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be exploded as fallacious and uncertain. SERM. I. No proper Measures can be taken, upon this Suppofition, to prevent a Rebellion, to crush it in it's Infancy, or to make a Head against it, when become formidable. We must not believe any Thing that we hear, however concerning it may be to ourselves, and however well attefted by Perfons fuperior to any finister Designs; and thus Wifdom would be quite fhut out at one great Entrance. We cannot depreciate Moral Certainty without ftriking at the Belief of an over-ruling Providence. For there can be no Providence, unless there be an orderly Course of Things and fome regular Plan which takes place. One would not chufe to live in a World where there was no Order, no Principle of mutual Trust and focial Union, no Dependence of one Perfon upon another. One would not chuse to fit out a Play, where the Drama was ill conducted; where every Thing was difjointed, without any Unity of Design, or Connection of one Thing with another. The Truth is, Men cannot, were they never fo much inclined to it in all Cafes, act up to that Principle, by Virtue of which fome reject Christianity. They cannot, without always putting a Force upon Na

ture.

Now Nature has a Kind of Elafticity and Spring, by which it recovers itself, when it is violently preffed and a Force put B 4

upon

SERM. I.

upon

it. If Matter of Fact, Sense and Experience were not too hard for all the ingenious and fubtle Reasonings, which Men of Leifure and Parts may invent against almost any Thing whatever, we should be in perpetual Danger of running into univerfal. Scepticism.

By acting then upon fuch Grounds and Principles, as those whereon Christianity is tounded, we act agreeably to the Laws of Nature; our focial Nature ; and confequently exprefs our Duty to the Author of our Nature and it's Laws: in other Words, we act religiously, virtuously, and rationally.

If Mankind be rational Beings, the Welfare of Mankind must be the Welfare of a rational Nature; and therefore the Laws which advance it must be founded in Reafon; nor can their Authority be refifted by any Thing but what is at the fame Time oppofite to Reason, and therefore to Truth: Confequently, the Denial of Moral Evidence as well as of Immorality, must be contrary to Truth and Reafon; because the Denial in both Cafes would be fubverfive of human Happiness and ruinous in its Confequences.

Nay if fome Perfons of the first Distinction in the Philofophical World reason justly; the Evidence of the Truth of our Senfes is placed upon no better Foundation, than that of the Truth of Christianity. For they

argue

argue thus; there being no ftrict Demon- SERM. I.
ftration that Bodies exift, or that there is
a material World, the only Argument that
feems to have the Force of one, is this; it
is evident God cannot deceive us by Ap-
pearances instead of Realities; it is evident
he does delude us every Moment, if there
be no Bodies; it is evident therefore there
must be Bodies. Whatever Weight this
Kind of arguing may have, it is fully as
conclufive in Favour of Moral Evidence,
and confequently, of what is founded upon
Moral Evidence, the Truth of Chriftiani-
ty. It admits of no Difpute, that we are
obliged to be determined by the Laws of our
Nature, which are in the laft Refort the
Laws of God; and that the Deity has laid
us under a Neceffity of clofing with moral
Proofs. Now the Deity can no more lay
us under a moral Neceffity of fubmitting
to an unavoidable Delufion in Affairs of a
moral Nature, than he can fubject us to a
perpetual Deception, as to the Reports of
the Senfes. Therefore Moral Evidence,
when compleat in its Kind, can no more
delude us, than the Perception of the Senses
can be altogether delufory. Nay Evidence
of this Nature, though not fo ftriking,
seems for etimes equivalent to that of Sense,
and is productive of as undoubted an As-
furance. But this brings me to fhew

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SERM. I.

IIdly, That there is fuch a Sufficiency of Evidence for Christianity, that we cannot, confiftently with Reafon, refuse to be determined by it.

There are as ftrong Proofs, that Jefus and his Apoftles wrought Miracles, as that fuch Men ever exifted. And the only Reason, why few or none difpute their Existence, whereas feveral deny the Reality of their Miracles, is; that their Existence confidered apart from Circumftances relative to us, is an uninteresting Point; and, nothing depending upon it, Reason is left in it's full Freedom to determine as it fees Evidence. But the Miracles being wrought to establish a Religion, by which we are to be faved or condemned; the Paffions immediately take the Alarm, and are up in Arms as against an Enemy that is come to difturb their Repofe, and reduce their exorbitant Power. For the Refistance to Truth bears generally an exact Proportion to it's Weight or Moment.

It is idle for the Deifts to run out into long Declamations against Historical Evidence; that it is in many Cafes precarious and uncertain; that Hiftorians give different, and fometimes contradictory Reports of the very fame Action. This is only to empty their Quiver in the Air without aiming at a certain Mark. It is to discharge their Artillery against Hiftorical Evidence

at

at large, without levelling it against the SERM. I. particular Point in Debate: the Question not being, whether Hiftorical Evidence may not be fometimes uncertain and inconclufive? but whether any Evidence can be fo, that is fo circumftanced as that for Christianity is? Where, if there had been any Imposture, it was utterly impoffible but that the Imposture must have been discovered and the World undeceived. Thousands

could not have been converted to Chriftianity, and have died for it, unless it had carried the strongest Conviction with it. For Men will not embrace a new Inftitution, fubverfive of every other, in Oppofition to their former Prejudices and worldly Inte refts, without very forcible Proofs. Miraculous Facts said to be done in the Eye of the World for a Course of Years, before a great Number of Witneffes, before Enemies as well as Friends (not to confirm an established Religion, but to build a new one upon the Ruins of the former) could not have been believed to be true, if they were not so, by those, who lived at that Juncture; and in those public Places where they pretended to work them; fuch as Jerufalem, Ephefis, Antioch, Corinth, &c. For a Set of Men to endeavour to deceive the World in fuch an aftonishing manner, would have been looked upon as an audacious and unparallelled Attempt to impose upon the Senfes of Man

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