as the love of God, the love of mankind, and univerfal purity of heart, which are calculated to form a complete character, adapted to every ftation and condition in life; and he more especially enforced thofe virtues which are the leaft oftentatious, but the most effential to true greatnefs and excellence of character, viz. the forgiveness of injuries, humility, contentment, and refignation to the will of God.

He never confulted his own eafe or pleasure, but conftantly laboured and felt for others, going about doing good to the fouls and bodies of men. He spared neither the faults of his friends, nor the vices of his enemies, though the former were ever fo dear to him, and the latter ever fo powerful and inveterate. He difcovered the most aftonishing wisdom and presence of mind whenever enfnaring queftions were put to him. He fought no woridiy emoluments or honours, but perfifted in a courfe of life which rendered him in the highest degree obnoxious to those who were in power; and when he deemed the great purpose of his ufeful life to be accomplished, he no longer fecreted himself from the malice of his perfecutors, but in a firm belief, and with a peremptory declaration, that he should rife to the most diftinguished greatnefs, and that he fhould raise all his difciples and friends to fimilar honours in a future life, he fubmitted, with inimitable

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mitable calmnefs and compofure, to a moft cruel and ignominious death.

If there be any truth in hiftory, all this, and much more than this, was unquestionably fact. Now, what is there in human nature, or in the history of mankind, that can lead us to imagine that the man who could act this part fhould folemnly affert that he was commiffioned by God to do it, without really having fuch a commiffion. A good man will immediately say, if divine interpofitions be poffible in them felves, and if God has ever fpoken by man, Jefus Christ must certainly have been the man; and an intelligent perfon may perceive that the time in which he lived was the moft proper time for his appearance. The man whofe life and conversation is agreeable to the gofpel, and who feels that he enjoys the advantages of his being and condition to the greatest perfection in confequence of it, muft feel what will be to him the most irresistible evidence that the gospel proceeds from the giver of every good and perfect gift. He has the witnefs in himself, and has peace and joy in believing.

The difcourfes of our Lord before his death are certainly altogether unaccountable upon the fuppofition of his being an impoftor. They difcover the greatest fenfe of perfonal dignity and importance, the most perfect goodnefs and benevolence of heart, the moft tender affection to his immediate

followers,

followers, and the ftrongeft fympathy with them under a profpect of the confternation into which they would be thrown by his approaching death; and yet, though he endeavoured to fuggeft the moft proper and effectual confiderations to encourage and fupport them under fo fevere a trial, he is careful to give them no hopes of any advancement or happiness in this world, but only in those manfions which he was going to prepare for them, after they should be fo hated of all men, that he who killed them fhould think that he did God fervice. With what view could an impoftor be fuppofed to talk in this ftrain, or what could a few illiterate men expect to gain by supporting the pretenfions of a man who wanted to impose upon all the world, and who, after being profecuted as a criminal, was condemned and crucified?

In the difcourfes of Chrift we perceive a character and manner, in feveral refpects, peculiar to himself, even much more so than that of Socrates in the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon. It is even confidererably different from that of Mofes, or any of the antient prophets, which a Jew, who had invented, would probably have imitated. This ftyle and manner being fo truly original, has, certainly, the appearance of being copied from real life. Befides, the difcourfes of Chrift are not general declamations on the fubject of virtue and vice, but are accompanied with many circumftances re

lating to particular perfons, times, and places, which a person who wrote from imagination would never have thought of, or at leaft would not have hazarded.

The manner in which Chrift and his apostles propofed and enforced the evidences of their miffion, affords a very ftrong prefumptive argument that they were no impoftors. They generally exhibited their proofs without the leaft comment upon them, leaving them to produce their own natural effect upon the mind of the unprejudiced obferver. At other times they plainly and peremptorily affert their commiffion from God, fimply appealing to the miracles which they wrought, or to antient allowed prophecies in favour of their pretenfions; never reafoning about the force of them, or of their own accord starting and obviating objections, though they never declined giving plain and fatisfactory answers to all that were propofed to them.

On the other hand, impoftors, conscious of their having no fatisfactory proof of what they pretend to be, never fail to make a great parade of the little feeming evidence which they can venture to alledge; they are quick-fighted to foresee, and ready to obviate every objection to which they can make any plaufible reply, and they artfully evade fuch as they cannot anfwer. Such was the conduct of Mohammed, as a person of any tolerable

difcernment may perceive in reading the Koran; and the very reverse was the conduct of Chrift and his apostles, as must be obvious to any perfon who reads the Gospels and the book of Acts.

Upon the whole, we cannot but conclude, that the Evangelical history has all the air and the usual characteristics of truth; and that men circumstanced as the writers of the New Teftament were, fhould have written as they have done, without writing from known facts, is altogether incredible, and the whole hiftory of mankind can exhibit nothing parallel to it,