educated persons; and with regard to them, immorality can be no otherwise connected with religious doubts, than as it is either the cause of them, or their effect: now, so far as it is their cause, no addition to the proofs of revelation has any tendency to lessen it: of the other part of the proposition, which makes immorality the consequence of religious doubts, the truth is very questionable: this fully shown. Men rush into vicious excesses, not from the weakness of religion to influence their belief, but from the weakness of reason to control their passions this subject dilated on. It appears that difficulties in religion are so far from being real imperfections, that they render it better calculated to promote our virtue and happiness : instead therefore of projecting vain improvements, let us consider, not whether religion corresponds with our expectations, but how far our reason has attended to its proofs, our understandings submitted to its authority, and our conduct been directed by its laws.

DISCOURSE IV.

THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY SUFFICIENT.

[Preached on Easter day.]

LUKE, CHAP. XVI.-VERSE 31.

If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

MEN of the most accomplished reason do not always act or think rationally. There is some favorite indulgence or system, which possesses a powerful influence over their minds; and, as often as it interferes with the directions of duty, overcomes all the obligations of morality, and all the proofs of religion.

The evidences of religion, it is acknowleged, are not demonstrative; they are, what unbiassed reason would expect in the proofs of a plain fact, founded on testimony, but on testimony so ample, as never was either given or required to evince the reality of any other transactions.

Yet there are men, who, from preconceived opinions concerning the attributes of God, and his design in creating the world, have been led to complain, that the evidences of Christianity are not such as they expected, nor so convincing as its importance required.

It is easy to see, how those, who will form a system of religion from their own conceptions, are imperceptibly led into errors. The pride of the philosopher is concerned to support whatever is most honorable to human reason; and the wishes of the man are strongly interested in whatever is most favorable

to human happiness. Thus disposed, it is no way wonderful, that, in meditating on the attributes of the Supreme Being, they principally delight to contemplate his benevolence; and in as signing the portion, which such a Being would allot to his creatures, they pronounce it to be at least final happiness.

But, before they ventured on so bold a decision, they ought to have considered, that God is just as well as good; that man is not innocent; and that the pardon of guilt may be as incompatible with infinite justice, as its punishment can be with infinite goodness.

Thus, by a fond reliance on the powers of the understanding, and a strange mixture of the suggestions of passion with the dictates of reason, speculative men are frequently betrayed into rash and presumptuous conclusions on the whole scheme of religion.

In the following observations it is intended to show, that the evidences of religion are sufficient to engage our belief; that to have made them irresistible would have been a measure equally inconsistent with the usual conduct of the Deity, and with the particular design of Christianity; and that stronger evidence, if it were granted, would probably have no considerable effect on the manners of mankind.

Christianity was originally established in the world by miracles and prophecies; but to us, the proof, that those miracles were really wrought, and those prophecies delivered, must at last depend on the validity of human testimony.

The proofs, arising from the clearest testimony, cannot indeed be more than probable: but probability admits of very different degrees, from the lowest possibility to the highest moral certainty. The evidence of revelation is confessedly no more than probable: to determine its sufficiency, we must examine the measure of that probability, with which it is attended.

Now history contains many facts which the most scrupulous. sceptic will not deny; but it scarcely contains a single event, which is supported by proofs in any degree comparable with the weight of evidence, that has been transmitted to us, in favor of any one among the public miracles performed by our Saviour and his apostles.

. We will instance the resurrection of Christ.

The number of witnesses is thus represented by St. Paul: He was seen of Cephas; then of the twelve; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; after that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles; and last of all he was seen of me also."

What is there short of impossibility, which the concurring testimony of so many competent and impartial witnesses would not establish?

That they were not deceived themselves, we have the most ample security, both in the temper of the men, the obstinacy of one, the enmity of another, and the incurable slowness of all; and also in the nature, number, and variety of the circumstances, under which their Lord appeared unto them: he conversed with them, ate with them, and wrought miracles before them; they saw him separately, and together; in the garden, and on their journeys; at Jerusalem, and in Galilee; in the calm of religious assemblies, and in the hurry of their secular employments.

That they would not attempt to deceive others, is equally clear from their situation and character. What probability is there, that a set of ignorant, despised, and dispirited men would undertake to correct the opinions of the learned, and oppose the power of the great? that they, who had weakly deserted their Master, when living, would boldly revive his authority and doctrines, when dead? that they, who had been so cruelly disappointed in their rude expectations of a temporal kingdom, would suddenly conceive the extensive and refined idea of a spiritual and universal dominion?

Even on the supposition of its truth, the rapid success of a religion, so unwelcome to the prejudices, and so unfriendly to the vices of the world, can be accounted for only from the interposition of an overruling providence; on the supposition of its falsehood, its success can be accounted for on no principles. A fact, which was supported by such incontrovertible testimony, and followed by so many important consequences, which

* 1 Cor. xv. 5, 6.

cannot be explained without admitting its reality, may surely be assented to with implicit confidence.

The only contrary evidence, which was ever produced, is the vague and inconsistent report of the soldiers, who had been stationed to guard the sepulchre. But the authority of the apostles and other disciples will suffer little from the contradiction of a set of men, who could not possibly be certain of what they so boldly affirmed; and who must have been guilty, either of a wilful falsehood, or a shameful neglect of the rules of their profession.

Let the credit of these men be incontestable, to what does their deposition really amount? that they themselves slept, and that the body of Jesus disappeared: but whether the resurrection were real, or only a contrivance of the disciples, was impossible for them, in their acknowleged situation, to determine.

Thus all, that the art or malice of the enemies of Christianity could oppose to the credibility of a fact, on which its existence depended, is the contemptible evidence of men, who appear, from their own relation, unable to judge, and unworthy to be believed.

A single clear and well-established miracle is to reason a sufficient proof of the divine interposition. But the Christian miracles were numerous and undoubted; they were wrought by plain simple men in defence of a religion, which was despised by the learned, and opposed by the powerful; they were wrought in the presence, and on the persons of enemies; the truth of most of them was never denied, and the falsehood of not one of them was ever proved.

To the miracles performed in support of Christianity must be added that wonderful series of connected prophecy, which was conducted with such consummate wisdom, that every age of the world affords some proof of its reality; and even the unbelieving Jews, at the same time that they bore witness to its genuineness, and acknowleged its application to the Messiah, whom they expected, did also themselves contribute to its exact completion, in the very person whom they opposed.

Such is the argument from testimony in favor of Christianity. We can scarcely conceive it possible to exist in greater strength yet both the testimony of the Jews and that of the