind, and to prevent any for the future from addicting themselves to
   those rites and ceremonies which had done them so much honour. We see
   the early effect which Christianity had on the minds of men in this
   particular, by that number of books which were filled with the secrets
   of magic, and made a sacrifice to Christianity by the converts
   mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. We have likewise an eminent
   instance of the inconsistency of our religion with magic in the history
   of the famous Aquila. This person, who was a kinsman of the emperor
   Trajan, and likewise a man of great learning, notwithstanding he had
   embraced Christianity; could not be brought off from the studies of
   magic by the repeated admonitions of his fellow Christians; so that at
   length they expelled him their society, as rather chusing to loose the
   reputation of so considerable a proselyte, than communicate with one
   who dealt in such dark and infernal practices. Besides, we may observe,
   that all the favourers of magic were the most professed and bitter
   enemies to the Christian religion. Not to mention Simon Magus, and many
   others, I shall only take notice of those two great persecutors of
   Christianity, the emperors Adrian and Julian the apostate, both of them
   initiated in the mysteries of divination, and skilled in all the depths
   of magic, I only add, that evil spirits cannot be supposed to have
   concurred in the establishment of a religion which triumphed over them,
   drove them out of the places they possessed, and divested them of their
   influence on mankind: nor would I mention this particular, though it be
   unanimiously reported by all the ancient Christian authors, did it not
   appear, from the authorities above cited, that this was a fact
   confessed by Heathens themselves.

   V. We now see what a multitude of Pagan testimonies may be produced for
   all of those remarkable passages which might have been expected from
   them; and indeed of several, that, I believe, do more than answer your
   expectations, as they were not subjects, in their own nature, so
   exposed to public notoriety. It cannot be expected they should mention
   particulars, which were transacted amongst the disciples only, or among
   some few even of the disciples themselves, such as the transfiguration,
   the agony in the garden, the appearance of Christ after his
   resurrection, and others of the like nature. It was impossible for a
   Heathen author to relate these things; because, if he had believed
   them, he would no longer have been a Heathen, and by that means his
   testimony would not have been thought of so much validity. Besides, his
   very report of facts, so favourable to Christianity, would have
   prompted men to say that he was probably tainted with their doctrine.
   We have a parallel case in Hecataeus, a famous Greek historian, who had
   several passages in his book conformable to the history of the Jewish
   writers, which, when quoted by Josephus, as a confirmation of the
   Jewish history, when his Heathen adversaries could give no other answer
   to it, they would need suppose that Hecataeus was a Jew in his heart,
   though they had no other reason for it, but because his history gave
   greater authority to the Jewish than the Egyptian records.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. III.

   I. Introduction to a second list of Pagan authors, who give testimony
   of our Saviour.

   II. A passage concerning our Saviour from a learned Athenian.

   III. His Conversion from Paganism to Christianity makes his evidence
   stronger than if he had continued a Pagan.

   IV. Of another Athenian philosopher converted to Christianity.

   V. Why their conversion, instead of weakening, strengthens their
   evidence in defence of Christianity.

   VI. Their belief in our Saviour's history founded at first upon the
   principles of historical faith.

   VII. Their testimonies extended to all the particulars of our Saviour's
   history.

   VIII. As related by the four Evangelists.

   I. TO this list of Heathen writers, who make mention of our Saviour, or
   touch upon any particulars of his life, I shall add those authors who
   were at first Heathens, and afterwards converted to Christianity; upon
   which account, as I shall here shew, their testimonies are to be looked
   upon as the more authentic. And, in this list of evidences, I confine
   myself to such learned Pagans as came over to Christianity in the three
   first centuries, because those were the times in which men had the best
   means of informing themselves of the truth of our Saviour's history;
   and because, among the great number of philosophers who came in
   afterwards, under the reigns of Christian emperors, there might be
   several of them who did it partly out of worldly motives.

   II. Let us now suppose that a learned Heathen writer, who lived within
   sixty years of our Saviour's crucifixion, after having shewn that false
   miracles were generally wrought in obscurity, and before few or no
   witnesses, speaking of those which were wrought by our Saviour, has the
   following passage. "But his works were always seen, because they were
   true; they were seen by those who were healed, and by those who were
   raised from the dead. Nay, these persons who were thus healed, and
   raised, were seen not only at the time of their being healed and
   raised, but long afterwards. Nay, they were seen not only all the while
   our Saviour was upon earth, but survived after his departure out of
   this world; nay, some of them were living in our days."

   III. I dare say you would look upon this as a glorious attestation for
   the cause of Christianity, had it come from the hand of a famous
   Athenian philosopher. These forementioned words, however, are actually
   the words of one who lived about sixty years after our Saviour's
   crucifixion, and was a famous philosopher in Athens. But it will be
   said he was a convert to Christianity: now consider this matter
   impartially, and see if his testimony is not much more valid for that
   reason. Had he continued a Pagan philosopher, would not the world have
   it said that he was not sincere in what he writ, or did not believe it;
   for if so, would not they have told us he would have embraced
   Christianity? This was indeed the case of this excellent man; he had so
   thoroughly examined the truth of our Saviour's history, and the
   excellency of that religion which he taught, and was so entirely
   convinced of both, that he became a proselyte and died a martyr.

   IV. Aristides was an Athenian philosopher, at the same time famed for
   his learning and wisdom, but converted to Christianity. As it cannot be
   questioned that he perused and approved the apology of Quadratus, in
   which is the passage just now cited, he joined with him in an apology
   of his own to the same emperor on the same subject. This apology,
   though now lost, was extant in the time of Ado. Vinesis, A. D. 870, and
   highly esteemed by the most learned Athenians, as that author
   witnesses. It must have contained great arguments for the truth of our
   Saviour's history, because in it he asserted the divinity of our
   Saviour which could not but engage him in the proof of his miracles.

   V. I do allow, that generally speaking, a man is not so acceptable and
   unquestioned an evidence, in facts which make for the advancement of
   his own party. But we must consider, that, in the case before us, the
   persons to whom we appeal were of an opposite party, till they were
   persuaded of the truth of those very facts which they report. They bear
   evidence to a history in defence of Christianity; the truth of which
   history was their motive to embrace Christianity. They attest facts
   which they had heard while they were yet Heathens, and had they not
   found reason to believe them, they would have still continued Heathens,
   and have made no mention of them in their writings.

   VI. When a man is born under Christian parents, and trained up in the
   profession of that religion from a child, he generally guides himself
   by the rules of Christian faith, in believing what is delivered by the
   evangelists; but the learned Pagans of antiquity, before they became
   Christians, were only guided by the common rules of faith; that is,
   they examined the nature of the evidence which was to be met with in
   common fame, traditions, and the writings of those persons who related
   them, together with the number, concurrence, veracity, and private
   characters of those persons; and being convinced upon all accounts that
   they had the same reason to believe the history of our Saviour, as that
   of any other person to which they themselves were not actually
   eye-witnesses, they were bound, by all the rules of historical faith,
   and of right reason, to give credit to this history. This they did
   accordingly, and in consequence of it published the same truths
   themselves, suffered many afflictions, and very often death itself in
   the assertion of them. When I say, that an historical belief of the
   acts of our Saviour induced these learned Pagans to embrace his
   doctrine, I do not deny that there were many other motives which
   conduced to it, as the excellency of his precepts, the fulfiling of
   prophecies, the miracles of his disciples, the irreproachable lives and
   magnanimous sufferings of their followers, with other considerations of
   the same nature; but whatever other collateral arguments wrought more
   or less with philosophers of that age, it is certain, that a belief in
   the history of our Saviour was one motive with every new convert, and
   that upon which all others turned, as being the very basis and
   foundation of Christianity.

   VII. To this I must further add, that as we have already seen many
   particular facts which are recorded in holy writ, attested by
   particular Pagan authors, the testimony of those I am now going to
   produce, extends to the whole history of our Saviour, and to that
   continued series of actions which are related of him and his disciples
   in the books of the New Testament.

   VIII. This evidently appears from their quotations out of the
   evangelists, for the confirmation of any doctrine or account of our
   blessed Saviour. Nay, a learned man of our nation, who examined the
   writings of our most ancient fathers in another view, refers to several
   passages in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clements of Alexandria, Origen, and
   Cyprian; by which he plainly shews that each of these early writers
   ascribed to the four evangelists by name, their respective histories;
   so that there is not the least room for doubting of their belief in the
   history of our Saviour as recorded in the gospels. I shall only add,
   that three of the five fathers here mentioned, and probably four, were
   Pagans converted to Christianity, as they were all of them very
   inquisitive and deep in the knowledge of Heathen learning and
   philosophy.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. IV.

   I. Character of the times in which the Christian religion was
   propagated.

   IL And of many who embraced it.

   III. Three eminent and early instances.

   IV. Multitudes of learned men who came over to it.

   V. Belief in our Saviour's history the first motive to their
   conversion.

   VI. The names of several Pagan philosophers who were Christian
   converts.

   I. IT happened very, providentially, to the honour of the Christian
   religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of
   the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height,
   and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to
   search after truth, and sift the several opinions of philosophers and
   wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of
   reasonable creatures.

   II. Several of these, therefore, when they had informed themselves of
   our Saviour's history, and examined, with unprejudiced minds, the
   doctrines and manners of his disciples and followers, were struck and
   convinced, that they professed themselves of that sect; by this
   profession, that juncture of time, they bid farewell to all the
   pleasures of this life, renounced all the views of ambition, engaged in
   an uninterrupted course of severities, and exposed themselves to public
   hatred and contempt, to sufferings of all kinds, and to death itself.

   III. Of this sort we may reckon those three early converts to
   Christianity, who each of them was a member of a senate famous for its
   wisdom and learning. Joseph the Arimathean was of the Jewish sanhedrim,
   Dionysius of the Athenian, Areopagus, and Flavius Clemens, of the Roman
   senate; nay, at the time of his death, consul of Rome. These three were
   so thoroughly satisfied of the truth of the Christian religion, that
   the first of them, according to all the reports of antiquity, died a
   martyr for it; as did the second, unless we disbelieve Aristides, his
   fellow citizen and contemporary; and the third, as we are informed both
   by Roman and Christian authors.

   IV. Among those innumerable multitudes, who, in most of the known
   nations of the world, came over to Christianity at its first
   appearance, we may be sure there were great numbers of wise and learned
   men, besides those whose names are in the Christian records, who,
   without doubt, took care to examine the truth of our Saviour's history
   before they would leave the religion of their country, and of their
   forefathers, for the sake of one that would not only cut them of from
   the allurements of this world, but subject them to every thing terrible
   or disagreeable in it. Tertullian tells the Roman governors, that their
   corporations, councils, armies, tribes, companies, the palace, senate,
   and courts of judicature, were filled with Christians; as Arnobius
   asserts, that men of the finest parts and learning, orators,
   grammarians, rhetoricians, lawyers, physicians, philosophers, despising
   the sentiments they had been once fond of, took up their rest in the
   Christian religion.

   V. Who can imagine that men of this character did not thoroughly inform
   themselves of the history of that person whose doctrines they embraced?
   For however consonant to reason his precepts appeared, how good soever
   were the effects which they produced in the world, nothing could have
   tempted men to acknowledge him as their God and Saviour, but their
   being firmly persuaded of the miracles he wrought, and the many
   attestations of his divine mission, which were to be met with in the
   history of his life. This was the groundwork of the Christian religion;
   and, if this failed, the whole superstructure sunk with it. This point,
   therefore, of the truth of our Saviour's history, as reckoned by the
   evangelists, is every where taken for granted in the writings of those
   who, from Pagan philosophers, became Christian authors, and who, by
   reason of their conversion, are to be looked upon as of the strongest
   collateral testimony for the truth of what is delivered concerning our
   Saviour.

   VI. Besides innumerable authors that are lost, we have the undoubted
   names, works, or fragments of several Pagan philosophers, which shew
   them to have been as learned as any unconverted Heathen authors of the
   age in which they lived. If we look into the greatest, nurseries of
   learning in those ages of the world, we find in Athens, Dionysius,
   Quadratus, Aristides, Athenagoras; and in Alexandria, Dionysius
   Clements, Ammonius, and Anatolius, to whom we may add Origen; for
   though his father was a Christian martyr, he became, without all
   controversy, the most learned and able philosopher of his age, by his
   education at Alexandria, in that famous seminary of arts and .sciences.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. V.

   I. The learned Pagans had means and opportunities of informing
   themselves of the truth of our Saviour's history.

   II. From the proceedings,

   III. The charmers, sufferings,

   IV. And miracles of the persons who published it.

   V. How these first apostles perpetrated their tradition, by ordaining
   persons to succeed them.

   VI. How their successors in the three first centuries preserved their
   tradition.

   VII. That five generations might derive this tradition from Christ, to
   the end of the third century.

   VIII. Four eminent Christians that delivered it down successively to
   the year of our Lord 254.

   IX. The faith of the four above mentioned persons the same with that of
   the churches of the east, of the west and of Egypt.

   X. Another person added to them, who brings us to the year 343. and
   that many other lists might be added in as direct and short a
   succession.

   XI. Why the tradition of the three first centuries, was more authentic
   than that of any other age, proved from the conversation of the
   primitive Christians.

   XII. From the manner of initiating men into their religion.

   XIII. From the correspondence between the churches.

   XIV. From the long lives of several of Christ's disciples, of which two
   are instances.

   I. IT now therefore only remains to consider, whether these learned men
   had means and opportunities of informing themselves of the truth of our
   Saviour's history; for unless this point can be made out, their
   testimonies will appear invalid, and their inquiries ineffectual.

   II. As to this point, we must consider, that many thousands had seen
   the transactions of our Saviour in Judah; and that many hundred
   thousands had received an account of them from the mouths of those who
   were actually eye-witnesses. I shall only mention among these
   eyewitnesses, the twelve apostles, to whom we must add St. Paul, who
   had a particular call to this high office, tho' many other disciples
   and followers of Christ had also their share in the publishing this
   wonderful history. We learn from the ancient records of Christianity,
   that many of the apostles and disciples made it the express business of
   their lives, travelled into the remotest parts of the world, and in all
   places gathered multitudes about them, to acquaint them with the
   history and doctrines of their crucified Master. And indeed, were all
   christian records of these proceedings intirely lost, as many have
   been, the effect plainly evinces the truth of them; for how else,
   during the apostles' lives could Christianity have spread itself with
   such an amazing progress through the several nations of the Roman
   empire? how could it fly like lightning, and carry conviction with it
   from one end of the earth to the other?

   III. Heathens therefore of every age, sex, and quality, born in the
   most different climates, and bred up under the most different
   institutions, when they saw men of plain sense, without the help of
   learning, armed with patience and courage, instead of wealth, pomp, or
   power, expressing in their lives those excellent doctrines of morality,
   which they taught as delivered to them from our Saviour, avering that
   they had seen his miracles during his life, and conversed with him
   after his death: when, I say, they saw no suspicion of falshood,
   treachery, or worldly interest in their behaviour and conversation, and
   that they submitted to the most ignominious and cruel deaths, rather
   than retract their testimony; or even be silent in matters which they
   were to publish by our Saviour's especial command, there was no reason
   to doubt of the veracity of these facts which they related, or of the
   divine mission in which they were employed.

   IV. But even those motives to faith in our Saviour would not have been
   sufficient to have brought about, in so few years, such an incredible
   number of conversions, had not the apostles been able to exhibit still
   greater proofs of the truths which they taught. A few persons of an
   odious and despised country could not have filled the world with
   believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials from the divine
   person who sent them on such a message. Accordingly we are assured that
   they were invested with the power of working miracles, which was the
   most short and the most convincing argument that could be produced, and
   only one that was adapted to the reason of all mankind, to the
   capacities of the wise and ignorant, could overcome every cavil, and
   every prejudice. Who would not believe that our Saviour healed the
   sick, and raised the dead, when it was published by those who
   themselves often did the same miracles, in their presence, and in his
   name? Could any reasonable person imagine that God Almighty would arm
   men with such powers to authorise a lie, and establish a religion in
   the world, which was displeasing to him, or that evil spirits would
   lend them such an effectual assistance to beat down vice and idolatry?

   V. When the apostles had formed many assemblies in several parts of the
   Pagan world, who gave credit to the glad tidings of the gospel, that,
   upon their departure, the memory of what they had related might not
   perish, they appointed out of these new converts men of the best sense
   and of the most unblemished lives to preside over these several
   assemblies, and to inculcate, without ceasing, what they had heard from
   the mouths of these eye-witnesses.

   VI. Upon the death of any of these substitutes to the apostles and
   disciples of Christ, his place was filled up with some other person of
   eminence for his piety and learning, and generally a member of the same
   church, who, after his decease, was followed by another in the same
   manner by which means the succession was continued in an uninterrupted
   line. Irenaeus informs us, that every church preserved a catalogue of
   its bishops in the order that they succeeded one another, and (for an
   example) produces the catalogue of those who governed the church of
   Rome in that character, which contains eight or nine persons, though
   but at a very small remove from the times of the apostles.

   Indeed the lists of bishops, which are come down to us in other
   churches, are generally filled with greater numbers than one would
   expect. But the succession was quick in the three first centuries,
   because the bishop very often ended in the martyr; for when a
   persecution arose in any place, the first fury of it fell upon this
   order of holy men, who abundantly testified, by their deaths and
   sufferings, that they did not undertake theses offices out of any
   temporal views: that they were sincere and satisfied in the belief of
   what they taught; and that they firmly adhered to what they had
   received from the apostles, as laying down their lives in the same
   hope, and upon the same principles. None can be supposed so utterly
   regardless of their own happiness as to expire in torment, and hazard
   their eternity, to support any fables and inventions of their own, or
   any forgeries of their predecessors, who had presided in the same
   church, and which might have been easily detected by the tradition of
   that particular church, as well as by the concurring testimony of
   others. To this purpose, I think it is very remarkable, that there was
   not a single martyr among those many heretics who disagreed with the
   apostolical church, and introduced several wild and absurd notions into
   the doctrines of christianity. They durst not stake their present and
   future happiness on their own chimerical imaginations, and did not only
   shun persecution, but affirmed that it was unnecessary for their
   followers to bear their religion through such fiery trials.

   VII: We may fairly reckon, that this first age of apostles and
   disciples, with that second generation of many who were their immediate
   converts, extended itself to the middle of the second century and
   several of the third generation from these last mentioned, which was
   but the fifth from Christ, continued to the end of the third century.
   Did we know the ages and numbers of the members in every particular
   church which was planted by the apostles, I doubt not but in most of
   them there might be found five persons, who, in a continued series,
   would reach through these three centuries of years, that is, till the
   265th from the death of our Saviour.

   VIII. Among the accounts of those very few out of innumerable
   multitudes, who had embraced Christianity, I shall single out four
   persons eminent for their lives, their writings and their sufferings,
   that were successively contemporaries, and bring us down as far as to
   the year of our Lord 254. St. John who was the beloved disciple, and
   conversed the most intimately with our Saviour, lived till Anno Dom.
   100. Polycarp who was the disciple of St. John, and had conversed with
   others of the apostles and. disciples of our Lord, lived till Anno 167,
   though his life was shortened by martyrdom. Irenaeus, who was the
   disciple of Polycarp, and had conversed with many of the immediate
   disciples of the apostles, lived, at the lowest computation of his age,
   till the year 202, when he was likewise cut off by martyrdom, in which
   year the great Origen was, appointed regent of the cathecatic school at
   Alexandria; and as he was the miracle of that age, for industry,
   learning, and philosophy, he was looked on as the champion of
   Christianity, till the year 254, when, if he did not suffer martyrdom,
   as some think he did, he was certainly actuated by the spirit of it, as
   appears in the whole course of his life and writings; nay, he had often
   been put to the torture, and had undergone trials worse than death. As
   he conversed with the most eminent Christians of his time in Egypt, and
   in the east brought over multitudes both from heresy and heathanism,
   left behind him several disciples of great fame and learning, there is
   no question but there were considerable numbers of those who knew him,
   and had been his hearers, scholars, or proselytes, that lived till the
   end of the third century, and to the reign of Constantine the Great.

   IX. It is evident to those who read the lives and writings of Polycarp,
   Irenaeus, and Origen, that these three fathers believed the accounts
   which are given of our Saviour in the four evangelists, and had
   undoubted arguments, that not only St. John, but many others of our
   Saviour's disciples, published the same accounts of him. To which we
   must subjoin this further remark, that what was believed by these
   fathers on this subject, was likewise the belief of the main body of
   Christians in those successive ages when they flourished since Polycarp
   cannot but be looked upon, if we consider the respect that was paid
   him, as the representative of the eastern churches in this particular,
   Irenaeus of the western upon the same account, and Origen of those
   established in Egypt.

   X. To these I might add Paul the famous hermit, who retired from the
   Decian persecution five or six years before Origen's death, and lived
   till the year 343. I have only discovered one of those channels by
   which the history of our Saviour might be conveyed pure and
   unadulterated through those several ages that produced those Pagan
   philosophers, whole testimonies I make use of for the truth of our
   Saviour's history. Some or other of these philosophers came into the
   Christian faith during its infancy, in the several periods of these
   three first centuries, when they had such means of informing themselves
   in all the particulars of our Saviour's history. I must further add,
   though I have here only chosen this single link of martyrs, I might
   find out others among those names which are still extant, that
   delivered down this account of our Saviour in a successive tradition,
   till the whole Roman empire became Christians; as there is no question
   but numberless series of witnesses might follow one another in the same
   order, and in as short a chain, and that perhaps in every single
   church, had the names and ages of the most eminent primative Christians
   been transmited to us with the like certainty.

   XI. But to give this consideration more force, we must take notice,
   that the tradition of the first ages of Christianity had several
   circumstances peculiar to it, which made it more authentic than any
   other tradition in any other age of the world. The Christians, who
   carried their religion thro' so many general and particular
   persecutions, were incessantly comforting and supporting one another,
   with the example and history of our Saviour and his apostles. It was
   the subjec not only of their solemn assemblies, but of their private
   visits and conversations. Our virgins, says Tatian, who lived in the
   second century, "discourse over their distaffs on divine subjects."
   Indeed, when religion was woven into the civil government, and
   flourished under the protection of the emperors, men's thoughts and
   discourses were, as they are now, full of secular affairs; but in the
   three first centuries of Christianity, men who embraced this religion,
   had given up all their interests in this world, and lived in a
   perpetual preperation for the next, as not knowing how soon they might
   be called to it; so that they had little else to talk of, but the life
   and doctrines of that divine person, which was their hope, their
   encouragement, and glory. We cannot therefore imagine that there was a
   single person arrived at any degree of age or consideration, who had
   not heard and repeated, above a thousand times in his life, all the
   particulars of our Saviour's birth, life, death, resurrection, and
   ascention.

   XII. Especially if we consider that they could not then be received as
   Christians till they had undergone several examinations. Persons of
   riper years, who flocked daily into the church during the three first
   centuries, were obliged to pass through many repeated instructions, and
   give a strict account of their proficiency, before they were admitted
   to baptism. And as for those who were born of Christian parents, and
   had been baptized in their infancy, they were with the like care
   prepared and disciplined for confirmation, which they could not arrive
   at, till they were found, upon examination, to have made a sufficient
   progress in the knowledge of Christianity.

   XIII. We *Must further observe, that there was not only in those times
   this religious conversation among private Christians, but a constant
   correspondence between the churches that were established by the
   apostles or their successors in the several parts of the world. If any
   new doctrine was started, or any fact reported of our Saviour, a strict
   enquiry was made among the churches, especially those planted by the
   apostles themselves, whether they had received any such doctrine or
   account of our Saviour, from the mouths of the apostles, or the
   tradition of those Christians who had preceded the present members of
   the churches which were thus consulted. By this means, when any novelty
   was published, it was immediately detected and censured.

   XIV. St. John, who lived so many years after our Saviour, was appealed
   to in these emergencies as the living oracle of the church; and as his
   oral testimony lasted the first century, many have observed, that, by a
   particular providence of God, several of our Saviour's disciples, and
   of the early converts of his religion, lived to a very great age, that
   they might personally convey the truth of the gospel to those times,
   which were very remote from the first publication of it. Of these,
   besides St. John, we have a remarkable instance in Simeon, who was one
   of the seventy sent forth, by our Saviour, to publish the gospel before
   his crucifixion, and a near kinsman of our Lord. This venerable person,
   who had probably heard with his own ears our Saviour's prophecy of the
   destruction of Jerusalem, presided over the church established in that
   city, during the time of its memorable siege, and drew his congregation
   out of those dreadful and unparalelled calamities which befel his
   countrymen, by following the advice our Saviour had given, when they
   should see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, and the Roman standards,
   or abomination of desolation, set up. He lived till the year of our
   Lord 107, when he was martyred under the emperor Trajan.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. VI.

   I. The tradition of the apostles secured by other excellent
   instructions;

   II. But chiefly by the writings of the evangelists.

   III. The diligence of the disciples and first Christian converts to
   send abroad these writings.

   IV. That the written account of our Saviour was the same with that
   delivered by tradition;

   V. Proved from the reception of the gospel by those churches which were
   established before it was written.

   VI. From the uniformity of what was believed in the several churches.

   VII. From a remarkable passage in Irenaeus.

   VIII. Records which are now lost of use to the three first centuries,
   for confirming the history of our Saviour.

   IX. Instances of such records.

   I. THUS far we see how the learned Pagans might apprize themselves,
   from oral information, oral information, of the particulars of our
   Saviour's history. They could hear, in every church planted in every
   distant part of the earth, the account which was there received and
   preserved among them, of the history of our Saviour. They could learn
   the names, and characters of those first missionaries that brought to
   them these accounts and the miracles by which God Almighty attested
   their reports. But the apostles and disciples of Christ, to preserve
   the history of his life, and to secure their accounts of him from error
   and oblivion, did not only set aside certain persons for that purpose,
   as has been already shewn, but appropriated certain days to the
   commemoration of those facts which they had related, concerning him.
   The first day of the week was in all its returns a perpetual memorial
   of his resurrection as the devotional exercises adapted to Friday and
   Saturday were to denote to all ages that he was crucified on the one of
   those days and that he rested in the grave on the other. You may apply
   the same remark to several of the annual festivals instituted by the
   apostles themselves, or at furtherest by their immediate successors, in
   memory of the most important particulars in our Saviour's history to
   which we must add the sacraments instituted by our Lord himself, and
   many of those rites and ceremonies which obtained in the most early
   times of the church. These are to be regarded as standing marks of such
   facts as were delivered by those who were eye-witnesses to them, and
   which were contrived with great wisdom to last till time should be no
   more. These, without any other means, might have, in some measure,
   conveyed to posterity the memory of several transactions in the history
   of our Saviour, as they were related by his disciples. At least, the
   reason of these institutions, though they might be forgotten, and
   obscured by a long course of years, could not but be very well known by
   those who lived in the three first centuries; and a means of informing
   the inquisitive Pagans in the truth of our Saviour's history, that
   being the view in which I am to consider them.

   II. But lest such a tradition, though guarded by so many expedients,
   should wear out by the length of time, the four evangelists, within
   above fifty, or, as Theodoret affirms, thirty years after our Saviour's
   death, while the memory of his actions was fresh among them, consigned
   to writing that history, which for some years had been published only
   by the mouths of the apostles and disciples. The further consideration
   of these holy penmen will fall under another part of this discourse.

   III. It will be sufficient to observe here, that in the age which
   succeeded the apostles, many of their immediate disciples sent or
   carried in person the books of the four evangelists, which had been
   written by the apostles, or at least approved by them, to most of the
   churches which they had planted in the different parts of the world.
   This was done with so much diligence, that when Pantaenus, a man of
   great learning and piety, had travelled into India for the propagation
   of Christianity, about the year of our Lord 200, he found among that
   remote people the gospel of St. Matthew, which, upon his return from
   that country, he brought with him to Alexandria. This gospel is
   generally supposed to have been left in those parts by St. Bartholomew,
   the apostle of the Indies, who probably carried it with him, before the
   writings of the three other evangelists were published.

   IV. That the history of our Saviour as recorded by the evangelists, was
   the same with that which had been before delivered by the apostles and
   disciples, will further appear in the prosecution of this discourse,
   and may be gathered from the following considerations.

   V. Had these writings differed from the sermons of the first planters
   of Christianity, either in history or doctrine, there is no question
   but they would have been rejected by those churches which they had
   already formed. But so consistent and uniform was the relation of the
   apostles, that those histories .appeared to be nothing else but their
   tradition and oral attestations made fixed and permanent. Thus was the
   fame of our Saviour, which in so few years had gone through the whole
   earth, confirmed and perpetuated by such records as would preserve the
   traditionary account of him to after ages, and rectify it, if at any
   time, by passing through several generations, it might drop any part
   that was material, or contract any thing that was false or fictitious.

   VI. Accordingly we find the same Jesus Christ, who was born of a
   virgin, who had wrought many miracles in Palestine, who was crucified,
   rose again, and ascended intoheaven: I say, the same Jesus Christ had
   been preached, and was worshipped, in Germany, France, Spain, and Great
   Britain; in Parthia, Media, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Asia, and
   Pamphylia; in Italy, Egypt, Afric, and beyond Cyrene, India, and
   Persia; and, in short, in all the islands and provinces that are
   visited by the rising or the setting sun. The same account of our
   Saviour's life and doctrine was delivered by thousands of preachers,
   and believed in thousands of places, who all, as fast as it could be
   conveyed to them, received the same account in writing from the four
   evangelists.

   VII. Irenaeus to this purpose very aptly remarks, that those barbarous
   nations, who in his time were not possessed of the written gospels, and
   had only learned the history of our Saviour from those who had
   converted them to Christianity before the gospels were written, had
   among them the same accounts of our Saviour which are to be met with in
   the four evangelists: an incontestible proof of the harmony and
   concurrence between the holy scripture and the tradition of the
   churches in those early times of Christianity.

   VIII. Thus we see what opportunities the learned and inquisitive
   Heathens had of informing themselves of the truth of our Saviour's
   history during the three first centuries, especially as they lay nearer
   one than another to the fountain-head: beside which, there were many
   uncontroverted traditions, records of Christianity, and particular
   histories, that then thew light into those matters, but are now
   entirely lost, by which, at that time, any appearance of contradiction,
   of seeming difficulties, in the history of the evangelists, were fully
   cleared up and explained; though we meet with fewer appearances of this
   nature in the history of our Saviour, as related by the four
   evangelists, than in the accounts of any other person, published by
   such a number of different historians, who lived at so great a distance
   from the present age.

   IX. Among those records which are lost, and were of great use to the
   primitive Christians, is the letter to Tiberius, which I have already
   mentioned; that of Marcus Aurelius, which I shall take notice of
   hereafter; the writings of Hegesippus, who had drawn down the history
   of Christianity to his own time, which was not beyond the middle of the
   second century; the genuine Sybilline oracles, which, in the first age
   of the church, were easily distinguished from the spurious: the records
   preserved in particular churches, with many others of the same nature.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. VII.

   I. The sight of miracles in those ages, a further confirmation of Pagan
   philosophers in the Christian faith.

   II. The credibility of such miracles.

   III. A particular instance.

   IV. Martyrdom, why considered as a standing miracle.

   V. Primitive Christians thought many of the martyrs were supported by a
   miraculous power.

   VI. Proved from the nature of their sufferings.

   VII. How martyrs further induced the Pagans to embrace Christianity.

   I. THERE were other means which I find had a great influence on the
   learned of the three first centuries, to create and confirm in them the
   belief of our blessed Saviour's history, which ought not to be passed
   over in silence. The first was, the opportunity they enjoyed of examing
   those miracles, which were on several occasions performed by
   Christians, and appeared in the church more or less during these first
   ages of Christianity. These had great weight with the men I am now
   speaking of, who, from learned Pagans, became fathers of the church;
   for they frequently boast of them in their writings, as attestations
   given by God himself to the truth of their religion.

   II. At the same time that these learned men declare how disingenuous,
   base, and wicked it would be, how much beneath the dignity of
   philosophy, and contrary to the precepts of Christianity, to utter
   falsehoods or forgeries in the support of a cause, though never so just
   in itself, they confidently assert this miraculous power which then
   subsisted in the church; nay, tell us, that themselves had been eye
   witnesses of it at several times, and in several instances; nay, appeal
   to the Heathens themselves for the truth of several facts they relate;
   nay, challenge them to be prefect at their assemblies, and satisfy
   themselves if they doubt of it; nay, we find that Pagan authors have in
   some instances confessed this miraculous power.

   III. The letter of Marcus Aurelius, whose army was preserved by a
   refreshing shower, at the same time that his enemies were discomfited
   by a storm of lightning, and which the Heathen historians themselves
   allow to have been supernatural, and the effect of magic; I say, this
   letter, which ascribed this unexpected assistance to the prayers of the
   Christians, who then served in the army, would have been thought an
   unquestionable testimony of the miraculous power I am speaking of, had
   it been still preserved. It is sufficient for me in this place to take
   notice, that this was one of those miracles which had its influence on
   the learned converts, because it is related by Tertullian, and the very
   letter appealed to. When their learned men saw sickness and frenzy
   cured, the dead raised, the oracles put to silence, the demons and evil
   spirits forced to confess themselves no gods, by persons who only made
   use of prayer and adjurations in the name of their crucified Saviour,
   how could they doubt of their Saviour's power on the like occasions, as
   represented to them by the traditions of the church, and the writings
   of the evangelists?

   IV. Under this head, I cannot omit that which appears to me a standing
   miracle in the three first centuries I mean, that amazing and
   supernatural courage or patience which was shewn by innumerable
   multitudes of martyrs, in those slow and painful torments that were
   inflicted on them. I cannot conceive a man placed in the burning iron
   chair at Lyons, amid the insults and mockeries of a crowded
   amphitheatre, and still keeping his seat; or stretched upon a gate of
   iron, over coals of fire, and breathing out his soul among the
   exquisite sufferings of such a tedious execution, rather than renounce
   his religion or blaspheme his Saviour. Such trials seem to me above the
   strength of human nature, able to overbear duty, reason, faith,
   conviction, nay, and the most absolute certainty of a future state.
   Humanity, unassisted in an extraordinary manner, must have shaken off
   the present pressure, and have delivered itself out of such a dreadful
   distress, by any means that could have been suggested by it. We can
   easily imagine, that many persons, in so good a cause, might have laid
   down their lives at the gibbet, the stake, or the block but to expire
   leisurely among the most exquisite tortures, when they might come out
   of them, even by a mental reservation, or an hypocrisy, which was not
   without a possibility of being followed by repentance, and forgiveness,
   has something in it so far beyond the force and natural strength of
   mortals, that one cannot but think there was some miraculous power to
   support the sufferer.

   V. We find the church of Smyrna, in that admirable letter, which gives
   an account of the death of Polycarp, their beloved bishop, mentioning
   the cruel torments of other early martyrs for Christianity, are of
   opinion that our Saviour stood by them in a vision, and personally
   conversed with them, to give them strength and comfort during the
   bitterness of their long continued agonies: and we have the story of a
   young man, who, having suffered many tortures, escaped with life, and
   told his fellow Christians that the pain of them had been rendered
   tolerable, by the presence of an angel who stood by him, and wiped off
   the tears and sweat which ran down his face whilst he lay under his
   sufferings. We are assured at least, that the first martyr for
   Christianity was encouraged in his last moments, by a vision of that
   divine person for whom he suffered, and into whose pretence he was then
   hastening.

   VI. Let any man calmly lay his hand upon his heart, and, after reading
   these terrible conflicts in which the ancient martyrs and confessors
   were engaged, when they passed through such new inventions and
   varieties of pain as tired their tormentors, and ask himself, however
   zealous and sincere he is in his religion, whether, under such acute
   and lingering tortures, he could still have held fast his integrity,
   and have professed his faith to the last; without a supernatural
   assistance of some kind or other. For my part, when I consider that it
   was not an unaccountable obstincy in a single man, or in any particular
   set of men, in some extraordinary juncture; but that there were
   multitudes of each fact, of every age, of different countries and
   conditions, who, for near 300 years together, made this glorious
   confession of their faith in the midst of tortures, and in the hour of
   death; I must conclude, that they either of another make from what men
   are at present, or that they had such miraculous supports as were
   peculiar to those times of Christianity; when without them the very
   name of it might have been extinguished.

   VII. It is certain that the deaths and sufferings of the primitive
   Christians had a great share in the conversion of those learned Pagans
   who lived in the ages of persecution, which, with some intervals and
   abatements, lasted near three hundred years after our Saviour. Justin
   Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and others, tell us, that
   this first of all alarmed their curiosity, roused their attention, and
   made them seriously inquisitive into the nature of that religion which
   could endue the mind with so much strength, and overcome the fear of
   death, nay, raised an earnest desire of it though it appeared in all
   its terrors. This they found had not been effected by all the doctrines
   of those philosophers whom they had thoroughly studied, and who had
   been labouring at this great point. The sight of these dying and
   tormented martyrs engaged them to search into the history and doctrines
   of him for whom they suffered. The more they searched, the more they
   were convinced; till their conviction grew so strong, they themselves
   embraced the same truths, and either actually laid down their lives, or
   were always in readiness to do it, rather than depart from them.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. VIII.

   I. The completion of our Saviour's Prophecies confirmed Pagans in their
   belief of the gospel.

   II. Origen's observation on our Saviour's disciples being brought
   before kings and governors;

   III. On their being persecuted for their religion;

   IV. On their preaching the gospel to all nations.

   V. On the destruction of Jerusalem, and ruin of the Jewish oeconomy.

   VI. These arguments strengthened by what has happened since Origen's
   time.

   I. THE second of these extraordinary means, of great use to the learned
   and inquisitive Pagans of the first three centuries, for evincing the
   truth of the history of our Saviour, was the completion of such
   prophecies as are recorded of him in the evangelists. They could not
   indeed form any arguments from what he foretold, and was fulfilled
   during his life, because both the prophecy and the completion were over
   before they were published by the evangelists; though as Origen
   observes, what end could there be in forging some of these predictions,
   as that of St. Peter's denying his Master, and all his disciples
   forsaking him in the greatest extremity, which reflects so much shame
   on the great apostle, and on all his companions? Nothing but a strict
   adherence to truth, and to matters of fact, could have prompted the
   evangelists to relate a circumstance so disadvantageous to their own
   reputation, as that father has well observed.

   II. But to pursue his reflections on this subject: There are
   predictions of our Saviour recorded by the evangelists, which were not
   completed till after their deaths, and had no likelihood of being so,
   when they were pronounced by our blessed Saviour. Such was that
   wonderful notice he gave them, that they should be brought before
   governors, and kings, for his sake, for a testimony against them and
   the Gentiles, Mat. x. 28. with the other like prophecies, by which he
   foretold that his disciples were to be persecuted. Is there any other
   doctrine in the world, says this father, whose followers are punished?
   can the enemies of Christ say, that he knew his opinions were false and
   impious, and that therefore he might well conjecture and foretel what
   would be the treatment of those persons who would embrace them?
   Supposing his doctrines were really such, why should this be the
   consequence? What likelihood that men should be brought before kings
   and governors for opinions and tenets of any kind, when this never
   happened even to the Epicureans, who absolutely denied a providence;
   nor to the Peripatetics themselves, who laughed at the prayers and
   sacrifices which were made to the Divinity? Are there any but the
   Christians who, according to this prediction of our Saviour, being
   brought before kings and governors for his sake, are pressed to their
   latest gasp of breath, by their respective judges, to renounce
   Christianity, and to procure their liberty and rest, by offering the
   same sacrifices, and taking the same oaths that others did?

   III. Consider the time when our Saviour pronounced those words, Mat. x.
   32. 33. "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also
   before my Father who is in heaven: but whosoever shall deny me before
   men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven." Had you
   heard him speak after this manner, when as yet his disciples were under
   no such trials, you would certainly have said within yourself, if these
   speeches of Jesus are true, and if, according to his prediction,
   governors and kings undertake to ruin and destroy those who shall
   profess themselves his disciples, we will believe, not only that he is
   a prophet, but that he has received power from God sufficient to
   preserve and propagate his religion; and that he would never talk in
   such a peremptory and discouraging manner, were he not assured that he
   was able to subdue the most powerful opposition, that could be made
   against the faith and doctrine which he taught.

   IV. Who is not struck with admiration, when he represents to himself
   our Saviour at that time foretelling, that his Gospel should be
   preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, or, as
   Origen, (who rather quotes the sense than the words) to serve for a
   conviction to kings, and people, when, at the same time, he finds that
   his Gospel has accordingly been preached to Greeks and Barbarians, to
   the learned and to the ignorant, and that there is no quality or
   condition of life able to exempt men from submitting to the doctrine of
   Christ? As for us, says this great author, in another part of his book
   against Celsus, "When we see every day those events exactly
   accomplished which our Saviour foretold at so great a distance; that
   his Gospel is preached in ail the world, Mat. xxiv. 14. that his
   disciples go and teach all nations, Mat. xxviii. 19. and that those who
   have received his doctrine, are brought for his sake before governors,
   and before kings, Mat. x. 18. we are filled with admiration, and our
   faith in him is confirmed more and more. What clearer and stronger
   proofs can Celsus ask for the truth of what he spoke?"

   V. Origen insists likewise with great. strength on that wonderful
   prediction of our Saviour concerning the destruction of Jerusalem,
   pronounced at a time, as he observes, when there was no likelihood nor
   appearance of it. This has been taken notice of, and inculcated by so
   many others, that I shall refer you to what this father has said on the
   subject in the first book against Celsus. And as o the accomplishment
   of this remarkable prophecy, I shall only observe, that whoever reads
   the account given us by Josephus, without knowing his character, and
   compares it with what our Saviour foretold, would think the historian
   had been a Christian, and that he had nothing else in view but to
   adjust the event to the prediction.

   VI. I cannot quit this head without taking notice, that Origen would
   still have triumphed more in the foregoing arguments, had he lived an
   age longer, to have seen the Roman emperors, and all their governors
   and provinces, submitting themselves to the Christian religion, and
   glorying in its profession, as so many kings and sovereigns still place
   their relation to Christ at the head of their titles.

   How much greater confirmation of his faith would he have received, had
   he seen our Saviour's prophecy stand good in the destruction of the
   temple, and the dissolution of the Jewish oeconomy, when Jews and
   Pagans united all their endeavours, under Julian the apostate, to
   baffle and falsify the prediction? The great preparations that were
   made for rebuilding the temple, with the hurricane, earthquake, and
   eruptions of fire, that destroyed the work, and terrified those
   employed in the attempt from proceeding in it, are related by many
   historians of the same age, and the substance of the story testified
   both by Pagan and Jewish writers, as Ammianus Marcellinus, and Zamath
   David. The learned Chrystome, in a sermon against the Jews, tells them,
   this fact was then fresh in the memories even of their young men; that
   it happened but twenty years ago, and that it was attested by all the
   inhabitants of Jerusalem, where they might still see the marks of it in
   the rubish of that work, from which the Jews, desisted in so great a
   fright, and which even Julian had not the courage to carry on. This
   fact, which is in itself so miraculous, and so indisputable, brought
   over many of the Jews to Christianity, and shows us, that after our
   Saviour's prophecy against it, the temple could not be preserved from
   the plow passing over it by all the care of Titus, who would fain have
   prevented its destruction, and that instead of being re-edified by
   Julian, all his endeavours towards it did but still more literaly
   accomplish our Saviour's prediction, that not one stone should be left
   upon another.

   The ancient Christians were so entirely persuaded of the force of our
   Saviour's prophecy, and of the punishment which the Jews had drawn upon
   themselves and upon their children, for the treatment which the Messiah
   had received at their hands, that they did not doubt but they would
   always remain an abandoned and despised people, an hissing and an
   astonishment, among the nations, as they are to this day. In short that
   they had lost their peculiarity of being God's people, which was now
   transferred to the body of Christians, and which preserved the church
   of Christ among all the conflicts, difficulties, and persecutions, in
   which it was engaged, as it had preserved the Jewish government and
   oeconomy for so many ages, whilst it had the same truth and vital
   principle in it, notwithstanding it was so frequently in danger of
   being utterly abolished and destroyed. Origen, in his fourth book
   against Celsus, mentioning their being cast out of Jerusalem, the place
   to which their worship was annexed, deprived of their temple and
   sacrifice, their religious rites and solemnities, and scattered over
   the face of the earth, ventures to assure them, with a face of
   confidence, that they would never be re-established since they had
   committed that horrid crime against the Saviour of the world. This was
   a bold assertion in the good man, who knew how this people had been so
   wonderfully re-established in former times, when they were almost
   swallowed up, and in the most desperate state of desolation, as in
   their deliverance out of the Babylonish captivity, and the oppressions
   of Antiochus Epiphanes. Nay, he knew that, within less than an hundred
   years before his own time, the Jews had made such a powerful effort for
   their re-establishment under Barchocap, in the reign of Adrian, as
   shook the whole Roman empire. But he founded his opinion on a sure word
   of prophecy, and on the punishment they had so justly incurred; and we
   find by a long experience of 1500 years, that he was not mistaken, nay,
   that his opinion gathers strength daily, since the Jews are now at a
   greater distance from any probability of such a re-establishment than
   they were when Origen wrote.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. IX.

   I. The lives of primitive Christians another means of bringing learned
   Pagans into, their religion.

   II. The change and reformation of their manners.

   III. This looked upon as supernatural by the learned Pagans.

   IV. And strengthened the accounts given of our Saviour's life and
   history.

   V. The Jewish prophecies of our Saviour an argument for the Heathens'
   belief:

   VI. Pursued:

   VII. Purfued.

   I. THERE was one other means enjoyed by the learned Pagans of the three
   fist centuries, for satisfying them in the truth of our Saviour's
   history which I might have flung under one of the foregoing heads but
   as it is so shining a particular, and does so much honour to our
   religion, I shall make a distinct article of it, and only consider it
   with regard to the subject I am upon: I mean the lives and manners of
   those holy men who believed in Christ during the first ages of
   Christianity. I should be thought to advance a paradox, should I affirm
   that there were more Christians in the world during those times of
   persecution than there are at present in these which we call the
   flourishing times of Christianity. But this will be found an
   indisputable truth, if we form our calculation upon the opinions which
   prevailed in those days, that every one who lives in the habitual
   practice of any voluntary sin actually cuts himself off from the
   benefits and profession of Christianity, and whatever he may call
   himself, is in reality no Christian, nor ought to be esteemed as such.

   II. In the time that we are now surveying, the Christian religion
   shewed its full force and efficacy on the minds of men, and by many
   examples demonstrated what great and generous souls it was capable of
   producing. It exalted and refined its proselytes, to a very high degree
   of perfection, and set them far above the pleasures, and even the
   pains, of this life. It strengthened the infirmity, and broke the
   fierceness of human nature. It lifted up the minds of the ignorant to
   the knowledge and worship of him that made them, and inspired the
   vicious with a rational devotion, a strict purity of heart, and an
   unbounded love to their fellow-creatures. In proportion as it spread
   thro' the world it seemed to change mankind into another species of
   beings. No sooner was a convert initiated into it, but, by an easy
   figure, he became a new man, and both acted and looked upon himself as
   one regenerated and born a second time into another state of existence.

   III. It is not my business to be more particular in the accounts of
   primitive Christianity which have been exhibited so well by others, but
   rather to observe, that the Pagan converts, of whom I am now speaking,
   mention this great reformation of those who had been the greatest
   sinners, with that sudden and surprising change which it made in the
   lives of the most profligate, as having something in it supernatural,
   miraculous, and more than human. Origen represents this power in the
   Christian religion, as no less wonderful than that of curing the lame
   and blind, or cleansing the leper. Many others represented it in the
   same light, and looked upon it as an argument, that there was a certain
   divinity in that religion which showed itself in such strange and
   glorious effects.

   IV. This therefore was a great means not only of recommending
   Christianity to honest and learned Heathens, but of confirming them in
   the belief of our Saviour's history, when they saw multitudes of
   virtuous men daily forming themselves upon his example, animated by his
   precepts, and actuated by that Spirit which he had promised to send
   among his disciples.

   V. But I find no argument made a stronger impression on the minds of
   these eminent Pagan converts, for strengthening their faith in the
   history of our Saviour, than the predictions relating to him in those
   old prophetic writings, which were deposited among the hands of the
   greatest enemies to Christianity, and owned by them to have been extant
   many ages before his appearance. The learned Heathen converts were
   astonished to see the whole history of their Saviour's life published
   before he was born, and to find that the evangelists and prophets, in
   their accounts of the Messiah, differed only in point of time; the one
   foretelling what should happen to him, and the other describing those
   very particulars as what had actually happened. This our Saviour
   himself was pleased to make use of as the strongest argument of his
   being the promised Messiah, and without it would hardly have reconciled
   his disciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable
   passage which mentions his conversation with the two disciples on the
   day of his resurrection. St. Luke xxiv. 13. to the end.

   VI. The Heathen converts, after having travelled through all human
   learning, and fortified their minds with the knowledge of arts and
   sciences, were particularly qualified to examine these prophecies with
   great care and impartiality, and without prejudice or prepossession. If
   the Jews, on the one side, put an unnatural interpretation on these
   prophecies, to evade the force of them in their controversies with the
   Christians; or if the Christians on the other side, overstrained
   several passages in their applications of them, as it often happens
   among men of the best understanding, when their minds are heated with
   any consideration that bears a more than ordinary weight with it the
   learned Heathens may be looked upon as neuters in the matter, when all
   these prophecies were new to them, and their education had left the
   interpretation of them free and indifferent. Besides, these learned men
   among the primitive Christians, knew how the Jews, who had preceded our
   Saviour, interpreted these predictions, and the several marks by which
   they acknowledged the Messiah would be discovered, and how those of the
   Jewish doctors, who succeeded him, had deviated from the
   interpretations and doctrines of their forefathers, on purpose to
   stifle their own conviction.

   VII. This set of arguments had therefore an invincible force with those
   Pagan philosophers who became Christians, as we find in most of their
   writings. They could, not disbelieve our Saviour's history, which so
   exactly agreed with every thing that had been written of him many ages
   before his birth, nor doubt of those circumstances being fulfiled in
   him, which could not be true of any person that lived in the world
   besides himself. This wrought the greatest confusion in the unbelieving
   Jews, and the greatest conviction in the Gentiles, who every where
   speak with astonishment of these truths they met with in this new
   magazine of learning which was opened to them, and carry the point so
   far as to think whatever excellent doctrine they had met with among
   Pagan writers had been stolen from their conversation with the Jews, or
   from the perusal of these writings which they had in their custody.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

ADDITIONAL

DISCOURSES.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECT. I.

OF GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.

     Qui mare et terras variisque mundum
     Temperat horis:
     Unde nil majus generatur ipso,
     Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum.

     Hor. Od. 12. Lib. I. V. 15.


     Who guides below, and rules above,

     The great Disposer and the mighty King:

     Than he none greater, next him none,

     That can be, is or was;

     Supreme he singly fills the throne.

     Creech.

   SIMONIDES, being armed by Dionysius the tyrant what God was, desired a
   day's time to consider of it before he made his reply. When the day was
   expired, he desired two days; and afterwards, instead of returning his
   answer, demanded still double time to consider of it. This great poet
   and philosopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity,