Mory of the 4000 was a mere fabrication; that they had neither as children witnessed the throng; nor heard such

thing spoken of; nor talked with those who had them

selves partaken of the food?

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Would any Jews have been converted to a religion contrary to all their prejudices, if these things had not real. By been so? Or would any foreigners have adopted so unwelcome a rule of conduct on trust, when a single journey to Judæa would have put its truth or falsehood out of all doubt?

Impossible-impossible that such tricks should have passed upon a nation who were almost to a man in. Berested to disprove them, when to have disproved them must have been so very easy; when they were stimu lated to it alike by the bitterness of personal hatred, and the workings of national pride, and emulation! When the priests heard themselves reproached as venal, and what must have wounded them more than all) as imposing upon the people whose good opinion it was their constant aim to secure; as making long prayers for a pretence; as whited sepulchres; as full of vain shew and greeting in the market place; as the blind leading the blind.

The common people were reproached as hard-hearted, stiff-necked; as having stoned those prophets whom they professed to love and be proud of; as swerving from the law of Moses which they professed to obey; with insincerity even in following him who was teaching them. at the moment, longing rather for his bread than his doctrines.

Believe my friends, that all the Jews both high and low were so callous as not to feel these reproaches (which however their conduct shewed that they were not) or so indolent as not to overturn the proofs, when to overturn them was so very easy; or else believe that they were overturned, but that notwithstanding this, the word of the Lord grew and waxed exceedingly, and has come down to our times honoured, revered, unchanged, and then be

lieve if you can that the Scriptures are untrue, its miracles false, and not impressed with the stamp of divine power exerted in their favour.

But then never tax those who have a contrary belief with credulity; never arrogate to yourselves more con sistency, and a better use of your understandings; never tell us that the improbability of the facts recorded in the scriptures wont let you believe them.

Again, it is said, that St. Paul preached Christianity to the Gentiles, and that thousands of them were converted by him; that the new religion spread through his meane most rapidly. I confess that we are not bound to believe this upon the mere assertion, but let it be remembered that the known spread of Christianity keeps pace with this assertion, and that we have no other account of the means by which it did spread thus marvellously; if the sceptic has any let him produce it.

St. Paul, or if you will somebody else, called upon various nations and states to renounce doctrines to which habit and hereditary reverence had wedded them, and to adopt others diametrically opposite to them. He called upon the Corinthians to forsake lusts dear to them as their lives, and even forming a part of their religious services, and to take up the cross in self-denial, and mortification. Would men lightly have forsaken a religion thus agreeable to the flesh, to adopt in its stead one most unwelcome to it, unless St. Paul, or somebody else did indeed perform those miracles which are attributed to him; did really give weight to the new doctrines by doing something in their favour out of the common order of things?

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The Apostles were for the most part unlearned; they came from a country, despised and dependant; most of them (if we suppose the miraculous gift of tongues à fable) ignorant of any language but their own, and yet to them thousands were turned daily, as independently of gospel assertions, the known early spread of Christianity declares.

The learned missionaries of the present day, not less zealous, and scarcely less holy than the Apostles of old, coming from a powerful and victorious country, and often addressing people far advanced in civilization, do, by the purity of their lives, and the excellence of their doctrines, gain a few straggling proselytes. To what shall we attribute the difference of their success ?

St. Paul is represented as having been executed at Rome; if we allow this, as I think we needs must, it affords a new proof of divine interference in favour of the Gospel, and its preachers. For is it within the bounds of credibility that the priests of those people whom Paul laboured to detach from their accustomed worship (which done, the priests were ruined) would not have taken especial care to dispatch him, when to have done so must have appeared to them an act grateful to their Gods, unless the Almighty had preserved him by a particular providence? How, in the present day, would he fare who should set about, and make some progress in, converting the Italians to protestantism, unless a divine power defended him from the stiletto? And yet between the popish and protestant persuasions the difference is nothing compared with that between christianity and paganism.

Why Mahomet's religion should have found so many adherents we easily see; yet that, as Dr. Paley says, spread not like Christianity. We feel no surprise at the spread of a religion which holds out the temptations of power, conquest, and sensual indulgences.

But, as the above-mentioned author says, setting all these things out of the question, here is the book called the Scriptures; let the sceptic give us some other account than that which we produce of its origin, preservation, progressive influence, and present dignity, and we will at least give him our serious attention. Here is a book containing certain doctrines, and the account of miracles said to have been wrought in their favour, and which, if it were so, establish them; of much suffering endured by their propagators in the defence and promulgation of

them, and that they did endure suffering is certain enough from the evidence of profane history. Let the sceptic tell

us how this book exists; why though millions could have easily overturned its pretensions, and were highly interested to have done so, not one has even shaken its authenticity. Let him tell us why its first advocates reprehended the people they addressed, when they obviously neither aimed at, nor could obtain by so doing, any one earthly good, any one of those things which men account desirable. Let him do something more than object : we have all probability on our side yet; let him turn the scale. Here is the book we say; its mere existence under the peculiar circumstances connected with it, is an amazing proof of the truth of that story which it tells, and is itself a sort of miracle. This book must have some origin and history; we believe in that which is commonly assigned; account for its existence in some other way than that by which we account for it, and if your representation of the matter be more probable, we will believe you. Advance something; to do nothing but object is cowardly, and is what we might do against any conceivable revelation from God. Go to the Jews; ask them why their records are so lying; why by a continued traditionary lie, fathers have deceived sons, and mothers their daughters in long succession? Prevail on them to tell you how it is that their forefathers, who hated Christ and his religion as cordially as they themselves hate him, should yet have happened to leave nothing in disproof of his asserted miracles; or that the generations of Jews between this time and that should have been so exceedingly careless as to lose what their descendants would now give all the world to possess. They have preserved their own Scripture history with most religious care; they would gladly gain for it that superiority which they attach to it. They would most gladly give it the same preeminence in the eyes of others, which it has in their own, and thereby at once deliver themselves from persecution; and yet they are, either by an incredible M

supineness at first, or a most astonishing carelessness since, without that which would in a moment disprove, what, so long as it exists not disproved, must defeat their dearest ends. Here is a book (I fear that I am tiring the patience of my readers, but I will not try it much longer) here I say is a book to be traced back 1773 years at least, which tells us that the Jews acting a very wicked. part, were condemned to a certain punishment; it assigns a probable cause for that peculiar, miraculous state (as most miraculous it is) in which the Jews actually now are. We believe its commonly received history; let the sceptic step forward and give us one more probable, and we will believe him. But let him not call us weak and credulous till he does shew us such an one; till he can shew us as good grounds for his opinions, as we can shew him for ours.

The sceptic tells us what he thinks has not been, or cannot be, and why he thinks it has not been, or cannot be; but he does not attempt to tell us why or how that which is, is, and this is what we require from him.

He must have some opinion as to the rise, and credit of the Scriptures; I think myself warranted from what I have already said, in affirming, that to hold this opinion, whatever it be, involves more credulity than to believe our account of the matter.

Is it demanded why Christ did not come in great power? Why not make men receive the truth? Why not extend his temporal sway to the remotest corners of the earth, so that all parts thereof might know him; that all mankind might fall down before him, and recognise in his earthly power the sway of eternal truth, righteousness, and wisdom? But how can this question be asked by those who acknowledge (and who does not acknowledge it) that example is more powerful than precept? Christ came down not only to tell, but to shew men what was right. He came not only to preach humility, but to exhibit a perfect pattern of it. He came