"me to do." How does the following part of our Saviour's prayer explain this, that he had finished the work which God gave him to do? Why, ver. 6, 7, 8. he adds. “ I have "manifested thy name unto the men which "thou gavest me out of the world; and they "have kept thy word. They have known, "that all things whatsoever thou haft given "me, are of thee. For I have given unto "them the words which thou gavest unto me, "and they have received them, and have “known furely that I came out from thee, "and they have believed that thou didst fend "me." The 12th verfe is still more express to our purpose; for there our Saviour adds, "while I was with them in the world, I kept "them in thy name: those that thou gavest "me, I have kept, and none of them is loft, "but the fon of perdition." And ver. 18. "As thou haft fent me into the world, even "fo have I also sent them into the world." So that our Saviour feems to me, in the parts of this prayer which are contained in the 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, and 18th verses, to explain the meaning of his " finishing the work that God "had given him to do," in the 4th verfe, to be that he had trained and prepared his apoftles for their high and important trust:" which if they discharged as they ought, they would answer. effectually all the ends for which he came into the world; and bring thofe, 66 of thofe, by the glory of which he had given "them, the fame glory which the Father had given him," ver. 22. (that is, the power the Holy Ghost 1) "to believe on him "through their word," who had not believed in his own. And as we may gather from thefe parts of our Saviour's prayer laid together, that the training up his apoftles was the work, or the main work, that God had given him to do (it was all, except the few other disciples he made); fo he expreffly fays, ver. 19. that it is for their fakes that he dies: "And for their fakes I fanctify myself, "that they also may be fanctified through "me." As if he had faid, "As the main bu "finefs of my life has been to instruct and train up these my apostles, and my apostles, and prepare them "for the miffion I fhall foon give them; fo "it is a principal defign of giving myself up as a facrifice, that I may enable them by my death, and what will follow it, my re“surrection, afcenfion, and the sending of the Holy Ghoft, to preach with fuccefs, and "spread my kingdom in the world." For as the Father fent him, fo fent he them," and as the Father "had appointed him the kingdom, fo did he appoint the kingdom to "them." And as foon as he was to be fet 66 h John i. 14. Ibid. xx. 21. on 66 on, or raised to, “ the throne of his glory," they were "to fit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Ifrael." What words can well raise our idea of the office of the apoftles higher, than that Jefus lived and died to prepare them for the due discharge of that truft? And as I think all the foregoing confiderations of the apoftolick office lead us naturally to reflect on the importance of that office; fo they will enable us to give the fulleft anfwer to a queftion, that Celfus put to the christians; and which, at firft fight, feems as puzzling as any question that was ever put to them: namely, why Jefus appeared only to a few, after his refurrection, and thofe his friends; but did not fhew himself to the perfons who had infulted and crucified him; to Pilate who had condemned him; and to the Jewish nation, who disbelieved him? But this confideration lets us fee, that his fhewing himself to his disciples only, and making his apostles the only witneffes (among his difciples) of it to the world, who were thus vouched in their teftimony, by the gifts of the Spirit; was a ftronger evidence to the truth of the refurrection of Chrift, and the other facts which related to him, and liable to lefs cavil and exception, than his appearing publickly after his refurrection to his enemies, VOL. II. 1 Matt. xix. 28. H and and to the Jewish nation, could have been. For could his appearing to them have proved, that he had been actually dead, though now alive, fo ftrongly as thefe twelve witneffes faying, that they faw him, and heard him, eat and drank, and converfed with him forty days after his refurrection from the dead, according to his own prediction? who (befides having all the characters of competent and faithful witneffes) could prove the truth of what they teftified (and convince mankind, that their Mafter had told them nothing but what was true) by the gifts of the Holy Ghoft; which they, having received from him after his afcenfion, excercifed, and imparted to believers. Befides, that the wifdom of this method of attesting and proving the truth of thefe facts, is farther confpicuous in this, that the witneffes of these facts were the teachers of the doctrines of Chrift; and that thereby the fame evidence confirmed both the facts and the doctrines of his religion; and they mutually corroborated one another. So that, without mentioning other confiderations, and particularly the peculiar fitncfs of this method to tranfmit the facts and doctrines of chriftianity to future ages, it was for very wife reasons, that (as St. Peter fays) “God fhewed Chrift openly, after he had "raifed him from the dead, not unto all the people, but unto witneffes chosen before of 66 "God, "God, even to us (apostles), who did eat and "drink with him, after he arofe from the "dead." And he commanded them to preach "unto the people, and to teftify that he was "he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and ofthe dead";" which was what our Saviour himself foretold ", when he tells his apoftles," yet a little while, and "the world feeth me no more: but ye fee " me." I do not pretend to give this as the only answer that can be given to the objection of Celfus. What we have full and unqueftionable teftimony for, we must receive; though we have not the conviction of our senses to confirm it; or could not account why that conviction was not afforded us. But I mention this answer, only as a corollary that refults from what I have faid, of the great powers of the apostles: and I do not offer at other anfwers, because it would divert me from my defign. It is for that reafon, and two others, that I have not mentioned the integrity of the apoftles, as witneffes; though their integrity appears fo fully, in the manifeft difinterestednefs and holinefs of their lives. One of the other reasons is, that this integrity is not peculiar to the apoftles, but common with them to all the first chriftians. The other John xiv. 19. m Acts x. 40-43. n H 2 of + |