though he often intimates he did not believe them to be true, yet, knowing he might be filenced in fuch an answer, provides himself with another retreat, when beaten out of this; namely, that our Saviour was a magician. Thus he compares the feeding of fo many thousands at two different times with a few loaves and fishes, to the magical feasts of those Egyptian impoftors, who would present their fpectators with vifionary entertainments, that had in them neither fubftance nor reality: which, by the way, is to suppose, that a hungry and fainting multitude were filled by an apparition, or strengthened and refreshed with fhadows. He knew very well that there were fo many witneffes and actors, if I may call them such, in these two miracles, that it was impoffible to refute fuch multitudes, who had doubtlefs fufficiently fpread the fame of them, and was therefore in this place forced to refort to the other folution, that it was done by magic. It was not enough to say, that a miracle, which appeared to so many thousand eye-witneffes, was a forgery forgery of Chrift's disciples, and therefore, fuppofing them to be eye-witnesses, he endeavours to fhew how they might be deceived. IV. The unconverted Heathens, who were preffed by the many authorities that confirmed our Saviour's miracles, as well as the unbelieving Jews, who had actually feen them, were driven to account for them after the fame manner: for, to work by magic, in the Heathen way of fpeaking, was in the language of the Jews. to caft out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Our Saviour, who knew that unbelievers in all ages would put this perverse interpretation on his miracles, has branded the malignity of those men, who, contrary to the dictates of their own hearts, ftarted fuch an unreasonable objection, as a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and declared not only the guilt, but the punishment of so black a crime. At the fame time he condefcended to shew the vanity and emptiness of this objection against his miracles, by representing that they evidently tended to the de ftruction ftruction of those powers, to whose affistance the enemies of his doctrine then afcribed them. An argument, which, if duly weighed, renders the objection fo very frivolous and groundless, that we may venture to call it even blafphemy against common fenfe. Would magic endeavour to draw off the minds of men from the worship which was paid to stocks and ftones, to give them an abhorrence of those evil spirits, who rejoiced in the moft cruel facrifices, and in offerings of the greatest impurity; and, in short, to call upon mankind to exert their whole ftrength in the love and adoration of that one Being, from whom they derived their existence, and on whom only they were taught to depend every moment for the happiness and continuance of it? Was it the business of magic to humanize our natures with compaffion, forgiveness, and all the inftances of the moft extenfive charity? Would evil spirits contribute to make men fober, chafte, and temperate, and, in a word, to produce that reformation, which was wrought in the moral world C world by thofe doctrines of our Saviour, that received their fanction from his miracles? Nor is it poffible to imagine, that evil spirits would enter into a combination with our Saviour to cut off all their correfpondence and intercourse with mankind, and to prevent any for the future from addicting themselves to those rites and ceremonies, which had done. them so much honour. We fee the early effect which Christianity had on the minds of men in this particular, by that number of books, which were filled with the fecrets of magic, and made a facrifice to Christianity, by the converts mentioned in the Acts of the Apoftles. We have likewise an eminent inftance of the inconfiftency of our Religion with magic, in the history of the famous Aquila. This perfon, who was a kinsman of the Emperor Trajan, and likewise a man of great learning, notwithstanding he had embraced Christianity, could not be brought off from the ftudies of magic, by the repeated admonitions of his Fellow-Chriftians; fo that at length they expelled him their fo ciety, as rather choofing to lose the reputation of fo confiderable a profelyte, than communicate with one who dealt in such dark and infernal practices. Befides, we may obferve, that all the favourers of magic were the moft profeffed and bitter enemies to the Christian Religion. Not to mention Simon Magus, and many others, I shall only take notice of those two great perfecutors of Christianity, the Emperors Adrian and Julian the Apoftate, both of them initiated in the mysteries of divination, and skilled in all the depths of magic. I fhall only add, that evil spirits cannot be supposed to have concurred in the establishment of a Religion, which triumphed over them, drove them out of the places they poffeffed, and divested them of their influence on mankind; nor would I mention this particular, though it be unanimously reported by all the ancient Christian authors, did it not appear, from the authorities above cited, that this was a fact confeffed by Heathens themselves. V. We now fee what a multitude of Pagan teftimonies may be produced for all C 2 |