traces of a Superior Providence; we cannot but acknowledge that the iner plicable propagation of Christianity is a feal of the truth of the hiftory of the New Teftament, and, I dare pronounce, of the divine origin of its religion! A Summary Recapitulation, and Conclufion, of the Credibility of the New Teftament. THUS by the calm and temperate language in which the writers of the New Testament relate their history, we become prejudiced in their favour. They do not declaim on Jefus, they deliver over him no panegyrics; but they let him act and fpeak. And they inform us of his actions, particularly his miracles, in the moft fimple manner, without any laboured ornaments, without D D without any rhetorical amplification, and without any enthufiaftic eulogies; nay, without even any calm explication of what is great, and fupernatural therein. They are related with a ftriking fimplicity, exactly like the moft general and common-place circumftances. Thefe authors, as we have feen above, had every neceffary qualification in order to know with certainty the truth of what they relate. We cannot discover in them a single spark of Fanaticifm. It is impoffible that they could have been deceived in that of which they inform us; and still lefs were they deceivers: they who publifhed their history on the spot and at the time, where and when it happened; whose narration is in part remarkably confirmed by foreign authors; whofe writings contain in themselves fo many clear traces of truth; who oppofe every kind of deceit in their doctrines and and actions; who from their preaching had no temporal advantages to obtain, but probably all to lofe; who, laftly, even facrificed to their doctrine, reft,civil honour, and life. The character of these men is evidently the most noble and most amiable: open-hearted and honeft in their inftructions; mild and tolerant towards those who thought differently from themselves; ferene and focial in common intercourfe; affectionate towards their friends; generous towards their enemies-they undertake a life compofed of pure fatigue and difficulties, and fuffer contempt and torment, in order to promulgate a history and religion built thereon, which they confidered as the greatest bleffing of the world. And their preaching is attended with the moft wonderful effect. They are therefore not only credible; but they are so in a greater degree than a Tacitus; they are cre dible dible evidences in the higheft of all poffible degrees. So that either there is abfolutely no immediate revelation from God, or it is contained in the writings of the New Teftament. G THE EN D. Printed by Bye and Law, St. John's-Square, Clerkenwell. |