Will it not be reckoned enough, if it should appear, that we have as good evidence of the Succession of the Ministry from the first, as we have of the reality of the institution of the Sacraments? or of the authenticity of Holy Scripture? This methinks will be enough at least for Christian men in general, though it may not be satisfactory to every disputer; and if we will attentively look into it we may certainly find the evidence to be quite as strong as this. The very same objections might be brought against the Apostolic Scriptures, the Apostolic Sacraments, and the Apostolic Ministry. We have the same kind of moral certainty of them all: and perhaps it might even be argued, that the highest degree of such certainty, if a difference could be admitted, pertains to the latter.—Thus much, at least, must be apparent on a very little reflection, that the kind and amount of evidence which some persons expect to have given them, of the Apostolic Succession, is impossible in the very nature of things, and exactly similar to the evidence which uneducated people, when they first begin to inquire, expect to find for the authenticity of the Bible, and which infidels craftily demand for all Revelation, well knowing that it cannot, in the nature of things, be had. For, in the first place, we can none of us have the same kind of certainty concerning any fact transacted in our absence, as of what is done in our presence; much less of any thing which happened in a distant place, a foreign country, or before we were born. And still less if it be removed farther back; as before our fathers or great-grandfathers were born. Whoever, therefore, undertakes to believe no farther than he personally sees and knows, must suspend his faith in all history, and even in the daily conversations and transactions of those around him. And if any man is in this humour, we will not argue with him about it. It is plain that these notions of strict personal evidence for every thing must be abated, if we would exercise our common sense. Let us take the case of a man who begins to examine the claims of the Bible to be received as the Word of GOD. Suppose him to be not very learned; he is able at least to see that _his_ Bible is like other people’s: and they, many of them being educated persons, believe it to be GOD’S Word. This is something. And then it is the Authorized Version, sanctioned by the Church and the State. And this is something more. And he sees that even those who abuse the Church, are either very bad men, or if they are sincere, well-meaning sort of people, and set up a new Religion for themselves, they are obliged, after all, to make use of the Church’s Bible, and generally the Church’s own Translation. He therefore has even so far tolerable ground for thinking that the Book which he has received as the Word of GOD is truly such.