Let us then consider, first, whether if the incarnation of Christ had happened in the beginning of the first age of the world, it would not have been in great danger of being treated as the creature of fiction, and ranked among the stories of dark and fabulous ages. The world, it would be said, was then in its infancy; barbarism and ignorance prevailed; arts and sciences were but little cultivated; and what imposition could be too gross for mankind, in that unlettered, unenlightened state, to swallow? We find, from experience, the faith of Christians themselves too much weakened by the long interval elapsed since our Saviour's coming and if this be the case with Christians, what would it then have been with those, who even now take such pains to disbelieve revelation, and to reason themselves into infidelity? It is at this day one of their standing objec tions against the credibility of the gospel-history, that the facts therein recorded are represented as having been done so long ago: they pretend that the strength of the evidence in their behalf keeps continually decreasing, in proportion to the distance of time: from whence we may judge, how readily these very persons, who now affect to complain that God sent his Son too late, would have been to cavil, as though he had come too soon, had he been born

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four

sooner.

four thousand, or even one thousand years, One good reason, therefore, why the Messiah did not come in the flesh sooner, was, that the distance of time might not tempt us to disbelieve the reality of his incarnation.

A second reason to be assigned, is, that the great necessity the world was under of a Redeemer would not in that case have been so apparent. As no one can say, that God ought to have sent his Son without any need of him on our part; so was it farther requisite for us to be made sensible of that need, in order to impress upon our minds a higher conception both of his infinite goodness, who appointed us a Redeemer, and of his, who took our nature upon him, to redeem us from our sins. In the most early times, revelations were so common, and the will of God so openly declared unto men, as to supersede the necessity of the Messiah's appearing in those days; nor could any thing less than the most wilful blindness, and most obstinate negligence, efface the repeated impressions of the Deity out of their hearts. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we find, that in a few ages, all flesh had corrupted their ways before God, and were sunk into the most sottish ignorance: Superstition and idolatry triumphed without control, and the ruins of reli

gion

gion lay buried under a heap of the most extravagant and shocking rites and ceremonies. In one small corner of the earth alone, among the people of Israel, the worship of the true God was preserved, while all the rest was sunk in the unfathomable abyss of stupidity and corruption. But even God's peculiar people themselves were quickly infected with the general contagion, and strangely addicted to forsake the living Lord, and to follow the vain gods of their heathen neighbours. To put a check to this spreading evil, God exercised them with hardships and afflictions, gave them his chosen servant Moses for a leader, and imposed upon them the severe yoke of the ceremonial law. Yet, not all their journeyings and distresses, not all their religious rites and ceremonies, proved sufficient to continue in full force the remembrance of the commandment given to their forefathers, or restrain them from revolting continually, and returning to their wallowing in the mire.

After this, God sent all his servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them; yet they hearkened not unto him, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck, and did worse than their fathers. Their last captivity, it is true, cured them of their proneness to idol

worship;

worship; but, in every other respect, they still remained a most wicked and perverse nation; punctual, indeed, to a tittle, in ceremonial observances, but totally regardless of the weightier matters of the law.

Thus do all the ages previous to our Saviour's coming, furnish us with incontestible proofs, to what a deplorable state mankind had reduced themselves by their own folly and wickedness. In vain did the prophets inculcate obedience to the law, and produce signs and wonders, in support of their divine commission, to the Jews: in vain did the philosophers call in all the arts of learning and policy to their aid, to enforce the precepts of morality upon the Gentiles: both still continued perverse and irreclaimable, and both remain to this day, a striking testimony, how greatly the whole world stood in need of a Saviour. Which consideration alone is sufficient to convince us, that it was wisely ordered of the Almighty not to send forth his Son, before the exigencies of the world were most urgent and most manifest.

A third reason, why Christ was not sent sooner, was, that without the evidence of prophecies, his reception would have been attended with greater difficulties. Prophecies and mi

racles

racles are the only two means, by which we
can conceive the Deity revealing himself to the
world and in a matter of so great importance
to mankind, it was expedient for them to have
all the evidences which the thing would admit
of: God, therefore, willing more abundantly
to shew unto all men certain marks whereby
to distinguish his Son, gave them the double
testimony of prophecy and miracles; that by
two indubitable proofs, in which it was impos-
sible for God to lie, they might have an anchor
of the soul both sure and stedfast. In the
In the pro-
phecies, Christ's miracles were foretold; and in
his miracles, the prophecies were completed; so
that each mutually corroborated and supported
the other. Accordingly we find him in his dis-
putations with the Jews frequently appealing to
the record which the prophets bare unto him,
and arguing from what had been predicted con-
cerning the Messiah, to what they saw with
their own eyes fulfilled in him. Nor did this

way of reasoning fail to produce correspondent
effects: great numbers were convinced out of
the writings of the prophets, that he was the
true Messias, and became converts to the
christian faith.

His miracles alone were indeed a convincing proof of his mission; but yet it might have staggered

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