the word of a man of whose honesty we have had experience; but we also credit testimony previous to experience: for children, who have least experience, are most credulous. It is from having experienced the dishonesty of men, and the motives that tempt them to falsify, that we come to distrust, or disbelieve what they say.

In general, when we doubt a man's word, we have always one or other of these four reasons for it: we think, that what he says is incredible or improbable; or that there is some temptation or motive which inclines him in the present case to violate truth; or that he is not a competent judge of the matter wherein he gives testimony; or perhaps, we doubt his veracity now, because we have known him to be á deceiver formerly. If we have no reason to distrust his integrity; if we think him a competent judge of that which he affirms; if we know of no motive of vanity or interest that might incline him to falsify; and if he affirm nothing but what is credible and probable; we shall without scruple acquiesce in his declaration.

Our faith in testimony often rises to absolute certainty. That there are such towns as Constantinople and Symrna, and such countries as Asia, Africa, and Europe; that Cæsar and Hannibal were real men, and great commanders, the one a Roman, the other a Carthaginian; that William of Normandy conquered England; and that Charles I. was beheaded, &c.-every person, who knows any thing of history, accounts himself absolutely certain. For the testimonies that confirm these, and the like truths, are so many, so various, and so consistent, that we justly think it impossible they should be fictitious.

When a number of persons, not acting in concert, having no interest to conceal what is true, or affirm what is false, and competent judges of what they testitify, concur in making the same report, it would be thought madness to disbelieve them. Even when three, or when two witnesses, separately examined, and who have had no opportunity to contrive a plan before hand,

agree in their declaration, we believe them, though we have had no experience of their veracity; because we know, that in such a case, their testimonies would not be uniform, if they were not true.In this way, men have judged in all ages; and upon this principle, the most important questions relating to life and property are decided: and of such decisions and judgments, the general experience of mankind proves the utility, and the rectitude.

An impossible fact, no testimony whatever, not even that of our own senses, would make us believe. If I were to see the same individual man double, or in two places at the same time, I should certainly think, not that it was so, but that something was wrong in my sight, or that the appearance might be owing to some peculiarity in the medium through which I saw it. When a fact is possible, and still more when it is not improbable, the testimony of a stranger would incline us to believe, unless we had reason to suspect him of a design to impose upon us.

Miraculous facts are not to be ranked with impossibilities. There was a time, when the matter that composes my body was as void of life, as it will be when it shall have lain twenty years in the grave; when the ele. mentary particles, whereof my eye is made up, could no more enable a percipient being to see, than they can now enable one to speak; and when that which forms. the substance of this hand was as inert as a stone. Yet now, by the goodness of the Creator, the first lives, the last moves, and by means of the second I perceive light and colours. And if Almighty power can bring about all this gradually, by one particular succession of causes and effects, may not the same power perform it in an instant, and by the operation of other causes to us unknown? Or will the atheist say (and none who believes in God can doubt the possibility of miracles) that he himself knows every possible cause that can ope rate in the production of any affect? Or is he certain that there is no such thing in the universe as Almighty power?

To raise a dead man to life; to cure blindness with a touch; to remove lameness, or any other bodily imperfection, by speaking a word, are all miracles; but must all be as easy to the author of nature, or to any person commissioned by him for that purpose, as to give life to an embryo, make the eye an organ of sight, or cause vegetables to revive in the spring. And therefore, if a person, declaring himself to be sent from God, or invested with divine power, and saying and doing what is worthy of such a commission, should perform miracles like these, mankind would have the best reason to believe, that his authority was really from heaven.

As the common people have neither time nor capapacity for deep reasoning; and as a divine revelation of religion must be intended for all sorts of men, the vulgar as well as the learned, the poor as well as the rich; it is necessary, that the evidence of such a revelation should be of that kind which may command general attention, and convince men of all ranks and characters, and should therefore be level to every capacity. It would be easy, no doubt, for the Deity to convey his truths immediately to every man by inspiration, so as to make inquiry unnecessary, and doubt impossible. But this would not be consistent with man's free agency and moral probation; and this would be very unlike every other dispensation of Providence with respect to man, who, as he is endowed with rational faculties, feels that he is under an obligation to use and improve them. This would be to make him love religion, and believe in it, without leaving it in his power to do otherwise: and such faith, and such love, would be no mark of either a good disposition or a bad,Now, there is no kind of evidence, consistent with our moral probation and free agency, that is likely to command universal attention, and carry full conviction in religious matters to men of all ranks and capacities, except the evidence arising from miracles, or supernatural events.

One author has indeed affirmed, that miracles can be no evidence of any doctrine; because no testimony whatever can, in his opinion, render a miracle credible

even in the lowest degree. But I need not quit the tract of my argument, for the sake of a paradox, so contrary to the natural dictates of rationality, and which has been unanswerably confuted by Dr. Campbell in his Dissertation on Miracles. In fact, every event admits of proof from human testimony, which it is possible for a sufficient number of competent witnesses to see and to hear.

Some things may seem to be supernatural, which are really not so: such are the tricks of the juggler; whereof, when we are told the contrivance, we are surprised to find it so easy, and almost ashamed of having ever wondered at it. Some other things appear supernatural to those only who are ignorant of their causes: and such as many facts in electricity, magnetism, and other parts of experimental philosophy.

But the mighty works of our Saviour are quite of a different kind. To raise the dead to life, to cure the most violent disease by speaking a word, to walk on the surface of a stormy sea:these, and many other things recorded in the gospel, are truly miraculous; and such as, to human apprehension, that power only can perform, which, having established the course of nature is alone able to change it.

Of this sort of miracles the author of our religion not only wrought many, but also imparted to his apostles the power of doing the same. And, what was still

more wonderful, if any thing could be more so, he himself, after having been crucified, in the presence of a great multitude, and pierced with a lance, and found to be dead, and after lying part of three days in the grave, arose to life, reanimated that body which had been mangled on the cross, passed forty days on earth after his resurrection, during which time he frequently conversed with his disciples, and at last, in open day, and while he was speaking to them, visibly ascended from the earth till a cloud received him out of their sight. These miracles transcend all power but what is divine. So that, if we admit the gospel history to be true, we must believe, beyond a possibility of doubt, that our Lord was, what he declared himself to be, a person invested with

divine power, and employed in a divine mission. The truth of the history may be proved from many considerations.

It might be proved from the existence, and singular nature of the religion of Jesus. On the supposition that the gospel is true, the peculiar character of this religion, its present state, and the various revolutions it has undergone, may be easily accounted for; on the contrary supposition, nothing in the whole compass of human affairs is more unaccountable, than the rise and progress of Christianity. Its history may be traced from the present age up to that of the apostles. Since that period, down to these times, so many writers speak of this gospel, and concur in so many particulars concerning it, that there is not, perhaps any other ancient record, for whose authenticity so many vouchers could be produced. And we know for certain, that many intelligent persons of the primitive church, who had the best opportunities of knowing the truth of this matter, and whose supreme concern it was to inquire into it, and not suffer themselves to be mistaken, believed and asserted the truth of the gospel and suffered death in confirmation of their faith and testimony. Can any thing like this be urged in favour of Xenophon, Sallust, or Tacitus; whose authority, notwithstanding the world is not much inclined, and in general, has no great reason to call in question?

Had the evangelists written the history, and the apostles preached the doctrines, of a man who lived before they were born, or whom neither they nor their con temporaries had ever seen, their testimony would not perhaps, have been above suspicion. But I shall not misrepresent the circumstances, or the conduct of those extraordinary teachers, if I suppose them to have addressed their countrymen the Jews, who were the first hearers of the gospel, in words like these: We tell 'you of this man, our divine master, many things 'which ye yourselves know to be true; and nothing, ' in regard to which ye may not, if ye candidly inquire, satisfy yourselves by the testimony of creditable wit

6