to take it at its lowest, the reasons on the one hand are not much stronger, than they are on the other. For I found he was so possessed with the general conceit, that a mixture of knaves and fools had made all extraordinary things easily believed, that it carried him away to determine the matter, without so much as looking on the histori cal evidence for the truth of Christianity, which he had not inquired into, but had bent all his wit and study to the support of the other side.

As for that, that believing is at best but an opinion; if the evidence be but probable, it is so . but if it be such that, it can not be questioned, it grows as certain as knowledge. For we are no less certain, that there is a great town called Constanti nople, the seat of the Ottoman empire, than that there is another called London. have as little doubt, that queen Elizabethonce reigned, as that king Charles now reigns in England. So that believing may

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be as certain, and as little subject to doubt. ing, 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 foretelling 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 of Jerusalem, 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 else 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 evidence, 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 per

haps 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 comprehend.

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