Should it be said, that all these are points discoverable by human reason, and, consequently, that the publishers of Christianity might have taught them without being supernaturally instructed; I would desire you to reflect, that we can have no other rule of judging what is discoverable by human reason, but by observing what discoveries human reason has actually made; and what the unassisted faculties of man have ever been able to do, in planning a system of religion and rule of life.

And here I will not urge the extravagancies of uncultivated reason, the errors of ignorance, and the absurdities of superstition, in the dark corners of the earth, but, to give the argument its full force, would desire you to consider how little men of the most exalted genius, in the most enlightened ages of the pagan world, could ever do; how imperfect, not to say irrational, their notions of the Divine nature; how faulty and immoral their opinions of human duty; and how wild and indigested their ideas of the invisible world.

If then a Socrates, a Plato, an Aristotle, and a Tully, failed in their attempts to lay down a perfect and consistent scheme of religion and morality, how can we account for the superiority so visible in the

many truths relating to the infinite Creator and Governor of the universe must necessarily seem paradoxes to our limited understandings, it is not at all surprising that there should be mysteries in Christianity not to be fathomed by our reason. Such points could not but be mentioned in a divine revelation prescribing a rule of faith; but till our faculties be enlarged in a future state, it will be impossible for us to have any adequate notions of them. If they be revealed, this is enough to satisfy us that they are true; as to the manner of their being true, nothing being revealed, nothing can be known.

writings of the authors of the New Testament? Nothing is left for us, but either to affirm that the illiterate publishers of Christianity were better qualified to set up for teachers of mankind, than the philosophers of Greece or Rome, who had learnt from instruction and science all that great abilities could learn; or, if this be too absurd, (as it indisputably is,) we must allow that they could not have taught so perfect a scheme of religion and morality as they did, had not the darkness of their natural faculties been removed by the inspiration and influence of the Divine Being.

I know not well what can be offered to invalidate this argument, unless it be objected that many of the most important articles of belief and practice, which we receive on the authority of the gospel revelation, have been demonstrated and delineated on principles of mere reason. But with regard to this I would beg leave to observe, that there is a wide difference between proving a doctrine to be agreeable to reason after its certainty is once known, and discovering its agreeableness to reason before we have any notion of its certainty. Though every one is not capable of discovering a proposition in geometry, every one will readily assent to it after it is demonstrated. In like manner, though human reason may not be capable of discovering the great truths revealed in the gospel, yet these truths may be so agreeable to, and so well connected with other truths, which are obvious to reason, that whenever they are proposed to us we may be enabled to discover this connexion, which would otherwise have escaped us. And this is, in fact, the case. Those learned men, who since the appearance of Christi

anity have deduced all the great principles of natural religion from reason, knew previously from revelation the certainty of the doctrines which they treated of; and a Cumberland, a Clarke, or a Wollaston, would scarcely have succeeded better than Plato or Cicero had done before, if they had not borrowed lights from that revelation which they were so happy as to be acquainted with.

As therefore there is the greatest reason for believing that Jesus and his apostles were supernaturally assisted, so far as relates to the rule of duty and system of religion which they taught, why should it be thought incredible that they should be supernaturally assisted in another respect, and enabled to work miracles? If there was a Divine interposition in the former case, there cannot be the least reason for withholding our belief that there was one in the latter, since we have all the evidence for the fact that the nature of it can admit of-unexceptionable testimony.

But lest the above argument, drawn from the perfection of the religion taught by Jesus, should not be thought conclusive, suffer me to add another, which in a manner demonstrates the certainty of his acting under a supernatural influence.

I have here, in my view, his prophecies recorded in the Gospels. There we may observe his foretelling that he was to be betrayed by Judas, and denied thrice by Peter; that he was to suffer by a violent death, and to be restored to life on the third day; and that his apostles were to meet with the most cruel persecution, and to lose their lives on account of the religion which he appointed them to publish

to the world. Besides these, and others which might be mentioned, we have a most remarkable prediction of what was to happen to Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, related very circumstantially by three of the Evangelists, Matth. ch. xxiv. Mark, ch. xiii. Luke, ch. xxi. It consists of many different parts, each of which may be considered as a distinct prophecy. Many very extraordinary occurrences, nay prodigies, that were to precede the principal event foretold, are particularly enumerated; the remarkable circumstances attending the siege of Jerusalem; the extremities to which the besieged were to be reduced; the uncommon severity of the besiegers, who were to ruin the city, and not to leave one stone upon another of the temple; and the singular fate of the Jews, who were to be led captives into every nation: all these particulars are clearly mentioned by Jesus, and history furnishes the most satisfactory proofs that they have been completely verified ". He therefore who can

u The reader who would see how remarkably this prediction agrees with the events related by the historians, will receive full satisfaction from a perusal of archbishop Tillotson's sermons on the subject, where he will observe the several particulars predicted of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the forerunning events connected with it, corroborated by the express testimonies of Dion Cassius, Tacitus, Josephus, and other historians. See also Bishop Pearce's Analysis of the Prophecy in Dr. Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History. We need not refer to the testimony of history, to know whether the Jews have been led captives into all nations, as our Saviour foretold; for the present situation of that reprobated nation is as well known as it is wonderful; and whoever would see the argument which may be drawn from it in confirmation of Christianity placed in the strongest light, will read with pleasure the French author of the Principes de la Foi Chrétienne, as quoted by Mr. West,

suppose that so many distant connected events could be foreseen without the gift of prophecy, must, to be consistent with himself, allow it to be possible that the fortuitous dashes of a pencil could produce a number of regular figures in an historical picture *.

Since then we can be at a certainty that Jesus was supernaturally assisted in this instance, of foretelling future contingencies, why should we refuse to believe, upon unexceptionable testimony, that he was supernaturally assisted in another instance, that P. 395-409. The learned (though almost forgotten) Dr. Jackson's collections, relating to the state of the Jews, compared with the prophecies concerning them, also greatly deserve to be consulted.

* Some figurative particulars mentioned in this prediction have given rise to an opinion, that a prediction of the destruction of the world is interwoven with that of the destruction of Jerusalem; but the favourers of such an opinion would do well to consider, how they can reconcile it to the plain declaration of our Saviour, who adds, Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled. Accordingly Dr. Hammond explains these figurative particulars in such a manner, as shews that they had a real completion at the destruction of Jerusalem: and if the reader will turn to sir Isaac Newton's chapter on the Prophetic Language of Scripture, in his observations on Daniel, he will be satisfied that such an interpretation of them is far from being forced and unnatural. However, if any one should be of opinion that the destruction of Jerusalem is predicted in such terms as are typical of the destruction of the world, I shall not be averse to subscribe to it; and shall only observe, that Christ's coming to take vengeance on the Jews, and his coming to judge the world, seem to have been thought by the primitive Christians as one and the same event; a plain proof this of the genuineness of the prediction in question, which must have been in their hands before Jerusalem was destroyed, otherwise they could never have entertained an opinion, which those who lived after that event must have seen to be groundless.