reconcile, with any degree of charity or piety, the severe censures he passed upon men of the best established characters. It gave me great disgust, to hear him addressing the men whom I myself thought worthy of the highest esteem for every thing great and good, in such uncouth language as this, How can ye escape the damnation of hell! I thought it intolerable to hear him at the same time declaring, with singular assurance, that he himself was the only favourite of heaven; that every character of man, but his own, was the object of the divine displeasure; yea, without stopping here, with the greatest familiarity calling God his Father, in a sense peculiar to himself; and, without leaving us at any loss to gather his meaning, affirming, the father and I are one; even while he showed rather more zeal than any of us against the least appearance of ascribing any divine attribute or name to any but the one God, or even to himself in any other view-to hear him, in the very house sacred to the honour of the one God, against the profaning of which he himself had shown the greatest zeal, not only receiving divine praise from his attendants, but receiving it in the very words of the sacred hymns which we use to sing in our most solemn assemblies to the praise of the Most High; yet vindicating this praise as his due, by quoting those very hymns in support of it; and rebuking my zealous friends, who complained of this as an abuse. 66 Let any one put himself in our place, and try how he could have borne all this, joined with many other provoking circumstances of the like nature; or, if any thing less could have satisfied him, than to have seen matters brought to the extremities to which all parties among us at last agreed to push them. I must own, indeed, that there was a peculiar energy in the rebukes of Jesus, which made it very difficult for one to resist the force of them. But what alarmed me most was, his performing many works that could not be done by human power; yea, such power appeared in them, that I could not help suspecting, upon occasions, that the finger of God was there, notwithstanding all the pains that were taken to account for them otherwise. However, as his conduct, on the whole, seemed to me to be so very opposite to the universally received principles of reason and religion, I made the best shift I could to efface any impressions made on my heart from that quarter, concluding, that as the character of God himself must be measured by those principles, it would be absurd to suppose, that any revelation coming from him could ever serve to undermine them. "By the same principles, I fortified myself against the prediction delivered by Jesus concerning his rising again from the dead; to which event he had openly appealed for proof of his doctrine; or, which is the same thing, the excellency of his person and character; and what served to give me the greater assurance was, I found my favourite party was very forward to refer the decision of the whole controversy to that same event, as being very confident that it would never happen. "WHEN Once Jesus was dead and buried, I thought the dispute as good as ended. But how great was my astonishment! when not long after, those poor illiterate men, who had been the companions of Jesus, appeared publicly, testifying with uncommon boldness, that he had risen again from the dead, according to his prediction: that they were well assured of this by many infallible tokens, and at last they saw him ascend into heaven;-when I saw no threatenings, no infamy, no punishment, could intimidate them ;-when, moreover, I observed so many undeniable proofs of supernatural power, cooperating with them, and exerted in the name of Jesus, as risen from the dead. Then the late wonderful works of Jesus, before his death, recurred upon my thoughts-the former impressions I had been at so much pains to stifle, revived afresh upon me. In short, the evidence crowded so fast upon me, from every quarter, I found there was no gainsaying it. "But still I was averse to the last degree to admit it. I was shocked at the train of consequences which behooved to follow. And thus I questioned with myself, Has reason itself deceived me? Do all our best books of divinity and morality proceed upon false principles? Must I give up with all my choicest sentiments? Is there no such thing as wisdom or righteousness in the world? Are all the world fools and enemies to God, but these rude Galileans? The reflection is confounding!-But what do these men propose? what do they aim at, by their alarming the public in this manner, with their testimony about the resurrection of Jesus? They can have no good design, no benevolent intention toward men. They seem rather to be influenced by a most malignant disposition. They certainly intend to bring this man's blood upon us,-to prove us all to be enemies to God and objects of his wrath. They intend to make us desperate and utterly miserable. "With such reflections, whatever inward disquiet I should undergo, I resolved to combat whatever evidence they could produce-till one day that I heard them charged, by some of my friends in authority, with the malevolent purpose I have just mentioned. But such was their reply that, I think, I shall never forget it! They, indeed, not only allowed, but demonstrated all the consequences I was so adverse to admit, with such force and evidence, as quite defeated all my resolution. But, then, they at the same time, laid open such a treasure of divine good will toward men ;-they drew such a character of God, no less amiable than awful:-they laid such a solid foundation of everlasting consolation and good hope, for the most desperate and miserable wretch, as did infinitely more than counterbalance the loss of all my favourite principles, all my fond reasonings, and every worldly advantage I had connected with them. And all this they showed, with the greatest simplicity and clearness, to be the plain meaning and import of the fact which they testified, even the resurrection of Jesus. And they confirmed every thing they said, by the unanimous voice of the prophets, whom I had never understood till now. Their doctrine, in respect of authority, resembled the word of a king, against whom there is no rising up; and in respect of evidence, the light of the sun; or, to use a far more adequate similitude, it resembled the fact which they testified, and whereof it was the meaning. And it well corresponded thereto in its effects; for it proved sufficient to raise the dead, and give hope to the desperate. The fact and its import, the hand writing and the interpretation, equally became the majesty of him who is the Supreme. its "I saw plainly, that in the resurrection of Jesus, there behooved to be the agency of a power superior to the power of nature, even capable to control and reverse the course thereof: therefore I concluded, that this operating power was greater than the God of the Sadducees and the philosophers. I found, also, that this power had a peculiar character, manifest from the nature of the controversy, wherein it interposed agency and gave decision. I found by the decision, that its character was more grand and perfect, as well as its agency stronger, than that of the God of the Pharisees. As to its agency, it was able to raise from deeper misery to higher blessedness than the Pharisees thought of. As to its character, it appeared with unlimited sovereignty just and merciful in perfection. Whereas the God of the Pharisees was such only partially, and by halves; incapable to execute the threatened curse against every sin, and yet show mercy and boundless favour to the transgressors; not so just as to maintain the honour, the spirit, and extent of the perfect law, at all events: not so merciful, as to have any favour for the utterly worthless and wretched; but, halving the matter, merciful to men of good repute, and just in accepting those who are deficient in their righteousness; or, in another view, just in exacting the debt of five hundred pence, and merciful in forgiving that of fifty or showing justice only against the utterly insolvent, and mercy only to those who can make partial payment ;—in short, (like all created potentates,) incapable of appearing, at once, without limitation of either attribute, just and merciful in perfection. "I found, then, that the power which operated in the resurrection of Jesus, excelled, not only in strength, but also in majesty and perfection of character, all that was called God among men. So I perceived no small propriety in the saying of Jesus, O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee. I concluded, then, that this power is the only true God: for that which is greatest must be God. Thus am I called off from every idol, however highly dignified, whether the work of men's hands, or of their imaginations, to adore him who is higher than the highest. "I frankly acknowledge, then, that my religion, or my hope toward God, is not founded on argument, not on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God;-not on any deductions from any principles I had hitherto known; but on authority interposed in a manner quite unexpected, baffling, confounding, and repelling all my reasonings; and, if I may be allowed the expression, forcing upon me a new set of principles, by the most convincing and satisfactory, as well as irresistible evidence; not on any reasonings a priori, but on a plain matter of fact, established by impregnable evidence ;-not on any effort exerted, or any motion felt on my breast, but on that motion of divine power, which burst the bands of death when Jesus rose; not on any operation which men call mystical, to avoid saying unintelligible, but on the simplest and most striking operation of power that can affect the human mind, even the presenting alive again a man who was dead;-not on feeling any change on my heart to the better, or the remotest good inclination of my will, but on that fact, which, sore against my will, forced upon me the most shocking view of my guilt, and proved me to be an enemy to Heaven, in that respect wherein I thought to have approved and valued myself to my last hour;-not on a work of power assisting me to feel, will, or do any thing, in order to peace with God, or any but on a work of power, proving to demonstration, that every thing needful thereto is already completely finished;-to say all in one word, not on any difference betwixt me and others, token for good about me whatsoever, but on the token or proof of divine good-will expressed, in the resurrection of Jesus, toward sinners of all nations, without regard to any difference by which one man can distinguish himself from another. "This fact, firm as a rock, emboldens me to pay an equal regard to philosophical guesses and to enthusiastical fancies. If any one, then, should ask me a reason of the hope that is in me, I have only one word to say, The resurrection of Jesus. Take away this from me, and I am miserable indeed. Let this stand true, and nothing shall ever make me despair. "This fact and its import, or the character of God thence arising, mutually confirm and ascertain each other. This character could never have been drawn to our view, but from some divine work. No work but this could ever evince such a character; and if this work was done, of necessity there must be such a character. This fact and its import, then, must stand or fall together. But more particularly, "As this divine character can nowhere be published but along with the fact, I am assured, by hearing the grandest character thence arising, that the fact must be true. For to suppose, that the bare notion or idea of aught greater than God could ever be any where imagined, would be the wildest of all absurdities. And it is very evident, that the view of God, which the lower it abases the pride of man, raises his comfort and joy the higher; which reduces man to the most unreserved or to extreme dependence, while it exalts him to the summit of all happiness; could never be the contrivance of man, whose strongest impulse is toward the gratifying of his pride, and whose joy naturally rises or sinks according to the success thereof. Therefore, when the fact and its import are conveyed to my knowledge by the same testimony, I have no room to doubt that God, who alone can describe his own character, is the testifier and declarer of both. And surely, it would be extremely absurd to suppose, that such a divine character could arise from a contrived lie. 66 "Again, it is from this fact that the amiable character of the just God and the Saviour rises to my view. I could never have known there was such a God, had I not known this fact. But I know, that this fact being true, there must be such a God; because it is impossible to account for it otherwise. Yea, every attempt to account for it otherwise, not only ex |