frenzy of fome have taken a different turn, and presented to them different objects? This fuppofition is fo contrary to nature and all poffibility, that unbelief muft find fome other folution, or give up the point.

I SHALL fuppofe, then, in order to try to account for this vifion without a miracle, that as Saul and his company were journeying along, in their way to Damafcus, an extraordinary meteor did really happen, which caft a great light, as fome meteors will do, at which they, being afrighted, fell to the ground in the manner above related. This might be poffible; and fear, grounded on ignorance of fuch phenomina, might make them imagine it to be a vifion from God. Nay, even the voice or found they heard in the air might be an explosion attending this meteor; or, at least, there are those who would rather recur to fuch a fuppofition as this however incredible, than acknowledge the miracle.but how will this account for the diftinct words heard by St. Paul, to which he made answer? How will it account for what followed upon it when he came to Damafcus, agreeably to the fense of those words which he heard? How came Ananias to go to him there, and fay, He was chosen by God to know his will, and fee that juft One, and hear the voice of his mouth?' Or

why did he propose to him to be baptized?What connection was there between the meteor which Saul had feen and these words of Ananias? Will it be faid that Ananias was skilful enough to take advantage of the fright he was in at that appearance, in order to make him a Chriftian? But could Ananias inspire him with a vision in which he saw him before he came? If that vifion was the effect of imagination, how was it verified fo exactly in fact? But, allowing that he dreamt by chance of Ananias's coming, and that Ananias came by chance too; or, if you please, that, having heard of his dream, he came to take advantage of that as well as of the meteor which Saul had feen; will this get over the difficulty? No, there was more to be done. Saul was ftruck blind, and had been fo for three days; now, had this blindness been natural, from the effects of a meteor or lightning upon him, it would not have been poffible for 'Ananias to heal it, as we find that he did, merely by putting his hands on him and speaking a few words: this, undoubtedly, furpaffed the power of nature: and, if this was a miracle, it proves the other to have been a miracle too, and a miracle done by the fame Jesus Chrift. For Ananias, when he healed Saul, fpoke to him thus:- Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jefus that appeared unto thee in the way

as thou cameft, has fent me, that thou mightest receive thy fight, and be filled with the Holy Ghoft. And that he faw Chrift, both now and after this time, appears not only by what he relates, AЯs xxii. 17, 18, but by other paffages in his Epiftles, 1 Cor. ix. 1. xvi. 8. From him (as he afferts in many places of his epiftles) he learned the Gospel by immediate revelation, and by him he was sent to the Gentiles, A&ts xxii. 31. xxiii. 11. Among thofe Gentiles, from Jerufalem and round about to Illyricum he preached the Gospel of Chrift with mighty figns and wonders, wrought by the power of the Spirit of God to make them obedient to his preaching, as he teftifies himself in his Epiftle to the Romans, and of which a particular account is given to us in the Acts of the Apostles; figns and wonders, indeed, above any powers of nature to work, or of impofture to counterfeit, or of enthusiasm to imagine. Now, does not fuch a series of miraculous acts, all confequential to and dependent upon the first revelation, put the truth of that revelation beyond all poffibility of doubt or deceit? And if he could fo have imposed on himfelf, as to think that he worked them when he did not (which fuppofition cannot be admitted, if he was not all that time quite out of his fenfes) how could fo diftempered an enthusiast make No. 8.

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such a progress, as we know that he did, in converting the Gentile world? If the difficulties, which have been fhewn to have obftructed that work, were fuch as the ableft impoftor could not overcome, how much more infurmountable were they to a madman ?

It is a much harder task for unbelievers to account for the fuccefs of St. Paul, in preaching the Gospel, upon the supposition of his having been an enthusiast, than of his having been an impoftor. Neither of these supposition can ever account for it; but the impoffibility is more glaringly strong in this case than in the other.— I could enter into a particular examination of all the miracles recorded in the Acts to have been done by St. Paul, and fhew that they were not of a nature in which enthusiasm (either in him or the perfons he worked them upon, or the fpectators,) could have any part. I will mention only a few. When he told Elymas, the forcerer, at Paphos, before the Roman Deputy, that the hand of God was upon him, and he should be blind, not seeing the fun for a season, and immediately there fell on him a mift and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand, had enthusiasm in the doer or fufferer any share in this act? If Paul, as an enthusiast, had thrown out this menace, and the effect had

not followed, inftead of converting the deputy (as we are told that he did) he would have drawn on himself his rage and contempt. But the effect upon Elymas could not be caused by enthusiasm in St. Paul; much lefs can it be imputed to an enthusiastic belief, in that person himself, of his being ftruck blind when he was not, by those words, of a man whose preaching he strenuously and bitterly opposed. Nor can we afcribe the converfion of Sergius, which happened upon it, to any enthusiasm. A Roman proconful was not very likely to be an enthufiaft; but, had he been one, he must have been bigoted to his own gods, and so much the lefs inclined to believe any miraculous power in St. Paul. When at Troas, a young man, named Eutychus, fell down from a high window, while Paul was preaching, and was taken up dead; could any enthusiasm, either in Paul or the congregation then prefent, make them believe that, by that Apoftle's falling upon him and embracing him, he was reftored to life? Or, could he, who was fo reftored contribute any thing to it himself, by any power of his own imagination? When in the isle of Melita, where St. Paul was fhipwrecked, there .came a viper and fastened upon his hand, which he shook off, and felt no harm; was this the effect of enthufiafm? An enthufiaft might, perhaps, have