Thefe then were the powers the Apostles carried along with them; and where fhall we find the fovereign that could ever furnish his ambassadors with fuch qualifications as these? If they were afked with what authority they were invested, and what proofs they could give that they were actually commiffioned to inftruct mankind in the principles of true religion, by that great perfonage the Son of God, whofe fervants and minifters they pretended to be, their answer was short and decifive; bring us your fick, and we will heal them; fhew us your lepers, and we will cleanse them; produce your dead, and we will restore them to life. It would not be very easy to difpute the authenticity of fuch credentials as these.

It is further to be observed on this head, that the circumstance of our Saviour not only working miracles himself, but also enabling others to perform them, is an inftance of divine power, to which no other prophet or teacher before him, true or falfe, ever pretended. In this, as in many other refpects, he ftands unrivalled and alone.

After this follow fome directions, no lefs fingular and new. "Provide neither gold nor filver, nor brafs in your purses, nor fcrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither fhoes, nor yet staves*."

That is, they were to take a long journey, without making any other provifion for it than the ftaff in their hand, and the clothes they had on, for, fays Jesus, the workman is worthy of his meat; an intimation that the providence of God would watch over and fupply their wants. This required fome confidence in their Master; and unless they had good grounds for thinking that it was in his power to engage Providence on their fide (or in other words, that he was actually the Son of God) they would scarce have run the risk of fo unpromifing an expedition. But this conclufion grows infinitely ftronger when we come to the declaration in the next and following verses.

Matth. x. 9-10.

"Behold, I fend you forth as fheep in the midft of wolves; be ye therefore, wife as ferpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the councils; and they will fcourge you in the fynagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my name's fake, for a teftimony against them and the Gentiles; and the brother fhall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children fhall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death; and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's fake*.”

What now fhall we fay to this extraordinary and unex ampled declaration ?

When a fovereign fends his ambaffadors to a foreign country, he makes an ample provifion for their journey, he affigns them a liberal allowance for their fupport, and generally holds out at the fame time the profpect of a fu ture reward for their labors and their fervices to their country on their return from their embaffy. And without this few men would be disposed to undertake the commis fion.

But here every thing is the reverfe; instead of fupport, they were to meet with perfecution; instead of an honorable reception, they were to experience univerfal hatred and deteftation; instead of reward, they were to be exposed to certain ruin and deftruction, and to be let loofe like fo many fheep among wolves.

Can we now conceive it poffible that any men in their fenfes fhould, without fcme very powerful and extraordinary motive, voluntarily undertake fuch a commiffion as this, in which their only recompence was to be affliction, mifery, pain, and death; in which all the natural affections of the human heart were to be extinguished or inverted, and their nearest relations, their parents, children, or brethren, were to be their perfecutors and executioners? Is it ufual for human beings wantonly and needlessly to expose themselves to fuch evils as thefe, without the leaft

• Matth. x. 16, 17, 18, 21, 22.

profpect of any advantage to themselves or their families? You may say perhaps that fimple, ignorant, uneducated men, like the apofties, might easily be deluded by an artful leader, and betrayed into very dreadful calamities, and that we see multitudes thus deceived and ruined every day. It is true; but where in this cafe is the art of the leader, or the delufion of his followers? In the cafes alluded to, men are induced to embark in perilous undertakings, and to run headlong into deftruction, by fair promifes and tempting offers, by promises of liberty, of wealth, of honor, of popularity, of glory. But here, inftead of employing any art, or making any attempt to deceive his followers, our Saviour plainly tells them they are to expect nothing but what is most dreadful to human nature. Whatever they fuffered, therefore, they suffered with their eyes open, and with their own free choice and confent. It is true they were plain ignorant men; but they could feel pain, and they could have no more fondness for misery and death than other people. Yet this they did actually and chearfully undergo at the command of their Lord. How is this to be explained and accounted for? Is there any inftance upon record before this in the annals of the world, where twelve grave sober men, without any reason, and without being misled by any artifice or delufion whatever, voluntarily expofed themselves at the defire of another perfon to perfecution, torment, and deftruction! There muft have been fome cogent reason for such a conduct as this and that reafon could be nothing lefs than a full and perfect conviction, arifing from the miracles which they faw with their own eyes, and which they themselves were enabled to perform, that Chrift was what he pretended to be," the Son of God; that all power was given to him in heaven and on earth; and that he was able to fulfil the promifes he had made them of a recompence in a future life, infinitely furpaffing in magnitude and in duration all the fufferings they could experience in the present world.

;

This is the only rational account to be given of their conduct, and it prefents to us in a fhort compafs a strong convincing evidence of the truth of the Chriftian reve lation.

In order to fortify the minds of his difciples against the fevere trials they were to undergo, our bleffed Lord, in the 28th verse, adds the following exhortation: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the foul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both foul and body in hell."

This paffage contains a decifive proof of two very important doctrines, the existence of a foul diftinct from the body, and the continuance of that foul after death (both of which, in direct oppofition to this and many other paffages of fcripture, fome late writers have dared to controvert;) and it plainly refers the apoftles to the confideration of a future life, in which all their views, their hopes and fears, were to center, and by which their conduct in this world was entirely to be regulated. The worft their enemies could do to them in this life was to kill the body, which must fome time or other be destroyed by age or difeafe. But God was able to kill the foul, which was formed for immortality, to annihilate it at once, or to condemn it to everlasting punishment. It was, therefore, of infinitely more confequence to avoid his displeasure, and to fecure his approbation by performing their duty, than by fhamefully deferting it to escape the infliction of the bittereft evils that their fellow creatures could bring up. on them.

In conformity to this advice he tells them, "that he that endureth to the end fhall be faved: and that he who lofes his life for his fake in this world, fhall find it in a far more exalted fenfe in the next*."

This was folid comfort and fubftantial fupport. But unless our Lord had given them irresistible miraculous evidence of the reality of this future reward, unless they had abfolute demonftration of its certainty, it was utterly impoffible that they could be fo mad as to facrifice to this expectation every thing moft valuable in this life, and even life itself.

Matth. x 22--39

As a ftill further fupport under the terrifying profpect which our bleffed Lord had held up to the apoftles, he af fures them that the providence of God would continually fuperintend and watch over them.

"Are not two fparrows, fays he, fold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father; but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many fparrows."

Here we have that most important and comfortable doctrine of a particular Providence plainly and clearly laid down.

That he who erected the immenfe and magnificent fabric of the universe will continue to regard and to preserve the work of his own hands, and maintain what is called the general order of nature, and the ordinary course of human affairs, is so confonant to reafon and common fense, that few even of the pagans who believed the being of a God, entertained any doubt of this general fuperintendence of the Deity over the worlds he has created, and the inhabitants he has placed in them. But when we defcend from this comprehenfive view of things to the feveral conftituent parts of the general fyftem, and to every individ ual of every fpecies of animated beings dispersed throughout the whole; when we reflect how very inconfiderable a place this globe that we inhabit holds amongst the celestial bodies, how very fmall a portion it occupies of unbounded space, and how infinitely minute and infignificant every human creature must appear in the vaft mafs of created beings, we can hardly think it poffible that the care of the Supreme Being fhould extend to ourselves; we cannot help fearing that we fhall be loft and overlooked in the immenfity of creation, and that we are objects far too fmall and minute to fall within the sphere of our Maker's obfervation. The more we reafon on this fubject, the more ground we shall find for these apprehenfions; and there is nothing, I will venture to fay, in the whole com

• Matth x. 29, 30, 31.