Jpake the word of God with boldness-and with great power SERM. gave the Apostles witness of the refurrection of the Lord XXIX. Jefus.

13.

Which things being weighed, it will appear impoffible that the attesters of this fact (supposing them in their wits and senses; and certainly they were so, as presently we Ἡμεῖς πισεύ ομεν, διὸ καὶ shall shew, and as the thing itself plainly speaks) could not λαλῶμεν. be ignorant therein, or mistaken about it. For if all the 2 Cor. iv. fenfes of fo many persons in a matter so grossly sensible, fo often, and for fuch a continuance of time, can be diftrusted; if the Apostles could imagine they saw their friend and Master, whom they so long had waited upon, when they did not see him; that they heard him making long discourses with them, when they did not hear him; that they did walk, eat, and drink with him, did touch and feel him, when there was really no fuch thing; what afsurance can we have of any thing most sensible? what teftimony can be of any validity or use? On that hand, therefore, the teftimony is impregnable, the witnesses cannot be accounted ignorant or mistaken in the cafe; for number, or for ability, they cannot be excepted againft.

It must be therefore only their seriousness, honesty, or fidelity, that remains questionable in them; they must be faid to have wilfully deceived and impofed upon the world; felf-condemned hypocrites, impudent liars, and egregious impoftors they must have been, if their testimony was false: but that they were not fuch perfons, that they could not, and would not do fo, there are inducements to believe, as forcible as can be required, or well imagined, in any fuch cafe.

1. They were perfons who did (with denunciation of moft heavy judgments from God on the contrary practices) preach and press constantly and earnestly all kinds of goodness, veracity, and fincerity, together with humility, modesty, ingenuity, and equity, as main points of that religion, which they by this testimony confirmed. All their difcourses plainly breathed a most serious and sprightly goodness and charity toward men, very inconsistent with a base plot to delude them; their doctrine ut

SERM. terly condemned all malice, all falsehood, craft, and hypoXXIX. crify, detruding into the bottomless pit all that love or

Rev. xxii.

Gal. vi. 10.

make a lie. Confider these sayings and rules of theirs: 15. xxi. 27. As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men: Let Phil. iv. 5. your moderation (or equity) be known to all men: Shew Tit. ii. 2. all meekness to all men: Laying afide all malice, and all

1 Pet. ii. 1.

15.

Col. iii. 9.

20.

Tit. ii. 7, 8.

guile, and hypocrifies, and envies, and evil speukings, as new-born babes, defire the fincere milk of the word, that ye Eph. iv. 25, may grow thereby: Putting afide all lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: Lie not one to another, fee1 Cor. xiv. ing ye have put off the old man with his deeds: Brethren, be not children in understanding: however in malice be ye children, but in understanding be perfect men. Such were their precepts, discountenancing all malice and all fraud; propounded in a manner as ferious and grave and fimple as can be imagined; all the tenor of their doctrine consenting to them: wherein also they earnestly declare against and prohibit all vanity of mind and perverseness of humour; all affectations of novelty and fingularity; all peevish factiousness and turbulency; all fond credulity, stupidity, and precipitancy; all instability and giddiness of mind; all fuch qualities, which dispose men without most fure and evident grounds either to introduce or to embrace any new conceits, practices, or stories: fuch was their difcourse, nowife founding like the language of impoftors; deceit could hardly so disguise or so thwart and fupplant itself.

2. Their practice was answerable to their doctrine, exemplary in all forts of virtue, goodness, and fincerity; fuch indeed whereby they did in effect conciliate much respect 1 Theff. ii. and authority to their words: Ye are witnesses, (they could, appealing to the observers of their demeanour, and to the all-knowing God, say,) and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblameably we behaved ourselves among

10.

you that believe: and, We have renounced the hidden things Phil. iii. 17. of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's confcience in the fight of God. Such a lively sense of goodness shining forth in a long course of practice; so to bridle appetites, so to mo- SERM. derate paffions, so to eschew all the allurements of plea- XXIX. fure, profit, and honour; to bear adversities so calmly and sweetly; to express so much tender kindness and meekness toward all men; to be continually employed in heavenly difcourses and pious works; exhorting men by word, leading them by example, to all forts of goodness indifputably such: to live thus, long and constantly, doth nowife fuit unto persons utterly debauched in mind, and of a profligate confcience; who had devised, and did then earnestly drive on the propagation of a vile cheat. The life, I say, they led was not the life of wicked impostors, but worthy of the divinest men; fit to countenance and carry on the best design, such as they pretended theirs to be.

xi. 6.

18.

1 Pet. ii. 11.

3. Farther, they were persons of good sense; yea, very wife and prudent; not in way of worldly or fleshly wifdom; in skill to contrive or compass projects of gain, ho- 1 Cor. i. 20. ii. 5, 6. nour, or pleasure to themselves; to the commendation of 2 Cor. i. 12. them and of their testimony, they disclaimed being wife or skilful that way; having no practice therein, nor caring for it; (for they looked not much on things temporal and 2 Cor. iv. tranfitory; they did not mind earthly things; they had Col. iii. 2. not their conversation, or interest, here, but above, as citi- Phil. iii. 20. zens of another world, deeming themselves as but Sojourners and pilgrims here ;) but endued they were with a wifdom, as in itself far more excellent, fo more fuitable to the persons they sustained; with great perfpicacy and found judgment in the matters they discoursed about, and in the affairs they pursued: fuch their writings, according to acknowledgment of innumerable most wife and learned per- 2 Cor. xi. 6. fons, fraught with admirable wisdom and heavenly philo- 13. sophy, (rude indeed and fimple in expression, but most exact and profound in sense,) do manifeft them to have been; fuch the tenor of their doctrine evidenced them, shining with that lustre and beauty, compacted with that strength and harmony, that whoever will not confefs it to have proceeded from God, must, upon confideration, however allow, that it could not have been devised by idiots or mean perfons, but did come from persons of much

1 Cor. ii. 1,

SERM. fubtilty and great reach: they must be no fools who XXIX. could frame a religion merely by its own plaufibility,

κατώρθωσαν

without any external help, able presently to fupplant all the religions in the world; and to stand durably firm Πῶς αὐτὸ upon the foundations laid by them. Such also the notaμαινόμενοι & ble conduct of their great affair, (notwithstanding so mighty ἐξιστηκότες, difadvantages and difficulties,) together with the prodiin 1 Cor. gious efficacy their endeavours had upon men, do evince Or. Sele them to have been: they furely could not be weak men, gantiffime.

&c. Chryf.

2 Cor. x. 4.

who in a plain and peaceable way confounded all the wit and policy, all the learning and eloquence, all the force

and violence that withstood them. Experience did attest A&s vi. 10. to the truth of what St. Paul faith; The weapons of our 1 Cor. i. 27. warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Chrift.

ibid.

Vid. Chryf. 4. So were they qualified in their minds: it must be farther alfo confidered, as to their purposes in this cafe, that, in falsely venting and urging this testimony, they could not have any design gainful or beneficial to themselves; but must therein to no end be mischievous to themselves and others; abusing others indeed, but far more harming themselves; they must be supposed voluntarily to have embraced all forts of inconvenience, and designedly to have rendered themselves miferable; courting adversity, choofing naked and barren evil for its own 1 Theff. ii. fake: For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: for neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: neither of men fought we glory. Profit, honour, or pleasure, (those baits which entice men to do evil, and fet them upon wicked attempts,) or any worldly advantage thence to accrue to themselves, they could have no design upon; for all those things wittingly and willingly they did abandon; for the sake of this very teftimony incurring extremities of lofs, of disgrace, and of pain. They did plainly foresee what entertainment their

3, 5.

...

xvi. 2.

9.

2 Tim. iii.

teftimony would find, and how in profecution thereof they SERM. should be forced to endure all kinds of indignity, of da- XXIX. mage, and of hardship from men; that in this world they John xvi. Should have tribulation; that men should deliver them up to 33. xv. 20. be afflicted, and should kill them; and that they should be Matt. xxiv. hated of all nations for his name's fake: their Mafter ex- Luke xxi. prefsly had forewarned them, that all who would live god-12. lily in Christ Jesus (that is, all professors of faith in him, 12. efpecially the teachers thereof) must fuffer perfecution; and must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom Acts xiv. 22. of God; that bonds and imprisonments did abide them in xx. 23. every place; that God had fet forth the Apostles as ap-1 Cor. iv. 9. pointed unto death, and exposed them as spectacles of scorn and obloquy to the world; that they were called to fuffer-1 Pet. ii. 21. ing, and appointed to this very thing, as to their office and Theff. iii. their portion: these were the rules and measures they went by; these the expectations they had from the world: according unto which it did in effect happen to them; Even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and 1 Cor. iv. are naked, and have no certain dwellingplace; and labour, (2Cor.iv.8.) working with our hands: being reviled, we blefs; being perfecuted, we fuffer it; being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this day. So doth St. Paul describe the Apostles' condition.

3.

11, 12, 13.

5. All these afflictions, as they knowingly did object themselves to for the fake of this testimony, so they did endure them with contentednefs and joy; when they had been beaten, they departed, rejoicing that they were counted Acts v. 41. worthy to fuffer shame for the name of Jefus; rejoicing that 1 Pet. iv. 13. they were made partakers of Christ's fufferings; deeming it a privilege that was given them, not only to believe in Phil. i. 29. him, but to fuffer for his name; thinking themselves happy 1Pet. iv. 14. in being reproached for the name of Christ; taking joyfully Heb. x. 34. the spoiling of their goods; counting all things but lofs for Phil. iii. 9. the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Chrift their Lord, Pet. i. 6. for whom they fuffered the loss of all things.

6. Whence it is evident enough, that the fatisfaction of their confcience, and expectation of future reward from

Rom. v. 3.
Jam. i. 2.)