and common division of it, into matters of belief, and matters of practice.

The matters of belief related chiefly to his person and offices. As, That he was the Messias that should come into the world : the eternal Son of God, begotten of him before all worlds: that in time he was made man, and born of a pure virgin that he should die and satisfy for the sins of the world; and that he should rise again from the dead, and ascend into heaven; and there, sitting at the right hand of God, hold the government of the whole world, till the great and last day; in which he should judge both the quick and the dead, raised to life again with the very same bodies; and then deliver up all rule and government into the hands of his Father.' These were the great articles and credenda of Christianity, that so much startled the world, and seemed to be such as not only brought in a new religion amongst men, but also required new reason to embrace it.

The other part of his doctrine lay in matters of practice; which we find contained in his several sermons, but principally in that glorious, full, and admirable discourse upon the mount, recorded in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew.. All which particulars, if we would reduce to one general comprehensive head, they are all wrapped up in the doctrine of selfdenial,* prescribing to the world the most inward purity of heart, and a constant conflict with all our sensual appetites and worldly interests, even to the quitting of all that is dear to us, and the sacrificing of life itself, rather than knowingly to omit the least duty, or commit the least sin. And this was that which grated harder upon, and raised greater tumults and boilings in the hearts of men, than the strangeness and seeming unreasonableness of all the former articles, that took up chiefly in speculation and belief.

And that this was so, will appear from a consideration of the state and condition the world was in, as to religion, when Christ promulged his doctrine. Nothing further than the outward action was then looked after, and when that failed, there was an expiation ready in the opus operatum of a sacrifice. So that all their virtue and religion lay in their folds and their stalls, and what was wanting in the innocence, the blood of lambs was to supply. The scribes and pharisees, who were the great doctors of the Jewish church, expounded the law no further. They accounted no man a murderer, but he that stuck a knife into his brother's heart; no man an adulterer, but he that actually defiled his neighbour's bed. They thought it no injustice nor irreligion to prosecute the severest retaliation or revenge; so that at the same time their outward man might be a saint, and their inward man a devil. No care at all was had to curb the unruliness of anger, or the exorbitance of desire. Amongst all their sacrifices, they never sacrificed so much as one lust. Bulls and goats bled apace, but neither the violence of the one, nor the

* See Serm. iii. on Matthew x. 33, p. 36.

wantonness of the other, ever died a victim at any of their altars. So that no wonder that a doctrine which arraigned the irregularities of the most inward motions and affections of the soul, and told men, that anger and harsh words were murder, and looks and desires adultery; that a man might stab with his tongue, and assassinate with his mind, pollute himself with a glance, and forfeit eternity by a cast of his eye; no wonder, I say, that such a doctrine made a strange bustle and disturbance in the world, which then sat warm and easy in a free enjoyment of their lusts; ordering matters so, that they put a trick upon the great rule of virtue, the law, and made a shift to think themselves guiltless, in spite of all their sins; to break the precept, and at the same time to baffle the curse; contriving themselves such a sort of holiness, as should please God and themselves too; justify and save them harmless, but never sanctify or make them better.

But the severe notions of Christianity turned all this upside down, filling all with surprise and amazement; they came upon the world like light darting full upon the face of a man asleep, who had a mind to sleep on, and not to be disturbed; they were terrible astonishing alarms to persons grown fat and wealthy by a long and successful imposture; by suppressing the true sense of the law, by putting another veil upon Moses; and, in a word, persuading the world, that men might be honest and religious, happy and blessed, though they never denied nor mortified one of their corrupt appetites.

And thus much for the first thing proposed; which was to give you a brief draught of the doctrine of Christ, that met with so little assent from the world in general, and from the Jews in particular. I come now to the

II. Second thing proposed; which was to show, That men's unbelief of Christ's doctrine was from no defect or insufficiency in the arguments brought by Christ to enforce it. This I shall make appear two ways.

1. By showing that the arguments spoken of were in themselves convincing and sufficient. 2. By showing that upon supposition they were not so, yet their insufficiency was not the cause of their rejection.

1. And first for the first of these: That the arguments brought by Christ for the confirmation of his doctrine were in themselves convincing and sufficient. I shall insist only upon the convincing power of the two principal; one from the prophecies recorded concerning him, the other from the miracles done by him. Of both very briefly. And for the former: there was a full entire harmony and consent of all the divine predictions receiving their completion in Christ. The strength of which argument lies in this, that it evinces the divine mission of Christ's person, and thereby proves him to be the Messias;

which by consequence proves and asserts the truth of his doctrine; for he that was so sent by God, could declare nothing but the will of God. And so evidently do all the prophecies agree to Christ, that I dare with great confidence affirm, that if the prophecies recorded of the Messiah are not fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, it is impossible to know or distinguish when a prophecy is fulfilled, and when not, in any thing or person whatsoever; which would utterly evacuate the use of them. But in Christ they all meet with such an invincible lustre and evidence, as if they were not predictions, but after relations; and the penmen of them not prophets, but evangelists. And now, can any kind of ratiocination allow Christ all the marks of the Messiah, and yet deny him to be the Messiah? Could he have all the signs, and yet not be the thing signified? Could the shadows that followed him, and were cast from him, belong to any other body? All these things were absurd and unnatural; and thereforce the force of this argument was undeniable.

Nor was that other from the miracles done by him at all inferior. The strength and force of which, to prove the things they are alleged for, consists in this; that a miracle being a work exceeding the power of any created agent, and consequently being an effect of the divine omnipotence, when it is done to give credit and authority to any word or doctrine declared to proceed from God, either that doctrine must really proceed from God, as it is declared; or God, by that work of his almighty power, must bear witness to a falsehood; and so bring the creature under the greatest obligations that can possibly engage the assent of a rational nature, to believe and assent to a lie. For surely a greater reason than this cannot be produced for the belief of any thing, than for a man to stand up and say, This and this I tell you as the mind and word of God; and to prove that it is so, I will do that before your eyes, that you yourselves shall confess can be done by nothing but the almighty power of that God that can neither deceive nor be deceived. Now if this be an irrefragable way to convince, as the reason of all mankind must confess it be, then Christ's doctrine came attended and enforced with the greatest means of conviction imaginable. Thus much for the argument in thesi; and then for the assumption, that Christ did such miraculous and supernatural works to confirm what he said, we need only repeat the message sent by him to John the Baptist: "That the dumb spake, the blind saw, the lame walked, and the dead were raised." Which particulars none of his bitterest enemies ever pretended to deny, they being conveyed to them by an evidence past all exception, even the evidence of sense: nay, of the quickest, the surest, and most authentic of all the senses, the sight; which if it be not certain in the reports and representations it makes of things to the mind, there neither is, nor can be naturally, any such thing as certainty

or knowledge in the world. And thus much for the first part of the second general thing proposed: namely, That the arguments brought by Christ for the proof of his doctrine, were in themselves convincing and sufficient.

2. I come now to the other part of it, which is to show, That admitting or supposing that they were not sufficient, yet their insufficiency was not the cause of their actual rejection. Which will appear from these following reasons:

(1.) Because those who rejected Christ's doctrine, and the arguments by which he confirmed it, fully believed and assented to other things conveyed to them with less evidence. Such as were even the miracles of Moses himself, upon the credit and authority of which stood the whole economy of the Jewish constitution. For though I grant that they believed his miracles upon the credit of constant unerring tradition, both written and unwritten, and grant also that such tradition was of as great certainty as the reports of sense: yet still I affirm that it was not of the same evidence, which yet is the greatest and most immediate ground of all assent.

The evidence of sense, as I have noted, is the clearest that naturally the mind of man can receive, and is indeed the foundation both of all the evidence and certainty too, that tradition is capable of; which pretends to no other credibility from the testimony and word of some men, but because their word is at length. traced up to, and originally terminates in, the sense and experience of some others, which could not be known beyond that compass of time in which it was exercised, but by being told and reported to such as, not living at that time, saw it not, and by them to others, and so down from one age to another. For we therefore believe the report of some men concerning a thing, because it implies that there were some others who actually saw that thing. It is clear, therefore, that want of evidence could not be the cause that the Jews rejected and disbelieved the gospel, since they embraced and believed the law upon the credit of those miracles that were less evident. For those of Christ they knew by sight and sense, those of Moses only by tradition; which, though equally certain, yet were by no means equally evident with the other.

(2.) They believed and assented to things that were neither evident nor certain, but only probable; for they conversed, they traded, they merchandized, and by so doing, frequently ventured their whole estates and fortunes upon a probable belief or persuasion of the honesty and truth of those whom they dealt and corresponded with. And interest, especially in worldly matters, and yet more especially with a Jew, never proceeds but upon supposal, at least, of a firm and sufficient bottom: from whence it is manifest, that since they could believe, and practically rely upon, and that even in their dearest concerns, bare probabilities;

they could not, with any colour of reason, pretend want of evidence for their disbelief of Christ's doctrine, which came enforced with arguments far surpassing all such probabilities.

3. They believed and assented to things neither evident nor certain, nor yet so much as probable, but actually false and fallacious. Such as were the absurd doctrines and stories of their rabbins; which, though since Christ's time they have grown, much more numerous and fabulous than before, yet even then did so much pester the church, and so grossly abuse and delude the minds of that people, that contradictions themselves asserted by rabbies, were equally received and revered by them as the sacred and infallible word of God. And whereas they rejected Christ and his doctrine, though every tittle of it came enforced with miracle, and the best arguments that heaven and earth could back it with; yet Christ then foretold, and after times confirmed that prediction of his in John v. 43, that they "should receive" many cheats and deceivers "coming to them in their own name;" fellows that set up for Messiahs, only upon their own heads, without pretending to any thing singular or miraculous, but impudence and imposture.

From all which it follows, that the Jews could not allege so much as a pretence of the want of evidence in the argument brought by Christ to prove the divinity and authority of his doctrine, as a reason of their rejection and disbelief of it; since they embraced and believed many things, for some of which they had no evidence, and for others of which they had no certainty, and for most of which they had not so much as probability. Which being so, from whence then could such an obstinate infidelity, in matters of so great clearness and credibility, take its rise? Why, this will be made out to us in the

III. Third thing proposed, which was to show what was the true and proper cause into which this unbelief of the Pharisees was resolved. And that was, in a word, the captivity of their wills and affections to lusts directly opposite to the design and spirit of Christianity. They were extremely ambitious, and insatiably covetous; and therefore no impression from argument or miracle could reach them, but they stood proof against all conviction. Now, to show how the pravity of the will could influence the understanding to a disbelief of Christianity, I shall premise these two considerations:

1. That the understanding, in its assent to any religion, is very differently wrought upon in persons bred up in it, and in persons at length converted to it. For in the first, it finds the mind naked, and unprepossessed with any former notions, and so easily and insensibly gains upon the assent, grows up with it, and incorporates into it. But in persons adult, and already possessed with other notions of religion, the understanding cannot be brought to quit