According to the terms of Boyle’s will, which authorized the appointment of the same lecturer for three years, Bentley might have delivered another course of sermons; but owing, as it is said, to the favouritism of one of the trustees, and in opposition to Evelyn’s wishes, Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells, delivered the second series, entitled, _A Demonstration of the Messias_. Williams, afterwards made a Bishop, exhibited in his lectures _A General Idea of Revealed Religion_. Gastrell, subsequently Bishop of Chester, a friend to Atterbury, and one who pleaded for him in Parliament, insisted upon _The Certainty and Necessity of Divine Religion_. Dr. Harris refuted the objections of Atheists to the existence and attributes of God; a superfluous task, it would seem, if we are to admit what has been said of the effect of Bentley’s dissertations. Bradford, “the little ebony doctor,” as he was called--an enemy of Atterbury’s--discoursed upon the credibility of the Christian Religion. Blackall, afterwards a Bishop, established and illustrated the sufficiency and perfection of the Old and New Testaments; and Dr. Stanhope defended the truth and excellence of the Christian Religion against Jews, Infidels, and Heretics.[441] In 1695, Locke anonymously published his _Reasonableness of Christianity_. Again the appeal was made, not to authority, tradition, or history, but to reason. The main object was to present the simplest and most rational form of religion. He concluded, from his study of the Gospels, that the primary requirement is, that men should believe Jesus to be the Messiah, the anointed and sent of God; that such a belief makes everyone a Christian; and that upon it the superstructure of Christian piety must ever rest. Every reader of this work must see how hardly he labours to establish his point, how he repeats over and over again his fundamental principle. He objects to the enforcement of particular creeds, and he is opposed to all Church authority in reference to religion; though he speaks in general terms of salvation through Christ, he enters into no definition whatever of evangelical doctrines, indeed such definitions he regards as foreign to his purpose. Whilst teaching of this kind, with a continuous appeal to reason, runs through the larger part of the book, towards the close he enters upon the supernatural evidences of Christianity. Locke was an apostle of human reason as opposed to human authority, but he was no rationalist in the sense of opposing revelation. Revelation he recognized as a form of supernatural wisdom, and in advocating it he appealed to supernatural wonders. He dwelt upon the miracles of Christ as conclusive proofs of His Messianic office--a topic which he also largely treated in a distinct essay, which will be noticed hereafter. [Sidenote: WORKS ON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.]