if a Gentile, he found his idolatry and polytheism reprobated and condemned.  Whoever entertained the account, whether Jew or Gentile, could not avoid the following reflection:—­“If these things be true, I must give up the opinions and principles in which I have been brought up, the religion in which my fathers lived and died.”  It is not conceivable that a man should do this upon any idle report or frivolous account, or, indeed, without being fully satisfied and convinced of the truth and credibility of the narrative to which he trusted.  But it did not stop at opinions.  They who believed Christianity acted upon it.  Many made it the express business of their lives to publish the intelligence.  It was required of those who admitted that intelligence to change forthwith their conduct and their principles, to take up a different course of life, to part with their habits and gratifications, and begin a new set of rules and system of behaviour.  The apostles, at least, were interested not to sacrifice their ease, their fortunes, and their lives for an idle tale; multitudes beside them were induced, by the same tale, to encounter opposition, danger, and sufferings.

If it be said, that the mere promise of a future state would do all this; I answer, that the mere promise of a future state, without any evidence to give credit or assurance to it, would do nothing.  A few wandering fishermen talking of a resurrection of the dead could produce no effect.  If it be further said that men easily believe what they anxiously desire; I again answer that in my opinion, the very contrary of this is nearer to the truth.  Anxiety of desire, earnestness of expectation, the vastness of an event, rather causes men to disbelieve, to doubt, to dread a fallacy, to distrust, and to examine.  When our Lord’s resurrection was first reported to the apostles, they did not believe, we are told, for joy.  This was natural, and is agreeable to experience.

VII.  We have laid out of the case those accounts which require no more than a simple assent; and we now also lay out of the case those which come merely in affirmance of opinions already formed.  This last circumstance is of the utmost importance to notice well.  It has long been observed, that Popish miracles happen in Popish countries; that they make no converts; which proves that stories are accepted when they fall in with principles already fixed, with the public sentiments, or with the sentiments of a party already engaged on the side the miracle supports, which would not be attempted to be produced in the face of enemies, in opposition to reigning tenets or favourite prejudices, or when, if they be believed, the belief must draw men away from their preconceived and habitual opinions, from their modes of life and rules of action.  In the former case, men may not only receive a miraculous account, but may both act and suffer on the side, and, in the cause, which the miracle supports, yet not act or suffer for the