it might be conveyed to them. Beside that, in all questions of difficulty, as this must be confessed to be, men are apt rather to consult their ease, by taking up with the first plausible solution their invention may devise, than to submit to the labour of an accurate investigation of facts, and a circumspect deduction of consequences. The fact, however, that books were preserved in the heathen temples which contained true prophecies of Christ, rests, as I have shown you, upon the highest historical evidence. Nor does it rest alone upon the contents of those books which were preserved at Rome under the name of the Oracles of the Cumaan Sibyl; the same perhaps might be established by another work, which was of no less authority in the East, where it passed for the work of Hystaspes, a Persian Magus of high antiquity. I forbear however to exhaust your patience by pushing the inquiry any farther, and shall now dismiss the subject by cautioning you, not to take alarm at the names of a Sibyl or a Magus. I assert, not that any of the fabled Sibyls of the old mythology uttered true prophecies, but that some of the prophecies which were ascribed to Sibyls were true prophecies, which the ignorant heathens ascribed to those fabulous personages, when the true origin of them was forgotten. For Hystaspes, I will not too confidently assert that he was

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not the compiler of the writings which were current under his name; but I conceive he was only the compiler from originals of high authority. And a Magus, in the old sense of the word, had nothing in common with the impostors that are now called magicians. The Magi were wise men who applied themselves to the study of nature and religion. The religion of the Persians in the latest age that can be given to Hystaspes, if it was at all tainted with idolatry, was only tainted in the first degree. And even in much later times Eastern Magi were the first worshippers of Mary's holy Child; which should remove any prejudice the name of a Magus might create.

FOUR DISCOURSES

ON THE

NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE

BY WHICH THE FACT

OF OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION

IS ESTABLISHED.

SERMON I.

Acts, x. 40, 41.

"Him God raised up the third day, and shewed "him openly; not to all the people, but to wit"nesses chosen before of God.”

THE prop and pillar of the Christian's hope, (which being once removed the entire building would give way), is the great event which we at this season commemorate, the resurrection of our Lord; insomuch that the evidence of that fact may properly be considered as the seal of his pretensions, and of the expectation of his followers. If, notwithstanding the pure and holy life which Jesus led, the sublimity of the doctrine which he taught, and the natural excellence of the duties which he

enjoined; if after all the miracles which he per

M