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SERM." fingle Senfe was less fallible than the joint XV. " Experience of fuch a Number. But thus

" did the wife Pretence of avoiding too eafy a "Credulity, betray Thomas into Irreverence, "Uncharitableness, Absurdity, and Irreligion; " and all under the Colour of defiring a ra“ tional Conviction. These extravagant Ef"fects could Niceness in believing produce in "him: And who can question, but that it " may be likely to produce the fame in any "one else *." For with the fame Way of reasoning might every Man since, and may every Man now, require ocular Demonstration for every Article of his Faith; he may require that Jesus should shew himself from Heaven, before he believes any thing that the Apostles and Evangelists have related concerning him. So just is the Charge of Incredulity upon Thomas, and fuch, as you have heard, the Aggravations of it: No better Reafon has he to urge for the Demand he makes, or for the Satisfaction, he requires to be given him: From the Rudeness of which let us now pass on to contemplate, in the

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II. Second Place, the gracious Condescenfion of our Blessed Saviour. After eight Days again his Difciples were within, and Thomass ERM. (perfuaded by the other Apostles, perhaps, in XV. Hopes of another Appearance) was with them: Then came Jesus, the Doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and faid, Peace be unto you. Then faith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy Finger, and behold my Hands; and reach bither thy Hand and thrust it into my Side; and be not faithless but believing. And we need not doubt, but Thomas made use of those Methods for his Conviction, to which our Lord was now pleased to invite him. To content himself now with the View only of his crucified Body, would have been as unbecoming, as his insisting upon handling it before was rude. For now his Master, who knew, though absent, the Demands he had made, takes him at his Word; not for his own Satisfaction only, but for the Satisfaction of every Christian in every Age, that ever did, or shall, succeed him. Thomas therefore now, not only saw his Master alive, and beheld the Scars in his Hands and Side, which were made by the Nails and Spear on the Cross; but, out of Obedience to his Lord's Command, must we suppose him to examine and Search them with his Hands, and so to receive all the Satisfaction that his Senfes could yield : VOL. III. And

* Dean Young's second Sermon on Rom. i. 22. p. 41, 42.

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SERM. And by this Condescension did our Blessed XV. Saviour not only remove all Remains of Thomas's Doubting and Unbelief; but he left full Evidence to all that should live afterwards of the Truth of his Refurrection: Since no Proof of it was now wanting, which the Nature of the Thing was capable of bearing. He not only had fuffered one of his Apostles, that is, one of those who was to attest his Refurrection, at first to doubt of, and mistrust the Fact; but he vouchsafed to give him, before them all, and therefore, for the greater strengthening and Confirmation of them all, such a convincing Proof of it, as should enable both him and them to filence all Cavils and Disputes about it. Believe upon Testimony, all Men must, as to any Fact that is done at a distant Time or Place, from the Age or Country in which they live: And therefore, in the Point of our Lord's Refurrection, we in this Age, at this Distance from the Time it happened, can't, in the Nature of the Thing, expect better Proofs, than what the Eye-Witnesses of it have left us. But certainly the Credit of those Eye-Witnesses must be fo much the greater, by how much they appear free from Credulity and Hastiness to believe. When therefore it appears (as from their History

story it does) that all the Apostles were mif-SERM. trustful at first; and that one of them especi- XV. ally was a downright Unbeliever, and yet had at last as thorough a Conviction, as the greatest Infidel now would ask; who will dare to disbelieve, or doubt, what upon fuch compulsive Evidence they preached. For what better Evidence would we defire of the Truth of the Refurrection of Jesus, than that of a doubting, mistrustful Man, who, in the Prefence of ten more, who witness what he did, felt and handled him after he was risen, and, by all the Experience Human Senfes could give, found his Body to be the very fame, and that it could not poffibly be any other, than that which had been wounded, and put to Death upon the Cross? But this, should we pursue it, would run us out into a Subject proper to another Seafon: It is not what Evidence we have of the Truth of Jesus's Resurrection, which we are now to confider; but how unreasonable Thomas was in the Proof which he required; and yet how gracioufly Jefus condescended to comply with his Demand. But having thus far entered into the Foibles of the Apostle's Character, let us next furvey the bright Part; which we shall do if we proceed to observe in the

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SERM. III. Third Place, What Effect our Lord's XV. Compliance had upon the Disciple, and what Change it wrought in him. Thomas answered and faid to him, MY LORD AND MY GOD. The Answer is short, and seemingly abrupt: But it contains, notwithstanding, a Confeffion as noble, as his Doubting and Mistrust before was mean. He, who before came behind the Apostles, now outstrips them. Upon his receiving this Testimony which our Saviour vouchsafed him, he not only acknowledges Jefus for the Meffiab, for the very same Lord, to whom he had been a Servant and Companion during the Time of his Ministry, for three Years and a Half before he was crucified; but he moreover owns him now to be God, as well as Christ, he fees the Divine Hand he had now displayed, and forthwith draws the fame Inference from it, as St Paul did afterwards; viz. that Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the Seed of David according to the Flesh, was declared to be the Son of God with Power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, i. e. with respect to his Holy Spirit, or, Divine Nature, by the Resurrection from the Dead; Rom. i. 3, 4. " So mighty, fo " sudden a Change do we find in this Apo"stle; that the Person whom so lately, he " could

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