Prophecies are permanent miracles, whose authority is sufficiently confirmed by their completion, and are, therefore, solid proofs of the supernatural origin of a religion, whose truth they were intended to testify; such as those which I have already mentioned to be found in various parts of the Scriptures relative to the coming of the Messiah, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the unexampled state, in which the Jews have ever since continued; all so circumstantially descriptive of the events, that they seem rather histories of past, than predictions of future transactions. And whoever will seriously consider the immense distance of time between some of them, and the events which they foretell; the uninterrupted chain, by which they are connected for many thousand years; how exactly they correspond with those events, and how totally unapplicable they are to all other events in the history of mankind; I say, whoever considers these circumstances, will scarcely be persuaded to believe they can be the productions of preceding artifice, or posterior application, or can entertain the least doubt of their being derived from supernatural inspiration.

In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object; and contain ideas

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ideas of God and of man, of the present, and of
a future life; and of the relations which all
these bear to each other, totally unheard of, and
quite dissimilar from any which had ever been
thought of, previous to its publication. No
other ever drew so just a portrait of this world,
and its pursuits, nor exhibited such distinct,
lively, and exquisite pictures of the joys of an-
other; of the resurrection of the dead; the last
judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in
that tremendous day, "When this corruptible
shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall
put on immortality."*
No other has ever at-
tempted to reconcile those seemingly contradic-
tory, but both true propositions, the contingency
of future events, and the fore-knowledge of
God; or the free will of the creature, with the
over-ruling grace of the Creator. No other has
so fully declared the certainty of punishment to
wickedness, yet so effectually instructed indivi-
duals to resist the one, and to escape the other.
In short, the whole is so far removed from every
tract of the human imagination, that it seems
utterly impossible it should ever have been derived
from the knowledge, or the artifice of man.

Many

* 1 Corinthians.

+ Jenyns.

Many of the ancients, it may be said, believed in a future state, even long before the coming of Christ. True, they did so. But what were their ideas of a future state even in the Augustan age? Cicero,-(and to what higher authority can we appeal?) shall answer for the rest. In his oration for Cluentius, he makes mention of an abandoned miscreant, who had forged I know not how many wills; murdered I know not how many wives; and perpetrated a thousand other villainies; yet, even to this profligate, by name Oppianicus, he is persuaded death was not the occasion of any evil. "Nam nunc quidem quid tandem mali illi mors attulit? Nisi forte ineptiis ac fabulis ducimur, ut existememus apud inferos impiorum supplicia perferre, ac plures illic offendisse inimicos quam hic reliquisse, quæ si falsa sint, id quod omnes intelligunt, &c." Even those who had some sort of idea of a future state, had no manner of expectation of such a life, as included in it the severity of punishment denounced in the Christian scheme against the wicked. *

But Cicero was right, it is said. For is it not an absurdity to talk of a future state, where every proceeding is to be the reverse of what it is

at the present; where every individual human creature is to be tried; his most secret actions, nay, the very thoughts of his heart are to be laid open; and where sentence is to be pronounced accordingly* Such an existence can be consistently ascribed to no principle, but to the revenge of a being who punishes to the full extent of his power, without any regard to justice, and merely for the pleasure of punishing creatures who did not sin for the sake of offending him; creatures who had free will, and made wrong elections; creatures who might plead in mitigation of their punishments, their frailties, their passions, the imperfections of their natures, and the numerous temptations, to which they. stood exposed. But is not this miserably to apologize for sin? Were passions and temptations in this manner to be admitted as a sufficient excuse, even between man and man in this world, the most enormous crimes, and the greatest wickedness, would universally and incessantly be practised.

The Jews, says the same writer, blended together, in the moral character of God, injustice, cruelty, and partiality. But the Christians go still farther, and represent him as waiting to punish

punish hereafter with unrelenting vengeance and eternal torments, when it is even too late to terrify, because it is too late to reform. But what is, let me demand, the true source of all this angry declamation? Could Bolingbroke, or any of his disciples, ever point out an instance of any unbeliever, who, to be more at his ease, in the gratification of his desires, had professed himself a Christian; or a real Christian, who, to be more resolute in the principles of virtue, had become an unbeliever? No. It is not then that they are dissatisfied with the evidences of a future state; they are only dissatisfied with morality, or, to speak more tenderly, with the restraints on the passions, which alone can lead to an happy immortality. One of the initiated, indeed, candidly so expresses it. He aims, he says, save a soul from the dismal apprehensions of eternal damnation; to relieve a person from labouring under that uneasiness of mind, which he often is under, when pleasure and Christianity come in competition."

" to

But is it not whimsical, if, on so serious a subject, it does not deserve a harsher epithet, that the two authors, who have appeared most against Christianity, should be the very authors

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Letters from a Deist

who