time under a delufion becomes the lefs, till it comes to be wholly incredible and inconceivable. And then their teftimony becomes unquestionable. This neceffary condition effectually excludes fuch pretended miracles as thofe of Mahomet's vifion, which paffed wholly without witness. For our Saviour's reafoning is undeniably just; if a man bear record of himself, his record is not true; that is, the mere affertion of a perfon, who, for any thing that appears, may be interested to deceive, is not a fufcient ground of credit. On this account allo that moi monftrous infult upon all the fenfes and faculties of mankind, Tranfubftantiation, is effectually cut off from all pretenfions to the character of a miracle. For the wafer is fo far from having been ever turned into a whole Chrift before any credible witnefs, or witneffes; that every perfon, before whom it has been attempted or pretended to be done, has had, or might have had, the affurances of both fenfe and underftanding, that it remained ftill as much wafer as ever.

The witneffes of a miracle must be credible. They must be under no vifible temptation to deceive; and they must be perfons of fuch understanding as to be equal to the examination of the pretended miracle. The pretended miracles of the papifts may on very juft grounds be fufpected; as we know what immenfe profits that worldly church gets by deluding the people. The workers of the Scripture-miracles were under no temptation to bribe witneffes, but quite to the contrary. For they all loft, and none of them gained any thing fecular by their works. Mofes forfook the court of Pharaoh, to wander many years in the wilderness, and die there. The prophets fuffered perfecution and death for their plainnefs in reproving the fashionable vices of their times. The bleffed Saviour of the world, and his apoftles, and the firft profelytes to Chriftianity, expofed themselves to every kind of affliction and distress, and to violent and infamous deaths. So that they cannot, with any fhadow of reason, be fufpected of having bribed witneffes to teftify to their miracles; nor indeed had they any fecular advantage to offer in order to gain profelytes.

The

The witneffes of a fuppofed miracle muft, in order to its credibility, be fuppofed perfons of fuch underftanding, as to be equal to the examination of the fact. Now the Scripture-miracles were performed before fuch numbers, that, according to the common course of human capacities, they must have been feen and examined by many perfons, not only of fufficient underflanding for inquiring into a fimple fact, but of more fhrewdness and fagacity than ordinary. Nor was there any fuperior capacity neceffary to determine whether the Red Sea was really miraculoufly divided, when the thousands of Ifrael paffed through it in full march, and faw the waters as a wall on their right hand, and on their left. Nor was there any occafion for great fagacity to convince thofe who faw fome hundreds of difeafed people healed with a word, that real miracles were wrought. Nor was there any fubtlety of difcernment neceffary to convince the difciples of Christ, who had converfed with him for feveral years, who heard him fpeak as never man fpoke, that he, who after his death appeared to feveral hundreds together, and often converfed intimately with the eleven, for fix weeks, was the fame perfon, their well-known Lord and Mafter, whom they faw crucified on mount Calvary.

It is faid in the above definition of a proper miracle, that, in order to credibility, it is neceflary, that the effect be fuch as to be fubject to the full examination of the spectators. There are very few of the Scripturemiracles that were not of too fubftantial and permanent a nature, to be in any manner imitated by the præftigia, or tricks of impoftors. A fudden appearance, for a fhort time, of any ftrange and unaccountable kind, might be queftioned. But a body difeafed for many years, cured with a word, a withered limb reftored in a moment, a distracted brain inftantly redreffed, a dæmon authoritatively difpoffeffed, a man four days buried, recalled to life; these are effects of power too fubftantial to be mistaken; and too lafting to be fufpected of having paffed through a superficial examination.

Laftly, it is faid in the above definition of a proper and credible miracle, that it must be declared by the

worker

worker of it to be wrought exprefsly in confirmation of fome particular doctrine, which doctrine must be such as to commend itself to the unprejudiced reafon of mankind, and to bear the marks of a revelation worthy of God, and useful for men. A miracle, or wonderful effect, connected with no particular doctrine, is to be called a natural or artificial phænomenon, or a prodigy; not a miracle in a theological fenfe, which last alone is what we are at prefent concerned with.

No miracle whatever, nor any number of miracles, would be fufficient to prove twice two to be five. Because we are more clearly and undoubtedly certain of the proportions of numbers, than of any thing fupernatural. And all miracles are fupernatural. And it would be abfurd to imagine that the infinitely wife Author of reafon fhould expect us to question the certain information of our reafon upon evidence less certain.

Again, if miracles are pretended to be wrought in proof of a doctrine which leads to any vicious or impious practice, as we may, by a proper examination, and due ufe of our faculties, be more certain, that such a doctrine cannot be from God, than we can be, that a pretended miracle, in fupport of it, is from him; it is plain, we are to reject both the doctrine and pretended miracle, as infufficient against the clear and unqueftionable dictates of reafon. But if miracles, answering in every part the above definition, are wrought before credible witneffes, in exprefs atteftation of a doctrine, though not discoverable by reafon, yet not contradictory to it, and tending to the advancement of virtue and happinefs, we ought in any reafon to conclude fuch miracles, when properly attefted, to have been performed by the power of God, or of fome being authorised by him; and may judge ourselves fafe in receiving them as fuch; because we cannot fuppofe that God would leave his creatures in a state obnoxious to remedilefs delufion; nay, we cannot but think it criminal to neglect, or oppofe, miracles in fuch a manner attested, or the doctrine intended to be established by them.

It has been objected against the account, we have in Scripture, of innumerable miracles performed by Mofes,

and

and the prophets, Chrift, and his apoftles; That it is not likely, they should be true, because we have none fuch in our times. That, as we have no experience of miracles, we have no reason to believe that ever there were any performed.

Suppofing it were ftrictly true, that we have no experience, or ocular conviction, of the poffibility of miracles, which is by no means to be taken for granted; those who urge this objection, would do well to confider, before they embark their unbelief upon it, how far it will carry them. If, because we fee no miracles now, we may fafely argue, that there never were any, it will be as good fenfe to fay, Because we now fee an earth, a fun, moon, and ftars; there never was a time, when they were not; there never was a time, when the Divine Wisdom governed his natural, or moral fyftem otherwise than he does now; there are no different ftates of things, nor any different exigencies in confequence of those differences; it is abfurd to conceive of any change in any one particular, or in the general economy of the univerfe.

The account we have in the New Teftament, of the dæmoniacs miraculously cured by our Saviour, has, particularly, been thought to pinch fo hard, that fome have, in order to get rid of the difficulty, attempted, (in my humble opinion, altogether unwarrantably) to explain away the whole doctrine of poffeffion by spirits. How comes it, say the objectors, that we read of fuch numbers of perfons in Chrift's time poffeffed with dæmons; while we have no inftances of any fuch in our days? To this fome gentlemen, whose abilities I should be proud to equal, and of whofe fincere belief of Christianity I have no more doubt than of my own, have given an anfwer, which I cannot help thinking extremely hurtful to the cause. "The Dæmoniacs," fay thofe gentlemen, "were no more than mad people, "who were not then, nor are now, poffeffed with fpirits, "any more than other diseased perfons. Their being spoken of as poffeffed, was no other than a common "way of expreffing their difeafe or diftrefs; and the "difpoffeffing them, was only the cure; which was

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"ftill miraculous." But, if any man can reconcile this notion with the accounts we have from the Evangelifts, he must have a key, which, I own, I am not mafter of. That a fet of grave hiftorians, facred hiftorians, fhould fill up their narration with accounts of what was faid by fuch a number of madmen; that thofe madmen fhould univerfally fpeak to better purpofe, than the bulk of thofe, who were in their fenfes; that they fhould at once, the first moment they caft their eyes on our Saviour, know him to be the Chrift, while fome even of his own disciples hardly knew what to think of him; that our Saviour himself fhould enumerate his cafting out evil fpirits, befides curing dif eafes, as a miracle entirely feparate, and of its own kind, and mention his conqueft over Satan and his wicked fpirits, as a mark of his being the true Meffiah; that he should allow his difciples to continue in a miftake with refpect to a point of fuch confequence; that he fhould advise them to rejoice more in the thought of their names being written in heaven, than in their having received power over fpirits, without telling them at the fame time, that they were altogether in a mistake about their having received any fuch power; that we should be gravely told that the madness (not the fpirits) which poffeffed the men in the tombs, intreated our Saviour to fend it into the herd of fwine; that the madness (not the fpirit) fhould fo often intreat and adjure him not to fend it to the place of torment before the time, that is, probably, before the laft judgment, or perhaps an earlier period spoken of in the Apocalypfe; that all these folemn accounts fhould be given in such a history, and nothing to shew them to be figurative, nor, as far as I can fee, any poflibility of at all understanding them otherwife than literally; feems wholly unaccountable. Nor can I help thinking that the folution is incomparably harder to grapple with than the difficulty. I deny not, that there are paffages in the gospels, where a difeafe is in one place fpoken of as an infliction of an evil fpirit, and in another as a mere difeafe. But this does not at all affect the point in difpute; because the queftion is not, Whether the dæmoniacs