verse easily and fluently every where with SERM. I. the Persons, to whom they addressed themfelves, in their feveral respective Tongues. If it be faid that their Knowledge of Greek, alone might qualify them for this Undertaking, it being then an universal Language, and spoke, or at least understood every where; I answer, it is plain from a remarkable Place in Cafar's Commentaries *, that it was not: That great General writing to Quintus Cicero his Lieutenant in Greek, for Fear, if his Letter were intercepted, the Enemy should gain Intelligence of his Designs.

A Man must be either very careless or very laborious to be an Unbeliever. He muft labour very hard and ftruggle against Conviction to darken and pervert the strongeft Evidences, and to difcolour his genuine Senfe of Things: or he must have been fo careless as never to have spent any Thought at all upon the Matter, but have taken his Infidelity upon Truft and at fecond Hand. But to be a Believer, where there is fuch a Fulness of Evidence, is the most easy, natural State of the Mind.

* Lib. V. XLVIII. Edit. Davis, Polyani Stratagemat. Lib. VIII. Cap xx111.

SERM. I.

I have now dispatched the first and second Heads of my Difcourfe, as far as the Time would permit, and haften

IIIdly, To conclude with a short Reflection on the Importance of Christianity, and our Infenfibility of it's juft Value.

1

If there be no future State of Happiness, of what Avail is it to think, or pretend to think freely? Unlimited Range and Freedom of Thought may be the Cry; but the Aim of every wife Man fhould in that Cafe be Freedom from Thought; fince every Thought, that he could send abroad, would bring Home this melancholy Truth; that he was a miserable Creature, ever importunate in his Demands for Happiness, but never to have thofe Demands fatisfied. But if there be a future State of Felicity, then Revelation must be of the utmost Importance to ascertain to us, what, when and where, and how long it is to be, and that the present State is our final State of Trial. Christianity, however important, has now been long a familiar and common Bleffing, and has undergone the Misfortune of all other common Bleffings, to be difregarded merely because it is fo. To retrieve a juft, or

what

what is the fame Thing, a great Efteem for SERM. I. it, as pure and unadulterated; it seems as if it were neceffary that fome grofs Corruption of Religion fhould be fubftituted for a while in it's ftead: as Sickness, or a Body full of Wounds and putrifying Sores, makes us know, how to value, what we neglected before, the Bleffings of Health and a vigorous Constitution. Chriftianity is like an Object held too close and near to us to be viewed in the best Light; it must be removed to fome Distance from us, to be seen by us in the most advantageous Point of View. Then, however infenfible we may be of it's abfolute Value or Excellence, we shall at least discern it's comparative Worth; it's Worth compared with Mahometism, Enthusiasm and Paganifm. It certainly is the most heavenly Religion that ever was, tending most of all to raise our Affections to Heaven, and therefore most worthy of the peculiar Interpofition of Heaven, and most likely to have come down from Heaven, from that Being, from whom every good and perfect Gift defcendeth. To whom Father, Son and Holy Ghost be afcribed, &c.

SERMON

Improbabilities not fufficient to invalidate Moral Certainty.

Preached before the University of Oxford. And afterwards at the Vifitation at Andover, Sept. 11, 1745.

HEBREWS X. 23.

Let us hold fast the Profeffion of our Faith without wavering: for he is faithful that promised.

H

WOW a Man may qualify him- SERM. II. felf, fo as to be able to fettle

his Principles and fix his Senti"ments in Religious Matters; and then to "enjoy Tranquillity of Mind, neither di

sturbing others, nor being greatly disturb"ed at what paffes among them?" is a very interefting Query; and it were to be wished that the Author *, from whom,

* See Wollafton's Religion of Nature, page 1. Queft. 3.