very Elyfian fields; but these too must be diversified with depreffed valleys and swelling afcents. They cannot imagine a even paradise to be a place of pleasure, nor heaven itself to be heaven without them. Let this therefore be another argument of the divine wisdom and goodness, that the furface of the earth is not uniformly convex, (as many think it would naturally have been, if mechanically formed by a chaos,) but diftinguished with mountains and valleys, and furrowed from pole to pole with the deep channel of the sea; and that, because of the rò BEATíov, it is better that it fhould be fo.

Give me leave to make one short inference from what has been said, which fhall finish this prefent discourse, and with it our task for the year. We have clearly discovered many

final caufes and characters of wisdom and contrivance in the frame of the inanimate

Virg. Æn. vi.

Flow'rs worthy of paradise, which not nice art

In beds and curious knots, but nature boon

Pour'd forth profufe on hill, and dale, and plain.

Paradife Loft, book iv.

b For earth hath this variety from heaven Of pleasure fituate in hill and dale.

Paradife Loft, book vi.

the

world; as well as in the organical fabric of the bodies of animals. Now, from hence arifeth a new and invincible argument, that the prefent frame of the world hath not exifted from all eternity. For fuch an usefulness of things, or a fitness of means to ends, as neither proceeds from the neceffity of their beings, nor can happen to them by chance, doth neceffarily infer that there was an intelligent Being, which was the author and contriver of that usefulness. We have formerly demonftrated, that the body of a man, which confists of an incomprehenfible variety of parts, all admirably fitted for their peculiar functions and the confervation of the whole, could no more be formed fortuitously than the Aneis of Virgil, or any other long poem with good fenfe and just measures, could be compofed by the cafual combinations of letters. Now, to pursue this comparison; as it is utterly impoffible to be believed, that such a poem may have been eternal, transcribed from copy to copy without any first author and original; fo it is equally incredible and impoffible, that the fabric of human bodies, which hath fuch excellent and divine artifice, and, if I may fo fay, fuch good sense and true fyntax and harmonious measures in its constitution, should be propagated and transcribed

from father to fon without a first parent and creator of it. An eternal usefulness of things, an eternal good fenfe, cannot poffibly be conceived without an eternal wisdom and understanding. But that can be no other than that eternal and omnipotent God; that by wisdom hath founded the earth, and by understanding hath established the heavens: to whom be all honour, and glory, and praise, and adoration, from henceforth and for evermore. Amen,

Prov. iii.

d

OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS:

A

SERMON,

PREACHED AT THE

Public Commencement at Cambridge,

July 5th, 1696.

1 Pet. iii. 15.

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that afketh you a reafon of the hope that is in you.

BY the hope that is in us, we do understand here, as in other places of Scripture, not only the bare hope ftrictly fo called, but the faith too of a Chriftian. Whence it is, that in the Syriac verfion of the text, and in fome ancient Latin copies, the word faith is added to the other; the hope and the faith that is in you. And indeed, if we confider hope as a natural paffion, we shall find it to be always attended

and ushered in by faith. For, it is certain there is no hope without fome antecedent belief that the thing hoped for may come to pass; and the strength and steadiness of our hope is ever proportional to the measure of our faith. It appears therefore why the word hope in the text may with fufficient propriety of speech comprehend the whole faith of a Christian; and that, when the Apostle exhorts us to be ready always to answer every man that afks the reafon of our hope, it is the fame, as if he enjoined us to be never unprepared nor unwilling to reply to any doubts or queftions about the grounds of the Christian faith.

At the date of this epiftle the whole world (with relation to the text) might be confidered under one general divifion, Jews and Gentiles. First, the Jews, e to whom the oracles of God were committed, and who from thence had the information and expectation of the Mesfias. Thefe, when they afked a Chriftian the reason of his hope, were themselves already perfuaded that the Meffias would come: and the only controverfy between them was, Whether Jefus was he? according to the meffage of John the Baptift, f Was Jefus he that should come, or muft they look for another?

• Rom. iii. 2.

Luke vii. 19.

Secondly,