When these learned Men faw fickness and frenzy cured, the dead raifed, the oracles put to filence, the Dæmons and evil fpirits forced to confefs themselves no Gods, by perfons who only made ufe of prayer and adjurations in the name of their crucified Saviour; how could they doubt of their Saviour's power on the like occafions, as reprefented to them by the traditions of the Church, and the writings of the Evangelifts?

IV. Under this head, I cannot omit that which appears to me a ftanding miracle in the three first Centuries, I mean that amazing and fupernatural courage or paticnes, which was fhewn by innumerable multitudes of Martyrs, in those flow and painful torments that were inflicted on them. I cannot conceive a man placed in the burning iron chair at Lions, amid the infults and mockeries of a crouded Amphitheatre, and ftill keeping his feat; or ftretched upon a grate of iron, over coals of fire, and breathing out his foul among the exquifite fufferings of fuch a tedious execution, rather than renounce his religion, or blafpheme his Saviour. Such trials feem to me above the strength of human nature, and able to over-bear duty, reafon, faith, conviction, nay, and the most abfolute certainty of a future ftate. Humanity, unaffifted in an extraordinary manner, must have fhaken off the prefent preffure, and have delivered itself out of fuch a dreadful distress, by any means that could have been fuggefted to it. We can easily imagine, that many perfons, in fo good a caufe, might have laid down their lives at the gibbet, the ftake, or the block:

but to expire leifurely among the most exquifite tortures, when they might come out of them, even by a mental reservation, or an hypocrify which was not without a poffibility of being followed by repentance and forgivenefs, has Lomething in it, fo far beyond the force and natural strength of mortals, that one cannot but think there was fome miraculous power to fupport the sufferer.

V. We find the Church of Smyrna, in that admirable letter which gives an account of the death of Polycarp their beloved Bishop, mentioning the cruel torments of other early Martyrs for Chriftianity, are of opinion, that our Saviour stood by them in a vifion, and perfonally converfed with them, to give them ftrength and comfort during the bitterness of their long-continued agonies; and we have the ftory of a young man, who, having suffered many tortures, escaped with life, and told his fellow-christians, that the pain of them had been rendered tolerable, by the presence of an Angel who stood by him, and wiped off the tears and fweat, which ran down his face whilst he lay under his fufferings. We are affured at leaft that the firft Martyr for Christianity was encouraged in his laft inoments, by a vifion of that divine perfon, for whom he fuffered, and into whose presence he was then haftening.

VI. Let any man calmly lay his hand upon his heart, and after reading these terrible conflicts in which the ancients Martyrs and Confeflors were engaged, when they paffed through fuch new inventions and varieties of pain, as tired their tormentors; and ask himself, how

ever zealous and fincere he is in his religion, whether under fuch acute and lingring tortures, he could ftill have held faft his integrity, and have profeffed his faith to the laft, without a fupernatural affiftance of fome kind or other. For my part, when I confider that it was not. an unaccountable obftinacy in a fingle man, or in any particular set of men, in fome extraordinary juncture; but that there were multitudes. of each fex, of every age, of different countries and conditions, who for near 300 years together made this glorious confeffion of their faith, in the midft of tortures, and in the hour of death I must conclude, that they were either of another make than men at prefent, or that they had fuch miraculous fupports as were peculiar to thofe times of Chriftianity, when without them perhaps the very name of it might have been extinguifhed.

VII. It is certain, that the deaths and sufferings of the primitive Chriftians had a great fhare in the converfion of thofe learned Pagans, who lived in the ages of Perfecution, which with fome intervals and abatements lafted near 300 years after our Saviour. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and others, tell us, that this first of all alarmed their curiofity, roufed their attention, and made them seriously inquifitive into the nature of that religion, which could endue the mind with fo much strength, and overcome the fear of death, nay raise an earnest defire of it, though it appeared in all its terrors. This they found had not been effected by all the doctrines of thofe Philofophers, whom they had thoroughly ftudied, and who had been labouring

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labouring at this great point. The fight of thefe dying and tormented Martyrs engaged them to fearch into the history and doctrines of him for whom they suffered. They more they fearched, the more they were convinced; till their conviction grew fo ftrong, that they themfelves embraced the fame truths, and either actually laid down their lives, or were always in a readiness to do it, rather than depart from them.

SEC

SECTION VIII.

1. The completion of our Saviour's prophecies confirmed Pagans in their belief of the Gofpel. II. Origen's obfervation on that of his Difciples being brought before Kings and Governors. III. On their being perfecuted for their religion; IV. On their preaching the Gospel to all nations; V. On the deftruction of Jerufalem, and ruin of the Jewish economy.

VI. Thefe arguments ftrengthened by what has happened fince Origen's time.

I.

THE

HE fecond of thofe extraordinary means, of great ufe to the learned and inquifitive Pagans of the three first Centuries, for evincing the truth of the history of our Saviour, was the completion of fuch prophecies as are recorded of him in the Evangelifts. They could not indeed form any arguments from what he foretold, and was fulfilled during his life, becaufe both the prophecy and the completion were over before they were published by the Evangelifts; though, as Origen obferves, what end could there be in forging fome of thefe predictions, as that of St. Peter's denying his mafter, and all his Difci

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ples