it is not felf-evident, that all who come from the dead are infpired: and yet farther than this you cannot go; for it is not fuppofed that your man from the dead works miracles. The miffion of

Christ we prove by prophecies, and their completion; by the figns and wonders he wrought by the hand of God; by his refurrection, which includes both kinds, being in itself a great miracle, and likewife the completion of a prophecy: which circumstance, as was before obferved, adds great weight to his authority. Befides, we are often urged to fhew, that the authors of our religion were free from interest and defign, and that our faith is not founded in the politics of cunning and artificial men; and we must defire you to do the fame good office for the prophet who comes from the dead. As for ourselves, we appeal to the known hiftory of those who were founders of our religion: there you may find them perfecuted, afflicted, and tormented: their gain was misery; their recompenfe, hatred from the world; and their end, in the eyes of men, was deftruction. proofs of their worldly cunning and results of their deep laid defigns. But how will you fupport the fufpected credit of one from the dead? He comes, and tells his ftory, goes off, and there is an end of him and unless you can prove there are no evil spirits, or no evil men dead, you cannot clear him from the fufpicion, nor fathom the depth of his defign: he appears to you like the wind, the found you hear; but whence it comes, or whither it goes, you know not. If you will liften to the evidences of the Gospel, we will fhew you in whom we have believed; we will fhew you men like our

of which

:

These are the policy, and the

selves, armed with the power of God, with innocence of life, with patience in all manner of affliction, and at laft fealing with their blood the truth of their miffion. But, if you cannot digeft this evidence, in vain do you call out for help from the other world; for neither would you be perfuaded though one rofe from the dead. And this will farther appear,

Thirdly, by confidering the temper of infidelity: for where unbelief proceeds, as generally it does, from a vitiated and corrupted mind, which hates to be reformed; which rejects the evidence, because it will not admit the doctrine, not the doctrine, because it cannot admit the evidence; in this cafe all proofs will be alike, and it will be loft labour to ply fuch a man with reafon or new evidence, fince it is not want of reafon or evidence that makes him an unbeliever. And this cafe chiefly our Saviour feems to have in his view; for the request to Abraham to fend one from the dead was made in behalf of men who lived wantonly and luxurioufly; who, as the Pfalmift expreffes it, had not God in all their thoughts. The rich man in torment could think of no better expedient to rescue his brethren from the danger they were in of coming into the fame condition with himself, than fending one from the dead to admonish them, and to give them a faithful account how matters ftood there, and how it fared with him. To which Abraham anfwers, that they had already fufficient evidence of these things; that they wanted no means of knowledge, if they would make use of those they had: They have Mofes and the prophets, let them hear them. But ftill he infifts, Nay, Father Abraham; but if one went unto them from

the dead, they will repent. Then follows the text, which is the laft refolution of this cafe, If they hear not Mofes and the prophets, neither will they be perfuaded though one rofe from the dead. And indeed where infidelity is the effect of such profligate wickedness, it deserves not fo much regard from God, as that he should condefcend to make particular applications to it by new lights and evidences: and fhould he do it, there is reafon to fufpect it would be ineffectual. We fee, in the ordinary courfe of providence, many judgments beftowed upon finners to reclaim and amend them; but they harden themfelves against them; fo that their last ftate is worse than their firft. I will not anfwer for the courage of finners, how well they would bear the fight of one from the dead; nay, I am apt to imagine it would strangely terrify and amaze them. But to be frightened and to be perfuaded are two things: nature would recover the fright, and fin would recover ftrength, and the great fright might come to bẹ matter of ridicule. How eafy would it be, when the fright was over, to compare this event with the many ridiculous stories we have of apparitions, and to come at length to miftruft our own fenfes, and to conclude that we were mifled, like a man in a dark night who follows an ignis fatuus? And, what is worse, when the infidel had once conquered his own fears, and got loose again from the thoughts of religion, he would then conclude, that all religion is made up of that fear which he felt himself, which others cannot get rid of, though he fo manfully and happily fubdued it. You may think it perhaps impoffible, that a man should not be convinced by

fuch an appearance: the fame I believe you would think of the judgments which befel Pharaoh, that it is hardly poffible any man fhould withstand them; and yet you fee he did: nay, did not the guards, who were eyewitneffes of our Saviour's refurrection; who faw the angel that rolled away the ftone from the mouth of the fepulchre; who fhook and trembled with fear, and became as dead men; did not they, after all this, receive money to deny all they faw, and to give false evidence against the perfon they beheld coming from the grave? So, you fee, it is in the nature of man to withstand fuch evidences, where the power of fin is prevalent.

Befides, there are many finners, who are not infidels: they may believe Mofes and the prophets, though they will not hear them, that is, obey them. Now fhould one come from the dead to these men, the moft they could do would be to believe him : but that does not imply their obeying him; for they believe Mofes and the prophets, Chrift and his Apostles, and yet obey not them; and why should obedience be the confequence of belief in one case more than another? There can be no greater arguments for obedience than the Gofpel affords; and therefore he who believes the Gospel, and difobeys it, is out of hope to be reformed by any other evidence. So that, confidering this cafe with respect to all manner of infidels or finners, there is reafon in our Saviour's judgment; If they will not hear Mofes and the prophets, neither will they be perfuaded though one rofe from the dead.

And hence perhaps we may learn the reason, why this fort of intercourfe between the other world and

this is fo very rare and uncommon, because it could ferve no good end and purpose; for God having already given a fufficient evidence of all things which we are concerned to know, there is no room to expect or hope for fuch kinds of admonition. He fent the greatest person of the other world to us, his own Son, and fent him too from the dead: he has come himself down to us in figns and wonders and mighty works: and why he should send a man from the dead to tell you, what is legible in the book of nature, what he, his Son, his Apostles and Prophets have already told you, you that can give the reason, give it.