and their appearing by this expensive proof to think so, is a strong argument for their sincerity; by which means it happens, that the more ignorant people among us have all the sagacity, penetration, and knowledge of the greatest men in the nation to judge with, concerning the genuineness of the Scriptures, and consequently, have more reason to pin their faith on the sleeves of their lay superiors, than on those of the clergy, who do not lose, as the lords and gentlemen do, but gain, by the Bible. The ignorant part of mankind derive still stronger assurances for their faith in Christianity from the writings of the greatest, the wisest, and best laymen that ever lived. Even kings have employed their pens on the Christian religion; and laymen, distinguished from the rest of the world by their wisdom and virtue, have rendered themselves no less illustrious by the strength and piety of their writings in defence, or explanation, of Christianity. Every Christian country hath produced numbers of these; and, in our own, Sir Matthew Hale, the honourable Mr. Boyle, Lord Nottingham, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Addison, and Sir Isaac Newton, are but a few out of many learned and judicious laymen, who have employed the finest talents, and the worthiest hearts, in the service of Christianity. Some of the writings of these great men are intelligible enough to the most ordinary capacities; and those of them, that are more learned and refined, demonstrate this at least, to the most ignorant, that their authors were Christians.

Dech. And pray, are these all the reasons ignorant people have for believing the Bible to be the word of God?

Shep. No; they can easily perceive, that to impose such a book on all the knowing part of the world for the word of God, if it were only the invention of men, had been a thing impossible; that this very book itself condemns such an imposition, and threatens it with the most dreadful denunciations; that many wise and excellent men died for the genuineness and free use of it in their own country, and not very long before their own times; and that no mortal they converse with, hath ever denied it to be the word of God; or, if any one hath done so, that he hath never assigned any reason for so doing, worthy in the least to be set in opposition to the grounds and reasons of their faith. But that plain and illiterate Christians have some other authority for

their faith in the gospel-history, than the mere word of their priests, is evident from hence, that in places where the ill lives of clergymen, and the continual outcry of the great ones against them, have taught- the common people to despise and distrust them, yet Christianity is not entirely laid aside. All the sensible and virtuous people of such places have so great confidence in its truth, and are so well satisfied with it, that they will go to church, hear a man preach (whom they regard as vile and worthless), join with him in the prayers, and take the sacrament from his hands. Many illiterate persons, who think very contemptibly of the clergy in general, are, however, firm in their belief of Christianity. They must therefore have some other grounds for their faith, than the word of a priest, whom they despise, nay, and hate most cordially, as a self-interested wretch, that thinks of little else, than eating and drinking the fruits of their labour, and spunging on their faith. The truth is, they mind but little what the priest says, either in the pulpit or out of it; and it is really from their parents, who were perhaps as averse and inattentive to the priest as themselves, and from the Bible, that they gather the greater part of what they know, concerning religious matters; so that the course of their knowledge hath run mostly in a lay-channel for a long track of ages. There is one consideration yet unmentioned, from whence the most unlearned layman may, if he reflects or thinks at all about religious matters, furnish himself with a kind of demonstration for the truth of the gospel-history, at least in the main points. He not only sees a religion professed by prodigious numbers of people, learned and illiterate; but he also sees one day in seven set apart for the service of God, according to that religion; he sees the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper received by all sorts and ranks of men; and he sees a ministry supported at a very considerable expense, purely to teach the principles of this religion, and to administer its sacraments. Now he cannot imagine all these usages and expenses could have taken their rise from nothing; or that the history of our Saviour, on which they wholly depend, could have passed upon the world, or gained credit, in any age, had it been altogether a figment. He knows mankind would not at first have submitted to the constant celebration of a rite, that

threatens those who assist at it, without amendment of life, with damnation, if they had not known its author, or been fully satisfied about the truth of that religion, of which it makes a part. He knows the world would never have given up a seventh part of their time, which might be profitably applied to their worldly affairs; nor the tenth, or a much greater part of their substance, for the support of men, who could not give sufficient proof of their divine appointment. Thus the positive institutions of our religion become a standing monument and record of its historical truth to the most illiterate, as well as the learned, in all ages; and if the more ignorant among us do not generally found their belief on this kind of evidence, it is not because the evidence is either obscure or weak, but the people are inattentive to it, and fix their faith without it.

Dech. These are far-fetched and very foreign evidences for the bulk of mankind to depend on.

Shep. They are fetched no farther, than from Christianity itself, and every day's observation. But, besides these, they have other reasons more internal, and drawn from the Scriptures themselves, for believing that they come from God. The knowledge of their own infirmities and corruptions convinces them, that they want divine assistance, in order to their living good and happy lives. They believe God is too good to leave them utterly destitute of such assistance; and they are sensible, there is no provision made for it, but in the Scripture. It is from thence alone, that all the assurances they have of a judgment to come, of glorious rewards for virtue, and dreadful punishments for vice, of God's omnipresence and omniscience, and of the means of reconciliation with him after having sinned, are drawn by them. They are sensible they could not have known these things without a revelation; that, if God was pleased to grant the world such a revelation, he would and could provide, that it should be handed pure and uncorrupted to them; and that all the commands, informations, and institutions contained in it, are agreeable to reason, and the nature and wants of man, as well as worthy of his infinite wisdom and goodness, from whom they believe it to proceed. They find, that in proportion as they themselves, or others of their acquaintances, are careful or negligent, to place the grand in

ducements to holiness, contained in the Scriptures, before their eyes, to adhere to its ordinances, and regulate their actions by its precepts, they in the very same proportion. rise to a life of purity and goodness, or sink into corruption.

and sin.

Dech. Yet, after all you have said, you must own the ignorant cannot possibly attain to the same degree of evidence, concerning the Scriptures, with the knowing; and yet reason would tell one, that they ought to be on a level with the learned in a matter of this nature.

Shep. I will readily acknowledge they have not the same, or so great means of conviction; but then they can believe as strongly upon those they have. They do not labour under so many and heavy biasses and obstacles to faith, as the great ones, who have opportunities of higher knowledge; and one who is under fewer hindrances to conviction, receives it upon lower evidence, and yet is as thoroughly convinced. You reason with two persons upon any point; the one is under no disinclination to be convinced, and is brought over to you by your first or second argument; whereas, if the point you are pressing, should happen to run against the pleasure or profit of the other, you must multiply arguments; you must urge them with the greatest force and clearness; and, after all, it is odds, but you leave him only half a convert to your sentiments. When the whole evidence, which a knowing and considerate person may have for the Christian religion, is laid all together, it appears to be vastly greater, than is necessary for the conviction of a candid mind; and is intended partly to draw the assent of such, as are most incredulous, or most unwilling to believe, and partly to silence the most obstinate and artful adversary. The rest of our Saviour's disciples as firmly believed in the resurrection of their Master, though they trusted their faith only to their eyes and ears, as Thomas, who, not satisfied with the testimony of those senses, demanded that of his feeling also. He who distinguishes a man from a horse, or a tree, by twilight, is as far from being mistaken, as he who does it at noon-day, though the latter hath more light. They, indeed, who are naturally dimsighted, or who would examine more minutely, whether the man, already distinguished from other objects, hath a fair or tawny complexion, dark or blue eyes, &c. must have a

better light, and take a nearer view, than he who only wants to know, whether what he sees is a man or not. In like manner, an illiterate person hath light enough to distinguish the truth of the Christian religion from the falsehood of other religions, and clearly to apprehend its main and necessary doctrines, though not to direct him in nice and difficult inquiries about it, which he is little, or not at all, concerned in.

Dech. If the illiterate may be Christians, it must be on some other footing, than that of reason; and this will make Christianity, howsoever true and excellent in itself, an irrational religion to them. From hence we must conclude, either that Christianity is in itself defective, or that, if the vulgar can have no other religion, God hath not thought their virtue and happiness worth providing for.

Shep. I have already proved, that the most illiterate person may have sufficient reasons for being a Christian, although not so many reasons as the learned. The ignorant, however, having less opportunity of religious knowledge, than their betters, are determined by the nature of things, in some measure, to be led therein by those before them; who are therefore accountable for the goodness of their apparent principles, to their poor ignorant inferiors, as well as for that of their real principles, to their own consciences and souls. The common people all know they have a king and a parliament, who make their laws; but, as to what you, or any other lawyer, tells them is contained in a statute, they have only your word for it, that either his majesty, or the parliament, ever enacted any such thing; and yet, such is the nature and necessity of things, they must pin their faith upon your sleeves, and with it their properties, their liberties, their lives. Now you are at least as much tempted to be swayed by interest in dictating, or explaining the law, as any clergyman can be in respect to the gospel. Ignorant people may have an implicit faith in that which is right, as well as that which is wrong; and, if in most things, such as law, physic, surveying of land, religion, &c. in which they are deeply concerned, the necessity of things is such, that they must partly rely on the judgment and integrity of others, it is certainly the duty of those, who are raised above them by education and knowledge, and set over them by fortune