unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a
revelation because I have met with no serious person who thinks that,
even under the Christian revelation, we have too much light, or any
degree of assurance which is superfluous. I desire, moreover, that in
judging of Christianity, it may be remembered that the question lies
between this religion and none: for, if the Christian religion be not
credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions
of any other.

Suppose, then, the world we live in to have had a Creator; suppose it to
appear, from the predominant aim and tendency of the provisions and
contrivances observable in the universe, that the Deity, when he formed
it, consulted for the happiness of his sensitive creation; suppose the
disposition which dictated this counsel to continue; suppose a part of
the creation to have received faculties from their Maker, by which they
are capable of rendering a moral obedience to his will, and of
voluntarily pursuing any end for which he has designed them; suppose the
Creator to intend for these, his rational and accountable agents, a
second state of existence, in which their situation will be by their
behaviour in the first state, by which suppose (and by no other) the
objection to the divine government in not putting a difference between
the good and the bad, and the inconsistency of this confusion with the
care and benevolence discoverable in the works of the Deity is done
away; suppose it to be of the utmost importance to the subjects of this
dispensation to know what is intended for them, that is, suppose the
knowledge of it to be highly conducive to the happiness of the species,
a purpose which so many provisions of nature are calculated to promote:
Suppose, nevertheless, almost the whole race, either by the imperfection
of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by the loss of
some prior revelation, to want this knowledge, and not to be likely,
without the aid of a new revelation, to attain it; under these
circumstances, is it improbable that a revelation should be made? Is it
incredible that God should interpose for such a purpose? Suppose him to
design for mankind a future state; is it unlikely that he should
acquaint him with it?

Now in what way can a revelation be made, but by miracles? In none which
we are able to conceive. Consequently, in whatever degree it is
probable, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be
c