with which not only the apostles, but succeeding preachers of the Gospel, and other converts, were endowed; from the accomplishment of prophecies recorded in the New Testament;-and from the preservation of the Jews as a distinct people, notwithstanding the various difficulties and persecutions through which they have passed.

I might particularly urge, in confirmation of the truth of Christianity, "the wonderful success with which it was attended, and the surprising propagation of the Gospel in the world."

I have before endeavoured, under a former head, to show you, that the Gospel met with so favourable a reception in the world, as evidently proved, that its first publishers were capable of producing such evidence of its truth, as an imposture could not admit. But now I carry the remark farther, and assert, that, considering the circumstances of the case, it is amazing that even truth itself, under so many disadvantages, should have so illustrious a triumph; and that its wonderful success does evidently argue such an extraordinary interposition of God in its favour, as might justly be called a miraculous attes

tation to it..

There was not only one of a family, or two of a city taken and brought to Zion; but so did the Lord hasten it in its appointed time, that “a little one became a thousand, and a small one a strong nation." And as the apostles themselves were honoured with very remarkable success, so this divine seed was propagated so fast in the next age, that Pliny testifies, "he found the heathen temples in Achaia almost deserted;" and Tertullian afterwards boasts, "that

all places but those temples were filled with Christians; so that, were they only to withdraw, cities and provinces would be depopulated.” Nor did the

Gospel only triumph thus within the boundaries of the Roman empire; for long before Tertullian was born, Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which seems to have been written not much above 100 years after Christ's death, declares, "that there was no nation of men, whether Greeks or barbarians, not excepting these savages, that wandered in clans from one region to another, and had no fixed habitation, who had not learned to offer prayers and thanksgivings to the Father and Maker of all, in the name of Jesus who was crucified."

Now, how can we account for such a scene as this, but by saying, that the hand of the Lord was with the first preachers of the Gospel, and therefore such multitudes believed, and turned unto the Lord? How had it been possible, that so small a fountain. should presently have swelled into a mighty river, and even have covered the face of the earth, had it not sprung from the sanctuary of God, and been rendered thus triumphant by his Almighty arm!

Had this new religion, so directly contrary to all the prejudices of education, been contrived to soothe men's vices, to assert their errors, to defend their superstitions, or to promote their secular interest, we might easily have accounted for its prevalence in the world. Had its preachers been very profound philosophers, or polite and fashionable orators, many might have been charmed, at least for a while, to follow them; or had the princes and potentates of the earth declared themselves its patrons, and armed

their legions for its defence and propagation, multitudes might have been terrified into the profession, though not a soul could, by such means, have been rationally persuaded to the belief of it. But without some such advantages as these, we can hardly conceive, how any new religion should so strangely prevail; even though it had crept into the world in its darkest ages, and most barbarous countries, and though it had been gradually proposed in the most artful manner, with the finest veil industriously drawn over every part, which might at first have given disgust to the beholder.

But you well know, that the very reverse of all this was the case here. You know, from the apparent constitution of Christianity, that the lusts and errors, the superstitions and interests of carnal men, would immediately rise up against it as a most irreconcilable enemy. You know that the learning and wit of the Greeks, and the Romans, were early employed to overbear and ridicule it. You know, that as all the herd of heathen deities were to be discarded, the priests, who subsisted on that craft, must in interest find themselves obliged to oppose it. You know, that the princes of the earth drew the sword against it, and armed torments and death for the destruction of its followers. And yet, you see that it triumphed over all, though published in ages and places of the greatest learning and refinement; and proposed, not in an ornamental and artificial manner, but with the utmost plainness: the doctrines of the cross being always avowed as its grand fundamentals, though so notorious a stumblingblock both to the Jews and Gentiles; (and the ab

solute necessity, not only of embracing Christianity, but also of renouncing all idol-worship, being insisted on immediately, and in the strongest terms, though it must make the Gospel appear the most singular and unsociable religion that had ever been taught in the world.)

Had one of the wits, or politicians, of these ages seen the apostles, and a few other plain men, who had been educated amongst the lowest of the people, as most of the first teachers of Christianity were, going out armed with nothing but faith, truth, and goodness, to encounter the power of princes, the bigotry of priests, the learning of philosophers, the rage of the populace, and the prejudice of all; how would he have derided the attempt, and said, with Sanballat, What will these feeble Jews do? But had he seen the event, surely he must have owned, with the Egyptian Magi, in a far less illustrious miracle, that it was the finger of God, and might have justly fallen on his face, even amongst those whom he had insulted, with an humble acknowledgment that God was in them of a truth.

I might here farther urge "those miracles which were wrought in confirmation of the Christian doctrine, for a considerable time after the death of the apostles." The most signal, and best attested of these, was the dispossession of devils; whom God seems to have permitted to rage with an unusual violence about those times, that his Son's triumph over them might be so much the more remarkable, and that the old serpent might be taken in his own craftiness. I doubt not but many of you have heard, that more than two hundred years after the

death of Christ, some of the most celebrated defenders of the Gospel, which the church has in any age produced, I mean Tertullian, and Minutius Felix, do not only challenge any of their heathen enemies and persecutors, to bring them a demoniac, engaging at the hazard of their lives, to oblige the evil spirit, in the name, and by the authority of Christ, to quit his possession; but do also appeal to it as a fact publicly known, that those who were agitated by such spirits, stood terrified and amazed in the presence of a Christian, and that their pretended gods were compelled then to confess themselves devils.

I waive the testimonies of some later writers of the Christian church, lest the credulity of their temper, joined with the circumstances attending some of the facts they record, should furnish out objections against their testimony; though I think we cannot, without great injustice to the character of the learned and pious Augustine, suspect the truth of some amazing facts of this kind, which he has attested, as of his own personal and certain knowledge.

Nor must I on this occasion forget to mention "the accomplishment of several prophecies, recorded in the New Testament," as a farther confirmation given by God to the Gospel.

The most eminent and signal instance under this head, is that of our Lord's prediction concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, as it is recorded by St. Matthew in his 24th chapter. The tragical history of it is most circumstantially described by Josephus, a Jewish priest, who was an eye-witness