first publication of God's will, by natural light alone, hath proved insufficient to perpetuate the knowledge of it; we shall think it most adequate to Reason, that the REPUBLICATION should be better guarded; to secure it from the like mischance.

But the truth is, this idea of Christianity's being merely such a REPUBLICATION arose from the grossest ignorance of the GOSPEL; which reveals more, infinitely more important Truths than NATURAL LIGHT did or could discover. It reveals the whole scheme of human Redemption; which, till this Revelation took place, was a MYSTERY, kept hid amongst the Arcana of the Godhead.

However, the same Men have another objection to the belief of these miraculous Credentials. And the objection arises, it seems, from our SOPHISTICAL reasoning in support of them: for thus (they say) we argue

"So little being known of the powers of created spirits, superior to ourselves, (some of which we are taught to believe are beneficent to man, and some averse) all that we can conclude of MIRACLES, considered only in themselves, is, that they are the work of agents, able, in some instances, to controul Nature, and divert her from her established course. But whether this controul be performed immediately by the God of Nature, or by Agents acting under his direction, (which amounts to the same thing) or, on the contrary, by malignant agents, at enmity with Man, and, for a time, permitted to indulge their perverse and hurtful purposes, cannot be known but by the nature of that Doctrine, in support of which, the pretended MIRACLES are performed. The conclusion from this is, that THE MIRACLES are TO BE VERIFIED BY THE DOCTRINE."

But then, (say they, again) since we know so little of the extent of the human understanding, we cannot determine of the true Original of the Doctrine, proposed to our belief, till it be supported by MIRACLES; now the conclusion from this is, that the DOCTRINE IS TO BE VERIFIED BY MIRACLES.

Such is the vicious Circle (say our adversaries) round which we run, when we first PROVE THE MIRACLES BY THE DOCTRINE, AND THEN PROVE THE DOCTRINE BY THE MIRACLES.

This is, without doubt, a Paralogism. But we deny that any such faulty reasoning is here employed. The term, DOCTRINE, in the first proposition, is used to signify a Doctrine agreeable to the truth of things, and demonstrated to be so by natural light. In the second proposition, the term, DOCTRINE, is used to signify a Doctrine immediately, and in an extraordinary manner, revealed by God. So that these different significations, in the declared use of the word DocTRINE, in the two propositions, sets the whole reasoning free from that vicious Circle within which our Philosophic Conjurers would con

fine it. In this, there is no fruitless return of an unprogressive argument; but a regular procession of two distinct and different Truths, till the whole reasoning becomes compleat. In truth, they afford mutual assistance to one another; yet not by taking back, after the turn has been served, what they had given; but by continuing to hold what each had imparted to the support of the other.

On the whole, we conclude, that if any Messengers ever wanted the CREDENTIALS OF MIRACLES, they were the first MESSENGers of GOD in the revealed Mystery of the GOSPEL.

Indeed, divine Providence hath so strictly appropriated MIRACLES for these CREDENTIALS, that John the Baptist, the Precursor of those Messengers, destined only to announce the approaching GosPEL, worked NO MIRACLES: yet, had Miracles been of no other use than what this new-fangled Doctrine assigns to them, namely, to make the hearers attentive to the excellence of the morals of the new Religion, none had more need of them than JOHN and his Penitents.-St. CHRYSOSTOM seems to have understood the GOSPEL better than these modern Divines, when he supposed that even JESUS himself worked no Miracle till after his baptism, i. e. till the time of his addressing himself to his Mission, when CREDENTIALS to his Character were naturally required; which Credentials had he not given, the unbelieving Jews, as he himself acknowledges, had been free from blame.-IF I HAD NOT DONE AMONGST THEM (says he) THE WORKS WHICH NONE OTHER MAN DID, THEY HAD NOT HAD SIN.*

II.

The first and

We come next to that second Species of Miracles, mentioned above, whose subject makes so essential a part in the Economy of the GOSPEL, that, without it, the whole would be vain and fruitless. principal of the species is the MIRACLE of Christ's RESURRECTION from the Dead.-If Christ be not RAISED, (saith St. Paul) your faith is vain; you are yet in your sins.† And St. Peter uses the same argument to shew the NECESSITY of his Master's resurrection.—God (says he) raised him up, having loosed the pains of death; BECAUSE IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE THAT HE SHOULD BE HOLDEN OF IT.‡

Now from whence does the impossibility arise, if not from the force of St. Paul's argument concerning the nature of Christ's Resurrection?

So important a circumstance, therefore, required that the highest evidence should be given of its truth.

CHRISTIANITY reveals the restoration of lapsed and forfeited Man to life and immortality from the power and dominion of the Grave. But the course of human nature continuing the same after this † 1 Cor. xv. 17.

• John xv. 24.

↑ Acts ii. 24.

restoration which it held before, and the GRAVE still boasting its power, though foolishly, indeed, and in vain, since Death had lost its Sting; * there seemed to be need of some extraordinary evidence of the reality of this change in the order of things, which being procured at the price of Christ's death on the Cross, and then visibly paid, the nature of the compact required that the benefit obtained should be as visibly put into our possession; and both one and the other openly exemplified in the same Person, the Author of our Salvation. For, if he himself was not seen to enjoy the fruits of that Redemption, which was of his own procuring, what hopes could be entertained for the rest of mankind? Would it not have been too plausibly concluded, that this expedient of Redemption had proved ineffectual by CHRIST's not rising? So necessarily connected (in the Apostle's opinion) was the MIRACLE of the Saviour's visible resurrection with the very essence of the Christian Faith. And this Resurrection being the first fruits of them that slept, was the very thing which both assured and sanctified all the benefits that were to follow. For the Jewish first fruits (to which the expression alludes) were of the nature, and a security to the plenty, of the approaching Harvest.

Thus, we see, the MIRACLE of the Resurrection made a necessary part of the integrity of the Gospel.

But it had other uses and expediencies besides; which, (in concluding this head,) I shall, in as few words as possible, endeavour to point out. The heathen World had, in general, some notion of another life. But a resurrection of this material body, after death, to accompany the soul in its future existence, never once entered into their imaginations; though some modern Writers have been misled to think otherwise, partly by what they had learnt of the fables of the vulgar, full of shadows of a bodily shape, Inhabitants of the Tombs, or Attendants on the Soul, in the sequestered abode of Spirits; and partly of the more solemn dreams of the Philosophers, particularly the famous STOICAL RENOVATION, which, however, is so far from bearing any resemblance, or yielding any credit to the CHRISTIAN resurrection, though mistaken for it, that it is absolutely inconsistent with it.

The Sages of Antiquity had discovered many qualities in the human Soul, which disposed them to think that it might survive the Body. But every property they knew of Matter led them to conclude, that, at the separation and dissolution of the union between these two constituent parts of Man, the Body would be resolved into the Elements from whence it arose. And that sect of Philosophy which

most favoured, and best cultivated the Doctrine of the Soul's immor

1 Cor. xv. 55.

tality, considered the Body only as its prison, into which it was thrust, by way of penance, for its pre-existent crimes; and from which, when it had undergone its destined purgation, it was to be totally set free. Nay, so little did the RESURRECTION OF THE BODY enter into their more studied conceptions, that when St. Paul, at Athens, (the capital Seat of Science,) preached JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION,* his Auditors mistook the second term to be like the first, a revelation of some new Deity, a certain Goddess called ANASTASIS.+

With all these prejudices, so unfavourable to the RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, nothing less than the assurance of the best attested MIRACLE, in confirmation of it, could have reconciled the Gentile World to the belief of so incredible a Doctrine.

This we say with the greater confidence, since St. Paul himself, on this occasion, appears to argue on the same idea. For when he had rectified this error of the Athenians, concerning Jesus and the resurrection, and had informed them that, by this resurrection, he meant the revival of the dead bodies of men, and restoration of them to life, he adds-whereof God hath given ASSURANCE unto all men, in that he raised Jesus from the dead.-For after his resurrection, he was seen (says the same Apostle, on another occasion) of five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present.‡

2. Under this second division of Miracles, whose subject makes an essential part in the Economy of the Christian dispensation, let me recommend to your consideration and belief the power of Jesus and his Disciples to CAST OUT DEVILS OR EVIL SPIRITS from the bodies of Men suffering by those inhospitable Guests. §

And under this division I the rather chuse to place this species of

Acts xvii. 31. In this sense St. CHRYSOSTOM understood the thoughts of the Athenians to be concerning St. Paul's mention of the Anastasis. Dr. BENTLEY thiuks otherwise. But which of these two Doctors was likely to be best acquainted with the genius and state of Paganism, when St. Paul preached at Athens, must be left to the judgment of the Reader. This, at least, is certain, that the reason the modern Doctor gives, why the Athenians could not mistake ANASTASIS for a Goddess, because they too well understood the notion of a resurrection, is a very weak one, since they had no notion of a resurrection at all; unless they mistook (which is very unlikely) the STOICAL RENOVATION for that which the Apostle preached. Dr. Bentley, indeed, seems to have fallen into that error, or he could scarce have said the Athenians well understood the notion of a Resurrection. However, let the Athenians understand this Stoical renovation as they would, they were certainly liable to a folly as gross, and at that time much more general, which was, the turning a moral entity into an object of worship: most of which abstract notions, superstition had thus metamorphosed. Amongst the Jews, indeed, the RESURRECTION was become a national Doctrine some time before the advent of the MESSIAH; not collected (we may be sure) from natural reason, nor taught them by their Scriptures, yet collected from the contemplation of their Prophets misinterpreted; where the restoration of the Mosaic Republic was predicted, in terms which were mistaken by the latter Jews, to signify the revival or resurrection of the Bodies of their deceased Ancestors; of which many instances might be given, besides Ezekiel's Vision of the dry bones. 1 Cor. xv. 6. § "Sermon "

On the Fall of Satan.

Miracles, since, by occasion of a very general and infamous pretence of such a power, especially in these later times, the fact itself has been rendered doubtful; and even excluded from the number of those mental and bodily disorders, recorded by the Evangelists, to have been relieved in the most extraordinary manner by Jesus and his Disciples -And they brought unto him all sick people (says St. Matthew) that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were POSSESSED WITH DEVILS AND LUNATICS, and he healed them.*-Insomuch that at length we have been told, that what is here called the being possessed with Devils, was, indeed, no other than an atrabilaire Lunacy, or one of those occult distempers for which Physicians could not find a remedy, or, what was still harder, were at a loss for a name; and therefore, in complaisance to the imbecility of their Patients, they agreed to suppose it supernatural, or, (saving your presence) the work of the Devil.

But this strange Malady being delivered to us as a REAL POSSESSION by the Evangelist last quoted, who, at the same time, distinguishes it from natural disorders, and particularly from LUNACY, with which these modern Doctors are willing to confound it, we chuse to adhere to the opinion of the sacred Writer.

In support of which, and to form a right judgment of the matter in question, it may be proper to consider what adverse part the DEVIL bore in disturbing the Economy of Grace.

Now, in the History of the FALL, recorded by Moses, to which the Writers of the New Testament perpetually allude, SATAN, or the Tempter, Calumniator, the old Serpent, or the evil One, (for by these names he is characterized in Scripture,) is represented as having instigated the first man, Adam, to disobedience; for which, by the second Adam, Jesus Christ, (who restored us to our lost inheritance,) is denounced his punishment in these figurative terms, the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent's head: † explained in the New Testament, to be the final conquest and destruction of this enemy of mankind by our Redeemer. So that we may reasonably expect to find the punishment of the Tempter recorded in the History of our REDEMPTION, as his crime was recorded in the History of the FALL. And, indeed, this circumstance, so necessary to the story of the whole transaction, we meet with in the Gospel, on several occasions.

When the Disciples, whom Jesus had sent out to renounce their Mission, came back to their Master exulting in the power of their Ministry, he receives them as Conquerors, returning in triumph from their spiritual warfare-I beheld SATAN (says he) as lightning fall from heaven. A strong and lively picture of the sudden precipita

• Matt. iv. 24.

† Gen. iii. 15.

1 Luke x. 18.