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SERM. 1.7
INWARD WITNESS
TO
CIiRISTIANITY.
with such bold questions
as
these,
How
do you
know
that
christianity
is
the
true
religion
?
What
tokens
have you
to skew
that
it
came
from
God?
If
you
have
no other answer to make,
but that
it
is
the
religion
of
your
country,
that
you
were born
and
bred
up in
it,
tLink
with
yourselves
how
your spirits
will
be
surprised,
your
comforts languish,
and
all
your
high
-built
hopes
totter
to
the ground
;
_unless
the
Spirit of God,
by
his
uncom-
mon and sovereign
grace,
should
give in
an answer to
the temptation, and
by
some
immediate and convincing
argument support your faith
:
but if
you
are
negligent to
lay a good
foundation at
first,
you have no
reason
to ex-
pect
such
a
divine favour.
Let
the
importance
of
this
concern therefore keep
your
attention
awake, while
I
briefly
run
over
some
of
the
proofs
of
christianity,
and thus lead you
down
to the
surest
and best
of
them, which
is
contained
in
my
text.
Many
are the outward
testimonies
which
God bath
given to
the gospel
of
his
Son;
many witnesses have
confirmed
it
from the time
that
Christ appeared
in
the
flesh,
to the day when
St.
John
wrote this epistle.
If
we
trace
his life
from the
cradle
in
the
manger
to
his
cross
and the
grave,
we
shall
find
the
rays
of
divinity still
shining
round
his
doctrine and
his works,
still
pointing
to
his
person, and proving
his commission with
a con-
vincing and
resistless light.
At
his
birth the witnessing
angels
appeared
in much brightness, and while the
Son
of
God
lay
an infant
below, his
record
was on
high; for
there appeared
a strange
new
star, and
was his
witness
in heaven.
The
wise
men
of
the east were
his witnesses,
when they came
from
afar, and paid
tributes and
offer-
ings,
gold
and incense to the God, the
king
of
Israel.
Simeon
and Anna
in the
temple,
by
the
spirit of prophecy
witnessed
to the holy
child
Jesus.
And the
doctors
with
whom
he
disputed
at
twelve
years
old, were his
witnesses
that
there
was
something
in him
more
than
man. At
his
baptism the
Father
and Spirit witnessed to
the Son
of
God
;
they told the world
that
this
was
He,
the Messiah
The Father
by
a
voice from heaven,
saying,
This
is
my
beloved Son
in
whom
I
am
well
-
pleased; and
the
Spirit
descending upon
him like
a
dove. His
life was
a
life
of
wonders,
and each
of
them witnessed to
the
truth
of
his