defperate an interprise, attempted at all risks to perfuade the world, on their word, to receive it, is to me an abfurdity equal to any that can be found in the moft legendary performance. I do not find it one jot more admiflible, to affirm, that they had previously impofed upon themfelves, and believed the falfchoods they advanced. No enthufiafm,. no fanaticifin, nothing less than infanity, will account for fuch delufion, in a matter, not of opinion or fpeculation, but (as it was to them) of fenfe, of fight and feeling. And if to all their other difadvantages, they were really infane or frantic, their fuccefs will, if poffible, be ftill more wonderful. Such is the misfortune of the infidel folutions of this matter, that if you attempt to lighten any part of their scheme of those weights that opprefs it, you are fure to lay a heavier load on fome other part. And indeed, without the addition of madness or idiocy, the fuçcefs of fuch men in fuch an undertaking, fuppofing no interpofal of Heaven, requires a greater fhare of credulity to admit, than will be found requifite in a reasonable Chriftian.

God hath not, in refpect of revealed, any more than in refpect of natural religion, left himfelf without a witnefs. Sufficient evidence has been and will be always given. But different forts of evidence fuit the different ftages of the church. Vifible miracles were proper, they were even neceflary, to attest a revela

tion pretending to be from God; an event really miraculous, but needing atteftation, because not fenfibly fo to thofe who did not receive it immediately from Heaven. The fruits produced by the miracles then wrought, and which, on every other fuppofition but the truth of the miracles, are totally inexplicable; and the fulfilment of prophecies then given, which we may call intelligible, if not palpable, miracles, are the evidences that fuit more the maturity of the church. The intrinfic evidence arifing from the nature and genius of the dispensation itself, belongs alike to every period. Things are better balanced than we imagine. In the third and fourth centuries they had a nearer, and therefore doubtless a distincter view of the amazing fuccefs which had attended the first preaching of the gospel, notwithstanding all the difadvantages the preachers laboured under. But then they could not know fo well from experience as we of later ages may, that it is not in the power of all human talents, natural and acquired, though combined together, to produce a parallel to that fuccess.

Let us not. therefore fancy ourselves excufed in our unbelief, or difobedience, because we have not precifely that fort of evidence which others had. If we refift fufficient evidence, we are equally culpable with those who were regardlefs of all the proofs, those demonftrations of the Spirit and of power, that were given by our Lord and his apoftles.

If we do not enjoy the advantages of thofe of that age, we do not labour under their difadvantages, which are more confiderable than we perhaps are aware of. Such are the inveterate prejudices which their education had infused, in direct oppofition to the doctrine, and the contempt, nay even the ridicule, which the paltry appearance (as in the language of the world we should term it) of those heavenly ambaffadors could not fail to create. These things tend more to preclude attention and inquiry than men are apt to think. It is with the understanding, the eye of the mind, as with the bodily eyes. However good they are, and however ftrong the light may be, they will never perceive that from which they are always turned.

I OBSERVE, fecondly, That from any thing hitherto advanced we cannot justly infer the inutility of human learning in the caufe of religion. It was for a fpecial reafon, and in fingular circumftances, that God was pleased to reject the use of it in the first promulgation of the gospel. When this new difpenfation was ushered into the world, that its origin might be no wife equivocal, the aid of power, riches, learning, and oratory, which have great influence on the minds of men, was abfolutely rejected; the very reverse were chofen in the inftruments God faw meet to employ, weakness, poverty, ignorance of the world, and of the arts and fciences; that

no

no confiderate perfon might be at a loss to what to afcribe the effects produced; that the excellency of the power, to the conviction of every impartial fpectator, might be of God, and not of man. There was a time, and a time of great danger too, it was in the reign of Jehoshaphat, when God by his prophet commanded his people not to be difmayed, or even to fight for the common fafety; telling them, that the battle was God's; that they needed only to ftand ftill, and fee the falvation of the Lord with them *. In 'like manner, when God delivered Ifrael from the Midianites, by the hand of Gideon, of an army of thirty-two thousand he permitted only three hundred to go to battle, and with fo fmall a force totally routed an innumerable hoft of aliens +. But neither of these cafes was according to the ufual procedure of Providence. On all ordinary occafions it was the exprefs command of Heaven to all that were capable, to fight for their brethren, their fons, and their daughters, their wives, and their houfes, remembering the Lord, who is great and terrible, and confiding in him. It is only in extraordinary cafes (fuch as the first promulgation of the gospel) that the ordinary means are difpenfed with. Thefe are in part the talents which God requires us to lay out in his service.

**

2 Chron. xx. 14. &c. Neh. iv. 14.

Judg. vii. 1. &c..

There

There have been fome who, without attending to the peculiarity of the cafe, have rafhly concluded from fome expreffions in the New Teftament, that learning of every kind is rather an obftruction than a help in propagating religion. But on this topic they preferve no uniformity in their manner of arguing. Who will deny, that we ought to ftudy the language of foreigners, before we attempt to instruct them ? Yet this branch of learning was as much fuperfeded by the gift of tongues, fo common in the apoftolic church, as the other branches were by the other fupernatural gifts. And they were all fet afide for the fame reafon; not a natural unfitness, but, on the contrary, a natural fitness, for attracting refpect, and producing perfuafion; fince, in confequence of this fitnefs, the effect might erroneoufly be afcribed to them; and the miraculous interpofition of Heaven, to which alone it ought to be attributed, might be excluded or overlooked. In that fingular cafe, the battle was God's peculiarly. The people were to ftand ftill, and fee his falvation. Nothing was to be done but by particular direction. Now he chufes to operate by the intervention of natural means, and commands us to quit us like men, affiduously to exert every talent that may with probability be profitably employed in this fervice. The common reply, though true, is not fatisfactory, That human learning has by mifapplication been greatly abused in matters

of