Take another instance. "When Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever." The fact is simple in itself, and one, of which the testimony of the most unlearned is a sufficient proof; and as little could the most careless be mistaken in that which immediately follows: "And he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose, and ministered unto them." *

Now, what is there in either of these narratives that should make us doubt the competency of an honest man to give a clear and consistent testimony? The circumstances are all in themselves of ordinary occurrence. That a fever should quit the body of a woman who was sick, and that she should rise from her bed to return to her usual occupations-that the tempest should cease its raging, and the troubled billows of a stormy ocean become still-in all this there was nothing to confound the understanding or mislead the judgment of them that saw it. I do not pretend to say that all the works of Jesus, which the Apostles beheld and have recorded, were of the same simple and ordinary character. I know that many were of a different complexion. I have followed my Redeemer to the solitudes of Galilee,

*Matt. xviii. 14.

and there marked the amazement of the disciples' mind, as they looked upon the glory of his transfiguration, and were sore afraid, neither knowing what to think, nor wisting what to say. I have seen him walking in the hour of darkness upon the waters, and scarce wondered at the faithlessness of Peter. I have been with the Apostles to the Mount of Olives, and, struck dumb with the wonders of the scene, have continued gazing, with them, abstractedly up into heaven, vainly endeavouring to pierce the cloud by the intensity of my vision, and catch another glimpse of my ascended Lord. I have meditated solemnly upon all these things, and humbly confess, that had I been admitted, like the Apostles, to behold them upon the earth, I know not whether I could have held the possession of my faculties unimpaired. But what of this? If by arguments deduced from those miracles of Jesus which were of a more common and less confounding nature,-if by inferences drawn from those wonders where mercy, unmingled with awfulness, prevailed, and where there were no splendid terrors to drive Reason from her seat, and where there was nothing, therefore, that could impeach the credibility of the witnesses,if by the testimony of the Evangelists to simple facts, we can once fairly establish the divine authority of the Gospel,-the certainty of every

other wonder it records, however awfully glorious or sublimely obscure, must follow in the train of its various consequences. We may not, perhaps, be authorized to reckon the Transfiguration or the Ascension amongst the number of those premises from which the truth of Christianity itself is in the first instance, or solely, to be drawn; but, when once that truth has been ascertained by any other means, the truth of these wonders becomes a necessary and irresistible conclusion, because they form a part of what has already been proved to be true. It is requisite to mark and remember this distinction between the different kinds of our Saviour's miracles, because it is by exclusively directing his efforts against those which are more singular in their nature, that the Deist would disturb the repose of the Christian upon the credibility of the Evangelists.

Seeing, then, that they lived a life of suffering, and died a death of torture in the cause, the Apostles of our Lord must be allowed to have been faithful and unprejudiced witnesses, and their testimony, as such, to be substantially true.

Deny, then, what we may, and disbelieve what we will, we cannot overthrow the credit which is due to the inspired writers, or call in question

the general truth of the Gospel History. One of the leading propositions contained in that History is this, that Jesus was the Messiah; and, in confirmation and defence of their opinion, the Evangelists have detailed the miracles which they saw, the doctrines which they heard, and the prophecies which were fulfilled. The only doubt, therefore, which can possibly remain, is, whether what they had thus heard and seen, be a sufficient proof that Jesus was indeed the Christ. Having shewn that the Evangelists are witnesses as credible to us, as were his own disciples unto John, the only further question to be considered is, whether the testimony of the Evangelists be of the same conclusive character. But this is an inquiry of too extensive a náture to be comprehended within the short remainder of the present Discourse; and I shall, therefore, conclude with a few plain and practical reflections.

Were I speaking to the natives of some distant clime-did I bear the venerable character of a Christian Apostle to the deluded votaries of Mahometism or idolatry-did I stand as a missionary upon the shores of India, where the convert to the Gospel becomes the outcast of society, despised and hated and rejected of menI might point to the animating example of the first disciples, and shew, by what Christians have

suffered, what Christians are able to suffer, for the sake of their religion. But, by the blessing of God, in this happy and well-favoured land, Christianity has grown to be the religion of the state, and an essential feature in the laws of the land. Christianity, too, is here in its purest and its mildest form, declaring, in our Articles, that nothing is to be pressed upon the consciences of men which cannot be found in Holy Scripture, or may not be proved thereby. Here, then, we stand in no fear of being sacrificed to idols or slaughtered by bigotry. Benevolence is the spirit of the Gospel, and moderation the practice of our church. Here, then, it may be hoped, we shall have no cause to prove the sincerity of our faith by the patience of our suffering. But still, though free from every outward harm, we have a hidden and a powerful enemy within us. We have still to struggle with the strength of our passions and the corruption of our nature "The flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit:" and thus far at least "it is through much tribulation that every man must enter into the kingdom of God." Wherefore, that we may be the better enabled to resist our temptations, and conquer our weaknesses, and mortify our members, and triumph over the affections of our hearts, and quench within us the lusts of youth, the ambition of manhood, and the avarice of age,