celebration of the Lord's Supper among christians, in order to commemorate the death of Christ, which it cannot be supposed that they would have done, if he had not likewise rifen from the dead, as he himself had foretold.

Now folemn cuftoms are univerfally acknowledged to be, in many cases, the best memorials of important events; because they suppose a whole people repeating their teftimony to them as often as the rite is celebrated; and this being continued from generation to generation, the original evidence has all the strength that it could poffibly have, when tranfmitted to us by fucceffion.

It will be faid that we find in the heathen world religious customs, which are faid to have been inftituted in commemoration of such remarkable events as suppose the truths of their religions, as Eleufinian myfteries, in which were reprefented the rape of Proferpine, and the introduction of corn among the Athenians by her mother Ceres. But there is this effential difference between the religious cuftoms of the Jews or christians, and such as thefe among the heathens. The Jews and chriftians have written hiftories of all their religious inftitutions of equal antiquity with the inftitutions themfelves; and in thefe hiftories both the origin of the cuftom is recorded, and the manner in which every thing relating to it is to be performed, is particularly defcribed. On the con

trary,

trary, the Greek and Roman writers of later ages, finding a practice in ufe, before the invention of letters, might easily add to the traditional account of it, and fo embellish the narration, that, in time, the use of the cuftom, which had fome foundation in hiftory, might be effentially changed.

Thus I make no doubt but that, with respect to Eleufinian myfteries, there was a woman called Ceres, who, or her fon Triptolemus, taught the Athenians the ufe of corn, that she had a daughter called Proferpine, who was ftolen from her by fome person whose name was Pluto. But that this Pluto was God of the infernal regions, and carried his wife thither, and that Ceres lighted a torch at mount Etna, and went in queft of her all over the world, was, moft probably, an embellishment of the poets, and no neceffary inference from the cuftom.

Customs with merely traditional explanations are very apt to vary in different places, fo that, in a course of many years, there being no written history to rectify any mistake, both the practice itself, and the account of it may eafily become, by means of fucceffive innovations, quite unlike what they were originally. If we had not hiftories of England to have recourse to, how differently might our cuftoms of wearing oak on the twenty-ninth of May, and making bon-fires on the fifth of November have been represented? Nay, we have many cuftoms

cuftoms which have no doubt, been kept up, without interruption from the time of heathenifm, the origin of which is merely conjectural, even among the learned, and altogether unknown to the common people who practice them.

On the fubject of this part of my work I must obferve, that the earth itself bears feveral indelible marks of the tranfactions which are recorded in the hiftories of the Jewish and chriftian religions. At least, they are such as are easily and clearly accounted for, on the fuppofition that those hiftories are true, and they are not eafily accounted for on the fuppofition that they are false.

That there has been fome fuch convulfion in the earth, as must have been produced by the general deluge, is acknowledged by many naturalifts even those who are not believers in revelation. The dead fea is very likely to have been occafioned by fuch a deftruction of an inhabited country as is related in the Mofaic hiftory of Sodom and Gomorrah. Travellers of unquestionable authority fay, that it is almoft poffible to trace the progrefs of the children of Ifrael through the wilderness. More especially, feveral of them have given drawings of the rock at Rephidim, and they are unanimous in their opinion that the holes and channels which are worn in it must have been made by water, and yet that it is in a place where it is not at all probable that there. should ever have been any natural fpring or river,

and

1

and where there is far from being any water at prefent. Matthew fays that the rocks were rent at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus; and travellers fay that there is, at this day, a most remarkable cleft in the rocks of mount Calvary, fuch as cannot well be supposed to have been produced by any natural earthquake, not having separated the ftrata, but divided them all perpendicularly.

Thefe laft-mentioned cirumftances are far from amounting to a demonftration of the truth of the Jewish and chriftian hiftories, but they agree fo remarkably with them, as must add to their credibility; and all the facts which have been recited in this part put together, certainly represent the known ftate of things to be fuch, as cannot be accounted for without fuppofing those hiftories to be true. Admitting the truth of thofe hif tories, the prefent ftate of things has arifen eafily, and naturally from the preceding; but on the contrary fuppofition, we can fee no connection between them, fo that what is known to all the world, and is the fubject of every day's obfervation, is altogether inexplicable.

SEC.

SECTION III.

Various internal evidences of the truth of the fcripture biftory.

BESIDES the

ESIDES the direct evidences, which may be

drawn from the canonical books of the New Teftament, in favour of the truth of christianity, an attentive reader of them cannot but obferve feveral internal characters, which bear the ftrongest marks of genuineness and truth, on account of their perfect refemblance to other genuine and true hiftories. Some of thefe circumftances, intermixed, as they neceffarily are, with others of a different nature, I shall take notice of in this place. Every thing of this nature is plainly a standing evidence of the truth of the chriftian hiftory, independent of any teftimony in its favour.

The whole of the scripture history abounds with so many particulars concerning times, places, and perfons, as are ftrong internal marks of authenticity, and make it look exceedingly unlike any fiction. Befides, it is hardly poffible to imagine any reafon or motive for contriving fuch a history as that of the Old Teftament, and endeavouring to impose it upon the Jewish nation, as the genuine

history