288 A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. the laws of princes, the torments and terrors of sword and fire, the utmost rage of men, and the spite of devils, over the craft of the heathen priests, the madness and superstition of the peo- ple; and all this without the force of arms, without the powers ofhuman learningand rhetoric, without the baits and allurements of this life, andwithout any of thoseaids which are wont to be thought necessary among men, for the propagation of a new religion. Surely this prodigious success and victory of the gos- pel, can be imputed rationally to nothing else but the finger of God ; and it difliases anew brightness and evidence around the religion of Jesus beyond what those who lived in the days of Christ could see or know. IV. Letit be remembered too, that this religion has now stood the test of the most severe and critical enquiries of its adversa- ries. It hasbeen searched and tried by the men of learning and wit and reasons in the several nations of the earth, for almost seventeen hundred years; and certainlya religion whichhas been brought to the test so often, and passed through such strict in- quisitions, and yet still maintains its ground, and that not only among the lower part of mankind, but among men of unbiassed minds, freedom of thought, and equal sense and reason to the best of its enemies, such a religion, I say, may justly be sup- posed to have acquired some further strength of evidence hereby. V. To all the other considerations this may be added, that perhaps the internal and innate evidences of the truth of the gospel, were never set in so powerful and convincing a light as in the present age: I mean such as arise from the excellency of its doctrines and precepts, rules and motives, from it perfect conformity to all the principles of natural religion, and from its supplying all the defects thereof, from its happy correspondence with all the perfections of God, and its all-sutïicient relief of the wants and miseries of fallen man, from its manifest tendency to the honour of God, and the well-being of man both here and hereafter, above all the religions that ever were known, believed or professed through all ages of the world. I can hardly suppose that ever this sort of evidence for' christianity was ever dis- played in any former age, in so large and full, so regular and harmonious a manner, as has been done by some of the in-_ genious christian writers of this age. And, in my opinion, this evidencemay be accounted equal to the mere eye-sight of one or two lesser miracles, at least in the esteem of the men of elegant thought and refined reason, such as our modern unbelievers would fain appear. - Upon the whole, though it be granted, that the evidence of the gospel of Christ as it stands in our day, doth not arise quite so high, nor give quiteso strong a foundation for our f iith, as it did for the faith of the apostles, who saw most of his
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