conducted. All our researches should be kept from the embarrassments
of prejudice. Though I feel much reluctance in entering on so great a
subject as the vindication of the truth of divine revelation, fearing,
I should fail in doing that honour to the subject which I am confident
it deserves, I am inclined to suggest a few things which I think are
worthy of some notice. As you speak of a vision of the night, the
evidences of which were clear to the person and satisfactory at the
time, those evidences would naturally lose their force when
communicated to others and finally lose their strength. Let us suppose
a case. A man shall have a vision of the night, in which it shall be
revealed to him that some time before the present generation shall
leave the stage of life, the kingdom of Great Britain will be overcome
by the power of France; that very many of the flourishing cities of
England will be destroyed in a very awful manner; that London will be
laid level with the ground; that the distress of the inhabitants
during the siege will be extreme; that for some time before this great
event, there will be wars and rumors of wars among the nations, and
certain signs very wonderful will be seen in the heavens. This man
tells his vision very circumstantially and several persons write it
down. Now suppose as the time passes away, these events, one after
another, should take place, all in the same order in which the vision
represented them; do you feel willing to say that the evidences of the
truth of this vision, are all the time losing their force? No surely
they are not; they are all the time gaining strength and waxing
brighter. Whether I am able to satisfy you that the above case is a
fair representation of the evidences of divine revelation, or not, it
discovers in some degree the ground on which, in my mind, revelation
is established.

Compare, if you please, the prophesy of Jesus recorded in the 24th of