acquainted with fome amiable men of eminent piety among the Pharifees, I began to conceive a liking to their party. I obferved, that they maintained a more ftrict temperance, and, in general, a greater purity of life, and that they had more exalted fentiments about the power and character of God than the other party. I made it my business now to attend their lectures, and study their tenets, in hopes of being found worthy to rank with them. Mean time, the uncommon oppofition fhewn to them by Jefus, drew no finall fhare of my attention, and served, on the whole, rather to increase than diminish my attachment to them. I confidered their fentiments as a great improvement of my former way of thinking, and highly conducive to my advancement in virtue as well as piety. I readily judged, then, that the oppofition which was chiefly pointed against what came nearest to perfection, must have proceeded from the worst of caufes.

I had a very low opinion of Jefus, as well as of the company he kept, on many accounts, which I fhall not now take time to relate. In the general, I thought him a stranger to every great and noble fentiment which charms and elevates the mind of man. What difaffected me most to him was, I thought him uncharitable to the laft degree. I could not reconcile with any degree of charity or piety, the fevere cenfures he paffed upon men of the best established characters. It gave me great difguft, to hear him addreffing the men whom I myself thought worthy of the highest esteem for every thing great and good, in fuch uncouth language as this, How can ye efcape the damnation of hell! I thought it intolerable to hear him at the fame time de

claring

claring with fingular affurance, that he himself was the only favorite of heaven; that every character of man but his own, was the object of the divine difpleafure; yea, without ftopping here, with the greatest familiarity calling God his FATHER, in a fenfe peculiar to himself; and, without leaving us at any lofs to gather his meaning, affirming, He that hath feen me, hath feen the Father: even while he fhewed rather more zeal

than any of us against the least appearance of afcribing 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 houfe facred to the honor of the one God, against the profaning of which he himself had fhewn the greatest zeal, not only receiving divine praise from his attendants, but receiving it in the very words of the facred hymns which we used to fing in our moft folemn affemblies to the praise of the MOST HIGH; yea vindicating this praise as his due, by quoting thofe very hymns in fupport of it; and rebuking my zealous friends, who complained of this as an abufe.

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 lefs could have fatisfied him, than to have feen matters brought to the extremities to which all parties among us at laft agreed to push them.

I must own indeed, that there was a peculiar energy in the rebukes of Jefus, which made it very difficult for one to refift them. But what alarmed me moft was, his performing many works that could not be done by human power; yea fuch power appeared in them, that I could not help fufpecting, upon occafions, that the

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finger

finger of God was there, notwithstanding all the pains taken to account for them otherwife. However, as his conduct, on the whole, feemed to me to be fo very oppofite to the univerfally received principles of reafon and religion, I made the beft fhift I could to efface any impreffions made on my heart from that quarter; concluding, that as the character of God himself muft be measured by thofe principles, it would be abfurd to fuppofe, that any revelation coming from Him could ever ferve to undermine them.

By the fame principles, I fortified myself against the prediction delivered by Jefus concerning his rifing again from the dead; to which event he had openly appealed for proof of his doctrine; or, which is the fame thing, the excellence of his person and character: and what ferved to give me greater affurance was, I found my favorite party was very forward to refer the decifion of the whole controversy to that same event, as being very confident that it would never happen.

When once Jefus was dead and buried, I thought the dispute as good as ended. But how great was my aftonishment! when, not long after, thofe poor illiterate men, who had been the companions of Jefus, appeared publicly, testifying with uncommon boldnefs, that he had rifen again from the dead, according to his prediction; that they were well affured of this by many infallible tokens, and that at laft they faw him. afcend into heaven;-when I faw that no threatnings, no infamy, no punishment, could intimidate them;-when, moreover, I obferved fo many undeniable proofs of fupernatural power co-operating with them, and exerted in the name of Jefus, as rifen from the dead!-then the

late

fate wonderful works of Jefus, before his death, recurred upon my thoughts.-The former im-” preffions I had been at so much pains to ftifle,' revived afresh upon me.-In short, the evidence crouded fo faft upon me, from every quarter, I found there was no gainfaying it.

But ftill I was averfe to the laft degree to admit it. I was fhocked at the train of confequences which I faw muft follow. And thus I queftioned with myfelf; has reafon itself deceived me? do all our beft books of divinity' and morality proceed upon false principles ? must I give up all my choiceft fentiments? is there no fuch thing as wifdom or righteoufness in the world? are all the world fools, and enemies to God, but these rude Galileans? The reflection is confounding!-but what do thefe men propofe? what do they aim at, by their alarming the public in this manner, with their teftimony about the refurrection of Jefus?-they can have no good defign, no benevolent intention toward men. They seem rather to be influenced by a moft malignant difpofition. 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 defperate' and utterly miferable.

With fuch reflections, whatever inward difquiet I fhould undergo, I refolved to combat whatever evidence they could produce ;-till one day that I heard them charged, by fome of my friends in authority, with the malevolent purpose I have juft now mentioned.-But fuch was their reply, that, I think, I fhall never forget it! They indeed not only allowed, but demonftrated all the confequences I was fo averfe to admit, with fuch force and evidence, as quite defeated:

And all

all my refolution.-But then they at the fame time, laid open fuch a treafure of divine goodwill toward men ;-they drew fuch a character of God, no lefs amiable than awful;-they laid fuch a folid foundation of everlafting confolation and good hope, for the most desperate and miferable wretch, as did infinitely more than counterbalance the lofs of all my favorite principles,. all my fond reafonings, and every worldly advantage I had connected with them. this they fhewed, with the greatest fimplicity and clearness, to be the plain meaning and import of the fact they teftified, even the refurrection of Jefus. And they confirmed every thing they faid by the unanimous voice of the prophets, whom I had never understood till now. Their doctrine, in refpect of authority, refembled the word of a King against whom there is no rifing up; and in refpect of evidence, the light of the fun; or, to ufe a far more adequate. fimilitude, it refembled the fact which they teftified, and whereof it was the meaning. And it well correfponded thereto in its effects: for it proved fufficient to raise the dead, and give hope to the defperate.-The fact and its import, the hand-writing and the interpretation, equally became the majefty of Him who is the Su

PREME.

I faw plainly, that in the refurrection of Jefus, there must have been the agency of a power fuperior to the power of nature, even capable to controul and reverse the courfe thereof; therefore I concluded, that this operating power was greater than the God of the Sadducees and the philofophers. I found alfo, that this power had a peculiar character, manifeft from the nature of the controverfy, wherein it interpofed its agency

and