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ed, it grows as certain as knowledge. For we are no less certain that there is a great town called Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman empire, than that there is another called London. We have as little doubt that Queen Elizabeth once raigned, as that King Charles now reigns in England. So that believing may be as certain, and as little subject to doubting, as seeing or knowing.

There are two sorts of believing divine matters; the one is wrought in us by our comparing all the evidences of matter of fact, for the confirmation of revealed religion, with the prophecies in the Scripture, where things were punctually predicted, some ages before their completion; not in dark and doubtful words, uttered like oracles, that could bend to any event: but in plain terms, as the foretell ing that Cyrus by name should send the Jews back from the captivity, after the fixed period of seventy years; the history of the Syrian and Egyptian kings so punctually foretold by Daniel; and the prediction of the destruction ofJerusalem, with many circumstances relating to it, made by our Saviour; joining these to the excellent rule and design of the Scripture in matters of morality; it is at least as reasonable to believe this as any thing in the world. Yet such a believing as this is only a general persuasion in the mind, which has not that effect, till a man applies himself to the directions set down in the Scriptures; which upon such evi

dence, cannot be denied to be as reasonable as for a man to follow the prescriptions of a learned physician, and when these rules are both good and easy, to submit to them for the recovery of his health, and by following these, finds a power entering within him that frees him from the slavery of his appetites and passions, that exalts his mind above the accidents of life, and spreads an inward purity of heart, from which a serene and calm joy arises within him. And good men, by the efficacy these methods have upon them, and from the returns of their prayers and other endeavours, grow assured that these things are true, and answerable to the promises they find registered in Scripture.

All this, he said, might be fancy.-But to this I answered, that as it would be unreasonable to tell a man that is abroad, and knows he is awake, that perhaps he is in a dream, and in his bed, and only thinks he is abroad, or that as some go about in their sleep, that he may be asleep still; so good and religious men know, though others may be abused by their fancies, that they are under no such deception; and find they are neither hot nor enthusiastical, but under the power of calm and pure principles. All this, he said, he did not understand, and that it was to assert or beg the thing in question which he could not comphrehend.

As for the possibility of revelation, it was a vain thing to deny it: For as God gives us the

sense of seeing material objects with our eyes, and opened in some a capacity of apprehending high and sublime things, of which other men seemed utterly incapable; so it was a weak assertion, that God cannot awaken a power in some men's minds, to apprehend and know some things in such a manner that others are not capable of. This is not half so incredible to us as sight is to a blind man, who yet may be convinced there is a strange power of seeing, that governs men, of which he finds himself deprived.

As for the capacity put into such men's hands to deceive the world, we are at the same time to consider, that besides the probity of their tempers, it cannot be thought but God can so forcibly bind up a man in some things, that it should not be in his power to deliver them otherwise than as he gives him in commission.

Besides, the confirmation of miracles is a divine credential, to warrant such persons in what they deliver to the world; which cannot be imagined can be joined to a lie, since this were to put the omnipotence of God, to attest that which no honest man will do.

For the business of the fall of man, and other things of which we cannot perhaps give ourselves a perfect account, we, who cannot fathom the secrets of the counsel of God, act very unreasonably to take on us to reject an excellent system of good and holy rules, because we cannot satisfy ourselves about some diff

culties in them. Common experience tells us there is a great disorder in our natures, which is not easily rectified. All philosophers were sensible of it, and every man that designs to govern himself by reason, feels the struggle between it and nature. So that it is plain there is a lapse of the high powers of the

soul.

But why, said he, could not this be rectified by some plain rules given; but men must come and shew a trick to convince the world they speak to them in the name of God? I answered, that religion being a design to recover and save mankind, was to be so opened as to awaken and work upon all sorts of people; and generally men of a simplicity of mind, were those that were the fittest objects forGod to shew his favour to. Therefore it was necessary that messengers sent from heaven, should appear with such alarming evidences as might awaken the world, and prepare them by some astonishing signs, to listen to the doctrine they were to deliver,

Philosophy, that was only a matter of fine speculation, had few votaries. And as there was no authority in it to bind the world to believe its dictates, so they were only received by some of nobler and refined natures, who could apply themselves to and delight in such notions, But true religion was to be built upon a foundation that should carry more weight on it, and to have such convictions, as might not

only reach those who were already disposed to receive them, but rouse up such as, without great and sensible excitation, would have otherwise slept on in their ill courses.

Upon this and some other occasions, I told him I saw the ill use he made of his wit, by which he slurred the gravest things with a slight dash of his fancy; and the pleasure he found in such wantón expressions, as calling the doing of miracles, the shewing of a trick, did really keep him from examining them with that care which such things required.

For the Old Testament, we are so remote from that time, we have so little knowledge of the language in which it was written, have so imperfect an account of the history of those ages, know nothing of their customs, forms of speech and the several periods they might have by which they reckoned their time, that it is rather a wonder that we should understand so much of it, than that many passages in it should be so dark to us. The chief use it has to us Christians is, that from writings which the Jews acknowledge to be divinely inspired, it is manifest the Messiah was promised before the destruction of their temple; which being done long ago, and these prophecies agreeing to our Saviour, and none other; here is a great confirmation given to the gospel. But though many things in these books could not be understood by us, who lived about three thousand

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