not believe, John xx. 25. Jesus Christ is pleased to adapt his condescension to the weakness of this disciple, and to gratify a pretension so arrogant and rash: he appears to Thomas, and says to him. Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and trust it into my side and be not faithless, but believing, ver. 27. Thomas is drawn different ways; by the shame of having disbelieved, and the joy which he felt in being convinced by the testimony of his own senses, and exclaims, My Lord and my God! Upon this Jesus Christ addresses him in the words of the text: Thonas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. You perceive from the occasion on which the words were spoken, that they point, in the first instance, to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We shall take care, accordingly, not to lose sight of this object. Nevertheless, as the proposition of our blessed Lord is general, we shall take it in all its generality and shall discourse to you of that obscure faith which reverts to periods long since past, and looks forward into periods hidden in a remote futurity. The nature of obscure faith; the excellency of obscure faith: this is the simple division of my present discourse. Or, to convey a still clearer idea of my design, under the first head, I shall endeavor to unfold the ambiguity of that expression; to believe without having seen; in the second, I shall evince the truth of this proposition; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. I. Let us, in the first place, endeavor to explain the nature of obscure faith: or, as we have announced the subject of this first branch of our dis course, let us attempt to unfold the ambiguity of the expression: Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. By obscure faith, we here mean, that which is founded, not on what a man hath seen with his own eyes, not on what he has discovered to be true by the powers of his own reason, but on testimony worthy of credit. Let this definition be carefully remarked: and let this be constantly kept in sight, that though the faith of which we are speaking, has not a certainty resting on the evidence of the senses, or on the conclusions of right reason, it has a certainty perfect in its kind, that which rests on a testimony worthy of credit. Take care, therefore, not to confound an obscure faith with a fluctuating, unsettled, ill-founded faith. They are two things perfectly distinct, and it is impossible to distinguish them too carefully. The obscurity of which we are going to treat, is by no means incompatible with evidence. In order to comprehend it fully, it is necessary to distinguish two species of evidence: evidence of the object, and evidence of testimony. We call evidence of the object, that which rests, as I have said, either on the deposition of the senses, or on the discernment of sound reason. I believe that you are now assembled within the circumference of these walls: I believe it, because I see it So. The evidence which I have on this subject, is that species of evidence which I have denominated evidence of the object, and which is founded on the deposition of the senses. In like manner, I believe that so long as you remain within the circumference of these walls, you are not in your own habitations. The evidence which I have to support this belief, is still that which I have denominated evi dence of the object, namely, that which is founded on the light of my own reason, whereby I am assured, in a manner which leaves me not the liberty of so much as doubting, that so long as you remain within this temple, you cannot possibly be in any other place. But if there be evidence of object, there is likewise evidence of testimony. I believe there is a vast region on the globe, called the kingdom of Persia. I have evidence to support this belief: not the evidence of object, but the evidence of testimony. I believe that there is such a kingdom, though I have never seen it with my own eyes: but there is such a cloud of witnesses, of undoubted credit, who assure me of it, that the evidence of testimony supplies the evidence of object. In like manner, I believe that a vessel of such or such a construction, and of so many tons burthen, requires such a depth of water. I believe this, not because my reason has by its own powers made the discovery, for I never made mechanism of this kind my study; but the unanimous deposition of all who understand the art of ship-building, gives me full assurance of the fact, fills the place of my own intimate perception, and the evidence of testimony supplies the evidence of object. Having thus explained our meaning, when we say that faith is obscure, when we say that the Christian believeth what he seeth not, we do not, by this, understand that he believeth in what is destitute of proof: we only mean that he believeth the truth of facts of which he has not been an eye witness that he believeth in truths which he could not have discovered by his own reason, and that he hopes for a felicity of which he has not a distinct idea but he believes those facts, on the unanimous testimony of a great number of witnesses, : who could not possibly have acted in concert to deceive him: he believes those truths on an infallible testimony: he hopes, on that same testimony, namely, on the word of God himself. In all these things, the evidence of testimony supplies the evidence of object. That it is of this kind of faith, we are to understand these words in our text, Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed, the occasion on which they were pronounced permits us not to doubt. Of what was Jesus Christ speaking to Thomas? Of his own resurrection. Who are the persons he had in view, whom Providence was afterwards to call to believe without having seen? Those who could not possibly be the eye witnesses of that resurrection. But were the persons who should be called to believe the doctrine of the resurrection, to believe it without satisfying reasons of its truth and certainty? By no means. Call to your recollection a part of what we submitted to your consideration on this subject, on another occasion. * We have, in confirmation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 1. Presumptions. 2. Proofs, and, 3. Demonstrations. 1. The circumstances of the death of the Saviour, and of his burial, furnish us with presumptions on this subject. Jesus Christ died his body was deposited in the tomb; but a few days afterwards was not to be found there. We thence presume that Jesus Christ is risen again. If Jesus Christ be not risen, his body must have been conveyed away: but how is it possible to maintain such an assertion? To whom shall we impute such * The reader is referred to the sermon on The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, page 199, &c. of Sermon VIII. Vol. II. of Mr. Robinson's selection. conveyance? Not surely to his enemies. Could they be suspected of a design to contribute to his glory, by giving currency to the report of his resurrection? It can as little be imputed to his disciples. They had no inclination to do so. For how could men, so notoriously timid, have formed an enterprize so daring and dangerous, and that in favor of a man, (I go on the supposition that Jesus Christ did not rise again) who had thus abused their credulity? But had their inclination been ever so strong, was it in their power either to surprize or to discomfit a guard forewarned of the design? These I call presumptions. 2. The testimony of the apostles furnishes with proofs of the resurrection. This testimony possesses no less than eight distinct characters, which raise it beyond the reach of all suspicion: i, The nature of the witnesses, who had neither the credid, nor the riches, nor the eloquence necessary to practice an imposture on mankind: ii, The number of those witnesses, amounting to more than five hundred: iii, The nature of the facts which are the subject of their evidence, things in which it was impossible they should deceive themselves, things which they had seen, heard, and perceived in the most sensible and palpable manner: iv, The uniformity of their testimony, which in no one instance ever contradicted itself: v, The judges before whom their evidence was given; judges expert in the art of involving cheats in self-contradiction, but who never could detect any in the witnesses of whom we are speaking: vi, The place where their testimony was published; for had the apostles gone and published the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, in regions remote from that where the fact could be completely sifted, they might have fallen under suspicion; but they attest it to the face of the |