ship, and to erect a new Religion in his Name, shall be born of a Virgin, and honour'd by a miraculous Star; proclaimed by a Song of seeming Angels of Light, and worshipped by the wise Sages of the World; Reverenc'd by those of the greatest Austerity, and admir'd by all for a miraculous Wisdom, beyond his Education in his Years: If he shall feed multitudes with almost nothing, and fast himself beyond all the possibilities of Nature: if he shall be transformed into the appearance of extraordinary Glory, and converse with departed Prophets in their visible Forms: If he shall Cure all Diseases without Physick or Endeavour, and raise the Dead to Life after they have stunk in their Graves: If he shall be honoured by Voices from Heaven, and attract the universal wonder of Princes and People: If he shall allay Tempests with a beck, and cast out Devils with a Word: If he shall foretell his own Death particularly, with its Tragical Circumstances, and his Resurrection after it: If the Veil of the most famous Temple in the World shall be rent, and the Sun darkned at his Funeral: If he shall within the time foretold break the bonds of Death, and lift up his Head out of the Grave: If Multitudes of other departed Souls shall arise with him, to attend at the solemnity of his Resurrection: If he shall after Death, visibly converse, and eat and drink with divers Persons, who could not be deceived in a matter of clear Sense, and ascend in Glory in the presence of an astonisht and admiring Multitude: I say, if such a one as this should prove a diabolical Impostor, and Providence should permit him to be so credited and acknowledged; What possibility were there then for us to be assured that we are not always deceived? yea, that our very Faculties were not given us only to delude and abuse us? and if so, the next Conclusion is, That there is no God that judgeth on the Earth; and the best and most likely Hypothesis will be, That the World is given up to the Government of the Devil. But if there be a Providence that superviseth us, (as nothing is more certain) doubless it will never suffer poor helpless Creatures to be inevitably deceived by the craft and subtilty of their mischievous Enemy, to their undoing; but will without question take such care, that the works wrought by divine Power for the Confirmation of Divine Truth, shall have such visible Marks and Signatures, if not in their Nature, yet in their Circumstances, Ends and Designs, as shall discover whence they are, and sufficiently distinguish them from all Impostures and Delusions. And though wicked Spirits may perform some strange things that may excite wonder for a while, yet he hath, and will so provide that
