The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…

Add to this the excellent Reformation in the hearts and lives of Men. As their understandings, so their wills and affections the sources of action were miraculously altered. What the Sages of the World could not effect in a few select Persons, The Gospel hath done in great numbers, nay raised them above all their feigned Ideas, above the highest pitch of their Proud Philosophy. Those strong and furious passions which Natural Reason was as unable to restrain, as a thread of silk is to govern a fierce beast, the Gospel hath tamed and brought into order: It hath executed what Philosophy durst never enterprise, despairing of Success. The Gospel hath made the Wise Men of the World resign their Reason to Faith; it hath persuaded Carnal Men to mortify the Flesh, the Ambitious to despise secular Honours, the Voluptuous to renounce their Pleasures, the Covetous to distribute their Goods to the Poor, the Injured and Incensed to forgive their Enemies, and all this for Love to God, an affection unknown to all other Laws and Institutions. Where-ever it came, it miraculously transformed Pagans into Christians, which was as truly Wonderful, as for the Basilisk to part with its Poison, for a Wolfe to be changed into a Lamb, nay, for Dogs, (such were the Gentiles in our Saviours Language) to be changed into Angels of light and purity. An eminent instance we have of its efficacy in the Corinthians, who in their Heathen-state were ⟨p. 450⟩guilty of the vilest enormities: But after their receiving the Gospel, the Apostle testifies, they were washed, sanctified, and Justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus, ¹and by the Spirit of our God. Justine Martyr tells Triphon, that those who had been stained with all filthiness, and enslaved by charming imperious lusts, yet becoming Christians, they were purified and freed,² and delighted in those Virtues that were most contrary to their former Vices. This Alteration was so visible, that the lives of the first Christians were an Apology for their Faith. And 'tis strongly urged by Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius and others, as a convincing proof of the Divinity of the Christian Doctrine, that it made the Professors of it Divine in their conversations. The Creation of Grace was like the Creation of Nature, when trees sprang up in an instant laden with fruits;