infallible as the Senfes of all Mankind. And I fuppofe you will not ask a greater.

(2.) DE. How can you fay that? When the fuffering of Afflictions, and Death itself, is but a Probability of the Truth of what is told us. Because fome have fuffered Death for Errors.

CHR. But then they thought them true. And Men may be deceived in their Judgments: We seem any Examples of it. But if the Facts related be fuch, as that it is impoffible for those who tell them to be impofed upon themselves, or for those to whom they are told to believe them, if not true, without fuppofing an univerfal Deception of the Senfes of Mankind, then, I hope, I have brought the Cafe up to that infallible Demonftration I promised. And this is the Cafe of the Facts related in Holy Scripture. They were told by those who faw them, and did them; and they were told to those who faw them likewife themselves; and the Relaters appealed to this. So that here could be no Deceit.

DE. I grant there is a great Difference betwixt ErFors in Opinion, and in Fact: And that such Facts as are told of Mofes and of Chrift, could not have paffed upon the People then alive, and who were faid to have feen them. And I find that both Mofes, Chrift, and the Apoffles, did appeal to what the People they spoke to had feen themselves.

CHR. With this Confideration, their patient Suffering even unto Death for the Truth of what they taught, will be a full Demonftration of the Truth of it.

(3). Add to this, That their Enemies who perfcuted them, the Romans as well as Jews, to whom they appealed as Witnefjes of the Facts, did not offer to deny them: That none of the Apoftates from Chriftianity did attempt to detect any Falfhood in the Facts; though they might have had great Rewards if they could have done it; the Roman Emperors being then Perfecutors of Chrifianity, and for three hundred Years after Chrift. And Julian the Emperor afterwards turned Apoftate, who had been initiated in the Sacra of Chriftianity; yet could not he detect any of the Facts.

(4.) And it was a particular Providence for the fur. ther Evidence of Chriftianity, That all the civil Governments in the World were against it for the first three hundred Years, left it might be faid (as it is ridiculously in your Amintor), That the Awe of the civil Government might hinder those who could make the Detection.

Now, SIR, to apply all that we have faid, I defire you would compare thefe Evidences I have brought for Christianity, with thofe that are pleaded for any other Religion.

There are but four in the World, viz. Chriftianity, Judaism, Heathenifm, and Mahometifm.

(1.) Chriftianity was the First. For from the first Promife of Chrift made to Adam, during the Patriarchat and Legal Difpenfations, all was Chriflianity in Type, as I have fhewed.

And as to Mofes and the Law, the Jews can give no Evidence for that, which will not equally eftablish the Truth of Christ and the Gofpel. Nor can they difprove the Facts of Christ by any Topic, which will not likewife difprove all thofe of Mofes and the Prophets. So that they are hedged in on every Side. They must either renounce Mofes, or acknowlege Chrift.

Mofes and the Law have the first five Evidences, but they have not the fixth and the feventh, which are the frongeft.

This is as to Judaifm before Chrift came. But fince, as it now ftands in Oppofition to Chriftianity, in favour of any future Meffiah, it has none of the Evidences at all. On the contrary, their own Prophecies and Types make against them; for their Prophecies are fulfilled, and their Types are ceafed, and cannot belong to any other Meffiah who fhould come hereafter. They ftand now more naked than the Heathens or the Mahometans.

(2.) Next for Heathenifm; fome of the Facts recorded of their Gods have the first and fecond Evidences, and fome the third; but not one of them the fourth, or any of the other Evidences.

But, truly and properly speaking, and if we will take the Opinion of the Heathens themfelves, they were

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no Facts at all; but mythological Fables, invented to express some moral Virtues or Vices, or the Hiftory of Nature, and Power of the Elements, &c. As likewife to turn great Part of the Hiftory of the Old Teftament into Fable, and make it their own, for they difdained to borrow from the Jews. They made Gods of Men, and the most vicious too: Infomuch that fome of their wife Men thought it a Corruption of Youth, to read the Hiftory of their Gods, whom they represented as notorious Liars, Thieves, Adulterers, &c. though they had fome Mythology hid under all that.

And as Men were their Gods, fo they made the firft Man to be Father of the Gods, and called him Saturn; not begot by any Man, but the Son of Calus and Vefta, that is, of Heaven and Earth. And his maiming his Father with a fteel Scythe, was to fhew how Heaven itfelf is impaired by Time, whom they painted with Wings, and a Scythe mowing down all Things. And Saturn eating up his own Children, was only to exprefs how Time devours all its own Productions. And his being depofed by Jupiter his Son, fhews, That Time, which wears away all other Things, is worn away itfelf at last.

Several of the Heathen Authors have given us the Mythology of their Gods, with which I will not detain

you.

They expreffed every thing, and worshiped every thing, under the Name of a God; as the God of Sleep, of Mufick, of Eloquence, of Hunting, Drinking, Love, War, &c. They had above Thirty thousand of them. And in what they told of them, and as they defcribed them, they often traced the facred Story.

Ovid begins his Metamorphofes with a perfect Poetical Verfion of the Beginning of Genefis, Ante Mare & Terr ras- -Then goes on with the History of the Creation; the Formation of Man out of the Duft of the Earth, and his being made after the Image of God, and to have Dominion over the inferior Creatures. Then he tells of the general Corruption, and the Giants before the Flood, when the Earth was filled with Violence;

for which all Mankind, with the Beafts and the Forl, were deftroyed by the univerfal Deluge; except only Deucalion and Pyrrha his Wife, who were faved in a Boat, which landed them on the Top of Mount Parnaus; and that from these two the whole Earth was repeopled. I think it will be needlefs to detain the Reader with an Application of this to the Hiftory of the Creation fet down by Mofes, of the Flood, and the Ark wherein Noah was faved, and the Earth repeopled by him, &c.

And Noah was plainly intended likewife in their God Janus, with his two Faces; one old, looking backward to the old World that was destroyed; the other young, looking forward to the new World that was to fpring from him.

So that even their turning the Sacred History into Fable, is a Confirmation of it. And there can be no Comparison betwixt the Truth of the Facts, fo attefted as I have fhewed, and the Fables that were made from them.

(3.) Laftly, as to the Mahometan Religion, it wants all the Evidences we have mentioned: For there was no Miracle faid to be done by Mahomet publicly, and in the Face of the World, but that only of conquering with the Sword. Who faw his Mefra, or Journey from Mecca to Jerufalem, and thence to Heaven, in one Night, and back in Red with his Wife in the Morning? Who was prefent and heard the Conversation the Moon had with him in his Cave? It is not faid there was any Witness. And the Alcoran, c. vi. excuses his not working any Miracles to prove his Million. They say, that Mofes and Chrift came to fhew the Clemency and Goodness of God, to which Miracles were neceffary; but that Mahomet came to fhew the Power of God, to which no Miracle was needful but that of the Sword.

(1.) And his Alcoran is a Rhapsody of Staff without Head or Tail, one would think wrote by a Madman, with ridiculous Titles, as the Chapter of the Cow, of the Spider, &c.

And

And their Legends are much more fenfeless than those of the Papifts; as of an Angel, the Distance betwixt whofe two Hands is feventy thousand Days Journey. Of a Cow's-Head with Horns which have forty thousand Knots, and forty Days Journey betwixt each Knot. And others which have feventy Mouths, and every Mouth feventy Tongues, and each Tongue praises God ferventy Times a Day, in feventy different Idioms. And of Wax Candles before the Throne of God, which are fifty Years Journey from one End to the other. The Alcoran fays, the Earth was created in two Days, and is fupported by an Ox which ftands under it, upon a white Stone, with his Head to the Eaft, and his Tail to the Weft, having forty Horns, and as great a Distance betwixt every Horn as a Man could walk in a thousand Years Time.

Then their Description of Heaven, in a full Enjoyment of Wine, Women, and other like grofs fenfual Pleasures.

(2.) When you compare this with our Holy Scriptures, you will need no Argument to make you fee the Difference. The Heathen Orators have admired the fublime of the Stile of our Scriptures. No Writing in the World comes near it, even with all the Disadvantage of our Tranflation; which, being obliged to be literal, muft lofe much of the Beauty of it. The Plainnefs and Succinctness of the biftorical Part, the Melody of the Pfalms, the Inftruction of the Proverbs, the Majefty of the Prophets, and, above all, that eafy Sweetness in the New Teftament, where the Glory of Heaven is fet forth in a grave and moving Expreffion, which yet reaches not the Height of the Subject; not like the Flights of Rhetoric, which fet out Small Matters in great Words. But the Holy Scriptures touch the Heart, raife Expectation, confirm our Faith, give Peace of Confcience, and Foy in the Holy Ghoft, which is inexpreffible. All which you will experience when you once come to believe: You will then bring forth these Fruits of the Spirit, when you receive the Word with pure Affection, as we pray in our Litany.

(3.)