supported by the unanimous testimony of such persons who lived in those very times, and were eyewitnesses of them, all historic evidence must rest on so sandy a foundation as to be utterly insupportable by human testimony. There can remain no one rational and steady principle to direct us in judging of any past events represented to us in writing," p. 55. This, then, is the sum of the proof used by these writers for the continuation of miracles in the Church after the days of the apostles,"presumptive evidence," which makes it reasonable to expect them in those times; and "positive testimony," which expressly asserts them.

XXVIII. This presumptive evidence, as displayed by Mr Brook, for the three first ages, consists of the following arguments: 1. "If the hand of God did continue to co-operate visibly with the saints of the apostolic age, throughout the whole ministry of all the apostles, it is not likely that this extraordinary providence should vanish instantaneously, and leave the Gospel to make the rest of its way by its own genuine strength. Such a supposition is utterly inconsistent with the natural notions we have of God's proceedings, as well as with what is revealed about them. Whenever the Supreme Being works any changes in nature, those changes are always made, not on a sudden, but in time, and by slow degrees; and in all the dispensations of His providence to the sons of men, as far as we know from reason only, the method of His proceedings is not hasty and violent, but ever gentle and gradual."

"The Jewish religion was established by an extraordinary providence. The divine interpositions in favour of that people were very frequent and notorious, till they had got quiet possession of the promised land, and till their whole polity, civil as well as religious, was effec

tually established; but even, though such extraordinary interpositions became less frequent, they were not totally withdrawn; God still continued to show among His peculiar people, at certain times, visible and supernatural tokens of His almighty power and overruling providence. And afterwards, in the days of Elijah and Elisha, when the frequency of these divine interpositions was renewed, it did not vanish instantaneously at the death of these two prophets; it was gradually withdrawn. Why, then, should it be thought an improbable thing that God should act in the same manner in defence and support of the Christian religion? What reason is there to suppose that He should be more favourable to the religious dispensation of Moses than to that of His own Son?"

2. "Had the miraculous powers been immediately withdrawn upon the death of the apostles, this must have been of the greatest prejudice to religion; for, by this means, the Gospel must have been left in a naked and defenceless state, to become a prey to the prejudices, to the malice, and to the outrage of men. The immediate successors of the apostles must have fallen into the utmost discouragement, discontent, and despondency of mind, seeing they had the same difficulties to struggle with as those before them, from a malicious and perverse world; and yet perceiving they had none of those powers and assistances to relieve and support them, which had been of late so liberally bestowed upon the disciples of Jesus in the preceding age. What an obstruction must this experience have occasioned to the furtherance of the Gospel? What an aversion to it must it have caused in some? What apostasy in others? What dejection, what murmuring, what despair in all?" "Let a man seriously and impartially reflect on these things, and then judge whether it be not probable, that

the same extraordinary providence which accompanied the apostles and other Christians upon the first preaching of the gospel, continued to exert itself in their favour during the whole ministry of the apostles; and whether, upon the death of them, it is likely that it should cease at once, and not rather that it visibly resided in the Christian Church some time afterwards, and was at last gradually withdrawn, as the real exigencies of the Church were constantly and by degrees lessening, and the continuance of it made by that means less and less necessary."

3. "The necessity of divine interpositions in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs in those earlier ages of the Church, make it reasonable to believe that the same extraordinary providence by which these things were regulated during the lives of the apostles, did continue to direct and encourage the Christians some time afterwards. It was a thing of the greatest consequence in the infancy of the Gospel, that no person should be admitted to any high office in the Church but such only as were properly qualified. Nothing could have given greater offence to the Christian converts; nothing could have brought a more just imputation upon the apostles themselves, or have been a more reasonable obstruction to the success of their labours, both among Jews and Gentiles, than to have observed such persons dignified with the most eminent parts of the ministry, who were either of bad principles or exceptionable conduct."

Now this could never have been avoided, except either "the apostles had been endowed with some extraordinary powers in making choice of pastors to succeed them, or some visible manifestations of the Spirit of God had appeared at their appointment;" as

was the case when Saul and Barnabas were separated by the Holy Ghost for the work to which He called them, or that the persons chosen had been eminent for their extraordinary graces, and endowed with power from above, as were Stephen and Philip, the deacons. As, therefore, the same necessity of holy pastors continued for the ages after the apostles which had been in their days, "May we not fairly conclude, from the great expediency and necessity of the thing, that the immediate successors of the apostles were assisted by the same extraordinary means, and possessed of the same extraordinary powers? Is it to be imagined that the providence of God, which was so profuse of its extraordinary gifts and miraculous powers during the lives of the apostles, as even to impart them to numbers of the laity and the lowest of the people, should immediately, after their deaths, become so sparing of them, as to refuse them even to the most eminently distinguished among the Christians for their superior piety and virtue, and to whom the whole management of the church discipline, and the defence and support of the Christian cause, were entirely committed ?"

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4. The circumstances of those times confirm all the above: "The Christians were surrounded on all sides with the most inveterate enemies, and situated in the midst of a people wholly devoted to the grossest and most determined bigotry and superstition, and totally abandoned to the greatest profligacy of manners. doctrines of the Christians, which have so great a contrariety to the passions and prejudices of men, exposed them everywhere to the greatest ignominy and contempt, and brought on them a train of the severest calamities which the most virulent malice, inflamed and exasperated with the most outrageous zeal, as well civil

as religious, could contrive. Now, if ever God has visibly interposed in the affairs of men, is it to be supposed that, in such circumstances, this same almighty Being would suffer His most faithful servants to be exposed to such cruelty, merely on account of their fidelity to Him, without giving them any manifestations of His power and presence for their comfort and support?" Or how is it possible that His religion should have subsisted without them?

How much less possible that it should, in these circumstances, have made proselytes of its very enemies, and triumphed at last over all its adversaries, if it had not been supported by visible interpositions of the divine approbation? Human nature, left to itself, must have sunk under the pressure of such a complication of misery, and been at last absolutely overpowered by such heavy and weighty calamities. Under these circumstances, therefore, nothing appears sufficient to account for the uncommon progress of the Christian religion, but frequent and visible interpositions of the Deity. Doctor Middleton allows, in his preface, that, "in the first planting of the gospel, miraculous powers were wanted to enable the apostles the more easily to overrule the inveterate prejudices, both of Jews and Gentiles, and to bear up against the discouraging shocks of popular rage and persecution." May it not then reasonably be presumed that the same extraordinary powers were continued after the days of the apostles, while the same, and even greater prejudices existed, and while the popular rage and persecutions were even more violent?

5. The conduct of the primitive martyrs is another striking proof; their courage, constancy, and patience, accompanied with that astonishing spirit of meekness,

VOL. II.

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