must have the same compass of time that has gone to confirm this evidence, else it has not the same evidence.

D. By this argument the evidence grows stronger the longer it continues, since you say, that the prophecies of the Scriptures reach to the end of the world, and so will be further and further fulfilling every day. This is contrary to what one of your doctors has lately advanced, who pretends to calculate the age of evidences, that in such a time they decay, and in such a time must die. And that the evidence of Christianity having lasted so long, is upon the decay, and must wear out soon, if not supplied by some fresh and new evidence.

C. This may be true as to fables, which have no foundation but is that prophecy I mentioned to you of the dispersion, and yet wonderful preservation of the Jews, less evident to you, because it was made so long ago

D. No. It is much more evident for that. If I had lived at the time when those prophecies were made, I fancy I should not have believed one word of them; but wondered at the assurance of those who ventured to foretell such improbable and almost impossible things. And I should have thought the same of what you told me of your Christ, foretelling the progress of his Gospel, of his Gospel, at the first so very slender appearance of it, and by such weak and improbable means, as only suffering and dying for it, which to me would have seemed perfect despair, and a giving up of the cause. I should have thought

* Craig, Theologiæ Christianæ Principia Mathematica, 1699.

of them (as of others) who prophecy of things after their time, that they might not be contradicted while they lived. But my seeing so much of these prophecies concerning the Jews, and the progress of the Gospel, come to pass so long time after, is the only thing that makes me lay stress upon them, and which makes them seem wonderful to me.

C. When the Prophecies shall all be fully completed at the end of the world, they will then seem strongest of all; they will then be undeniable; when Christ shall visibly descend from heaven (in the same manner as he ascended,) to execute both what he has promised and threatened. And in the meantime, the prophecies lose none of their force, but their evidence increases, as "the light shineth more and more, unto the perfect day."

VIII. D. I observe you have made no use of that common topic, of the truth and sincerity of those penmen of the Scriptures, and what interest they could have in setting up these things if they had been false; for this can amount, at most, but to a probability and you having produced those evidences which you think infallible, it might seem a lessening of your proof to insist upon bare probabilities; so that I suppose you give that up.

:

C. No, Sir, I give it not up, though I have not made it the chief foundation of my argument; and if it were but a probability, it wants not its force; for it is thought unreasonable to deny a flagrant probability, where there is not as strong a probability on the other side, for then that makes a doubt but otherwise, men generally are satisfied with probabilities, for that is the greatest part of our knowledge. If we will believe nothing but what

carries an infallible demonstration along with it, we must be sceptics in most things of the world: and such were never thought the wisest men.

But besides, a probability may be sooner discerned by some than the infallibility of a demonstration; therefore we must not lay aside probabilities. But in this case, I think there is an infallible assurance, as infallible as the senses of all mankind; and I suppose you will not ask a greater.

D. How can you say that? When the suffering of afflictions, and death itself, is but a probability of the truth of what is told us: because some have suffered death for errors.

C. But then they thought them true; and men may be deceived in their judgments: we see many examples of it. But But if the facts related be such, as that it is impossible for those who tell them to be imposed upon themselves, or for those to whom they are told to believe them, if not true, without supposing a universal deception of the senses of mankind, then I hope I have brought the case up to that infallible demonstration I promised: and this is the case of the facts related in Holy Scripture. They were told by those who saw them, and did them, and they were told to those who saw them likewise themselves: and the relators appealed to this: so that here could be no deceit.

D. I grant there is a great difference between errors in opinion, and in fact; and that such facts as are told of Moses and of Christ could not have passed upon the people then alive, and who were said to have seen them. And I find that both Moses, Christ, and the Apostles, did appeal to what the people they spoke to had seen themselves.

C. With this consideration, their patient suffering, even unto death, for the truth of what they taught, will be a full demonstration of the truth of it. Add to this, that their enemies who persecuted them, the Romans, as well as Jews, to whom they appealed as witnesses of the facts, did not offer to deny them. That none of the apostates from Christianity did attempt to detect any falsehood in the facts; though they might have had great rewards if they could have done it; the Roman emperors being then persecutors of Christianity, and for three hundred years after Christ. And Julian the Emperor,

afterwards turned apostate, who had been initiated in the sacra of Christianity, yet could not he detect any of the facts. And it was a particular providence for the further evidence of Christianity, that all the civil governments in the world were against it for the first three hundred years, lest it might be said, (as it is ridiculously in your Amintor) that the awe of the civil government might hinder those who could make the detection.

Now, Sir, to apply all that we have said, I desire you would compare these evidences I have brought for Christianity, with those that are pleaded for any other religion.

There are but four in the world, viz. Christianity, Judaism, Heathenism, and Mahometanism.

Christianity was the first; for from the first promise of Christ made to Adam, during the patriarchal and legal dispensations, all was Christianity in type, as I have showed.

And as to Moses and the law, the Jews can give no evidence for that, which will not equally establish

the truth of Christ and the Gospel. Nor can they disprove the facts of Christ by any topic, which will not likewise disprove all those of Moses and the prophets. So that they are hedged in on every side: they must either renounce Moses, or acknowledge Christ.

Moses and the law have the first five evidences, but they have not the sixth and the seventh, which are the strongest. This is as to Judaism before Christ came; but since, as it now stands in opposition to Christianity, in favour of any future Messiah, it has none of the evidences at all. On the contrary, their own prophecies and types make against them; for their prophecies are fulfilled, and their types are ceased, and cannot belong to any other Messiah who should come hereafter. They stand now more naked than the Heathens or the Maho

metans.

Next for Heathenism, some of the facts recorded of their gods have the first and second evidences, and some the third, but not one of them the fourth, or any of the other evidences.

But truly and properly speaking, and if we will take the opinion of the Heathens themselves, they were no facts at all, but mythological fables, invented to express some moral virtues or vices; or the history of nature, and power of the elements, &c. As likewise to turn great part of the history of the Old Testament into fable, and make it their own, for they disdained to borrow from the Jews. They made gods of men, and the most vicious too; insomuch that some of their wise men thought it a corruption of youth to read the history of their gods,