felves had been eye-witneffes of it at feveral times, and in feveral inftances; nay appeal to the heathens themselves for the truth of feveral facts they relate, nay challenge them to be prefent at their affemblies, and fatisfy themselves, if they doubt of it; nay we find that Pagan Authors have in fome instances confeffed this miraculous power.

III. The letter of Marcus Aurelius, whofe army was preferved by a refreshing fhower, at the fame time that his enemies were discomfited by a storm of lightning, and which the heathen hiftorians themselves allow to have been fupernatural and the effect of magic: I say, this letter, which afcribed this unexpected affiftance to the prayers of the Chriftians, who then ferved in the army, would have been thought an unquestionable teftimony of the miraculous power I am fpeaking of, had it been ftill preferved. It is fufficient for me in this place to take notice, that this was one of thofe miracles which had its influence on the learned Converts, because it is related by Tertullian, and the very letter appealed to. When these learned men faw fickness and frenzy cured, the dead railed, the ora

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cles put to filence, the Demons and evil fpirits forced to confefs themselves no Gods, by perfons who only made use of prayer and adjurations in the name of their cruc fied Saviour; how could they doubt of their Saviour's power on the like occafions, as reprefented to them by the traditions of the Church, and the writings of the Evangelifts?

IV. Under this head, I cannot omit that which appears to me a standing miracle in the three firft Centuries, I mean that amazing and fupernatural courage or patience, which was fhewn by innumerable multitudes of Martyrs, in those flow and painful torments that were inAlicted on them. I cannot conceive a man placed in the burning iron chair at Lyons, amid the infults and mockeries of a crouded Amphitheatre, and ftill keeping his feat; or ftretched upon a grate of iron, over coals of fire, and breathing out his foul among the exquifite fufferings of fuch a tedious execution, rather than renounce his religion, or blafpheme his Saviour. Such trials seem to me above the strength of human nature, and able to over-bear duty, reafon, faith, conviction, nay, and the most

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abfolute certainty of a future ftate. Humanity, unaffifted in an extraordinary manner, must have fhaken off the prefent preffure, and have delivered it felf out of fuch a dreadful diftrefs, by any means that could have been fuggefted to it. We can eafily imagine, that many perfons, in fo good a caufe, might have laid down their lives at the gibbet, the ftake, or the block: but to expire leifurely among the most exquifire tortures, when they might come out of them, even by a mental reservation, or an hypocrify which was not without a poffibility of being followed by repentance and forgiveness, has fomething in it fo, far beyond the force and natural ftrength of mortals, that one cannot but think there was fome miraculous power to support the fufferer.

V. We find the Church of Smyrna, in that admirable letter, which gives an account of the death of Polycarp their beloved Bishop, mentioning the cruel torments of other early Martyrs for Chriftianity, are of opinion, that our Saviour ftood by them in a vifion, and perfonally converfed with them, to give them ftrength and comfort during the bitter

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nefs of their long-continued agonies; and we have the ftory of a young man, who, having fuffered many tortures, efcaped with life, and told his fellow-chritians, that the pain of them had been rendred tolerable, by the presence of an Angel who stood by him, and wiped off the tears and fweat, which ran down his face whilft he lay under his fufferings. We are affured at leaft that the firft Martyr for Chriftianity was encouraged in his last moments, by a vifion of that divine perfon, for whom he suffered, and into whofe prefence he was then haftening.

VI. Let any man calmly lay his hand upon his heart, and after reading thefe terrible conflicts in which the ancient Martyrs and Confeffors were engaged, when they paffed through fuch new inventions and varieties of pain, as tired their tormentors; and ask himself, however zealous and fincere he is in his religion, whether under fuch acuté and lingring tortures he could ftill have held faft his integrity, and have profeffed his faith to the lait, without a fupernatural affistance of fome kind or other. For my part, when I confider that it was not an unaċcountable

countable obftinacy in a fingle man, or in any particular fet of men, in fome extraordinary juncture; but that there were multitudes of each fex, of every age, of different countries and conditions, who for near 300 years together made this glorious confeffion of their faith, in the midft of tortures, and in the hour of death I must conclude, that they were either of another make than men are at prefent, or that they had fuch miraculous fupports as were peculiar to those times of Christianity, when without them perhaps the very name of it might have been extinguished.

VII. It is certain, that the deaths and fufferings of the primitive Chriftians had a great share in the converfion of those learned Pagans, who lived in the ages of Perfecution, which with fome intervals. and abatements lafted near 300 years after our Saviour. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and others, tell us, that this first of all alarmed their curiofity, roufed their attention, and made them feriously inquifitive into the nature of that religion, which could endue the mind with lo much ftrength, and overcome the fear of death, nay raise an ear

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