be wrought amongst the Pagans were not believed by the historians who relate them; and the philosophers treated them as fables +. If magic was able to support some reputation in ages of gross ignorance, through the superior knowledge and fraudulent contrivances of those who exercised it; yet whenever learning revived and became gencral, it never failed to sink into contempt. It did so in the same age in which the Gospel gained a general establishment by the credit of undeniable miracles. In vain did the Roman emperor Nero, by discovering the most extravagant fondness for magic, and sending for the most eminent professors of it from every quarter of the world, endeavour to support its sinking reputation. Pliny informs us, that all that Nero gained by his attempts was an entire conviction of the folly of magic. And he observes himself, that if at any time magicians perform extraordinary things, it is owing to the efficacy of their drugs, not of their magic art ‡.

*Quæ ante conditam, condendamve urbem, poeticis magis decora fabulis, quam incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis traduntur, ea nec affirmare nec refellere in animo est. Datur hæc venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat. Liv. Procem. After reciting several prodigies, Livy adds, Et alia ludibria oculorum, auriumque, credita pro veris, 1. xxii. c. 44. See Liv. 1. xxiv. c. 10. l. xxii. c. 3. et Quintus Curtius, 1. ix. c. 1.

In reference to Heathen miracles, Cicero says, 1. ii. de Divinat. Nihil debet esse in philosophia commentitiis fabellis loci. Concerning Cato, he tells us in the same book, Mirari se aiebat, quod non ris deret aruspex, aruspicem cum vidisset.

e. 2.

In his veneficas artes pollere, non magicas. Nat. Hist. 1. xxx. `

Now,

Now, inasmuch as magic did constantly lose its credit, just in the degree in which men exercised their understandings, it certainly was not supported by any supernatural power.

SECTION IV.

Concerning the false prophets as spoken of in Scripture, in which the following passages are explained, Deut. xiii. 1-5. Matt. xxiv. 24. 2 Thess. ii. 9. Rev. xiii. 13, 14; together with several others relative to the false teachers in the apostolic age.

THAT the pretences to inspiration and miracles, made by false prophets, in support of error and idolatry, should be branded in Scripture as the sole effects of human craft and imposture, is what might be naturally expected from those writings, which do not allow the power of inspiring predictions, or of working miracles, to any Pagan deity, or to any evil spirit. For, from what other quarter was it ever imagined that a false prophet could receive any supernatural support? It will be necessary, however, to examine the several passages of Scripture which speak to this point, inasmuch as they have had a sense assigned them absolutely inconsistent with the principles already established.

I.

I shall begin with considering that celebrated warning of Moses to the Israelites: If there arise amongst you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth

thee

thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, (which thou hast not known,) and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearker unto his words:-for the Lord your: God proveth you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart.—And that prophet, and that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage*.

It has been contended that Moses, in this passage, is laying down this general rule, viz. " that the true divinity of miracles is to be determined by the doctrines which they are applied to confirm." It is farther asserted, that the Jews are here required to make his law in particular the standard by which to judge of miracles; to disallow the force and evidence of those which opposed that law, and even to, put to death the prophet who performed them, because he taught the worship of a strange godt. The learned Dr. Benson and Dr. Lardner §, as well as many others,

* Deut. xiii. I-5.

Hence Rousseau concluded that the Pagans had an equal right to put the apostles to death, for preaching up to them the worship of a strange god, though they proved their mission by miracles.

Life of Christ, p. 202.

$ Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p. 255, 256, Though this judicious, candid and excellent writer asserts that Moses here refers to miracles, yet, contrary to his usual method, he produces no proof of his assertion. Nay, he allows it to be a rule of Scripture,

that

others, were of opinion, that Moses heré puts a case which never would happen; but if it did happen, and a miracle was performed to induce the Israelites to worship other gods, it was to be disregarded. Here it is natural to inquire, whether any prophet did ever arise amongst the Israelites, who performed real miracles to draw them into idolatry. If no such prophet did arise, (and there is not the least reason to believe there did,) how needless was it to caution the Israelites against him! Nay, Moses knew that it was impossible any such prophet should arise; because he appropriates all miracles to God *, and denies that the Heathen deities could support their claims by any supernatural works. He always represents them as senseless idols, and could not therefore allow them any power or dominion over mankind. On all occa sions he appeals to miracles, as absolute proofs of the divinity of Jehovah, and of his own mission*; and can he, without gross self-contradiction, here represent these works as common both to the true God and to rival deities; to a divine messenger and a false prophet? And indeed why should not a real miracle equally gain credit to both or neither? be of as great weight against Moses as for him? Moses neither does nor could allow that an idolatrous prophet would perform works truly miraculous: and the very order to put such a prophet to death, shews that there was

:

that if any man proposes and performs a miracle in proof of his mission, it would be decisive in his favour and yet in the case -stated above he supposes that a miracle determines nothing. *This will be shewn below, ch. iii. sect. v. and ch. iv. sect. i.

no

no danger of his being protected from punishment by a miraculous power.

The Jewish lawgiver here refers, not to true miracles, but to those divinations amongst the Pagans by which the credit of idolatry was supported. Amongst other methods of divination, one was by the interpretation of portents, ostents, prodigies, monsters*, rare and extraordinary appearances and occurrences,. which were falsely deemed supernatural, and thought to presignify ↑ future events. These are the signs and wonders here spoken of by Moses, and which it was

the

* The several species of divination are enumerated in Cicero de Nat. Deor. 1. ii. c. 65. Multa cernunt haruspices; multa augures provident; multa oraculis declarantur; multa vaticinationibus i multa somniis; multa portentis.

+ See the passage from Herodotus, cited above, p. 164, and note +, below.

Moth, a sign, and ND mopheth, a wonder, like the corre spondent Greek words ensor and Tipas, though often applied to miraculous works, yet very commonly bear a different application. Oth denotes any mark or token, Gen. xvii. 11. Exod. xii. 13. Ezek. XX. (2, 20; and so likewise does the word onesov, Matt. xxvi. 48. Luke ii. 12. Rom. iv. 11. 2 Thess. iii. 17. a miracle, Ps. lxxi. 7. Is. xx. 3. Ezek. Tapas in the same passages of the LXX.

Nor can mopheth denote xii. 6. ch. xxiv. 24; or Oth and mopheth are both presignify future events, Ezek. xii. 6, 11. ch. xxiv. Luke xxi. 11, 25. Acts

applied to such things as point out and 1 Kings xiii. 3. Is. viii. 18. ch. xx. 3. 24, 27; and so are both nor and ripas, ii. 19. In Ælian's Var. Hist. 1. xii. c. 57, we are told, that when Alexander led his forces against Thebes, οι μεν θεοι σημεία αυτοίς και τέρατα απεστέλλον, προσημαίνοντες τας περί αυτών όσον ουδέπω τύχας, "the gods sent signs and wonders amongst them, presignifying their im pending fate." Polybius also (lib. iii. c. x. p. 365, 1. 9, cited by Raphelius on Matt. xxiv. 24.) uses both these words together in the

same