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plain, and certainly of the first importance, mankind are liable to delusion, in how many thousand instances besides would they not be open to it, if miracles were performed to give a sanction to imposture!

And even supposing the doctrine attested by miraeles to be immoral, or favourable to our corrupt passions; this consideration would indeed awaken the caution and prejudice of a few good men against it, but would only so much the more strongly recommend it to the affection of the greatest part of mankind. When I consider upon what accounts the Heathen world did not like to retain the true God in their knowledge, what vices they ascribed to their chief divinities, what flagrant immoralities they practised as rites of religion, even without any such sanction as that of miracles; when I farther reflect, how often the moral precepts of the Gospel have been censured as impracticable, and their strict purity urged as an objection against their divinity; and that even Christians themselves, of all denominations, are continually corrupting the sanctity of their religion, or relaxing its rigour, and striving, under different pretences, to bring it nearer to the level of human frailty; I cannot help being of opinion, that a doctrine mild and gentle to men's favourite passions and pursuits, if it was supported by miracles, would be a temptation too strong for human nature to resist, and such as God therefore will never suffer it to be exposed to. A very learned writer, who has done singular ser

Pagans in their idolatry, is apparently true with respect to Papists, were such works to be performed by them.

vice to the cause of religion, has asserted, Supposing that the miracles pretended in favour of Paganism were all real miracles, yet, as they lead men to a corrupt religion and idolatrous worship, no reverence, no regard is to be paid to them. The worship which men pay to God will ever be suitable to the ideas they form concerning his nature. The most immoral rites of Pagan devotion were conformable to the character of the objects of that devotion. And while men entertain corrupt notions of their gods, they are not likely to discern the absurdity of a corrupt religion. And therefore miracles performed in support of it would strengthen, and (in their opinion, at least) justify, their attachment to it. In a word, whoever considers the true nature of miracles, the power which they necessarily imply, and the forcible impressions they make on the human heart, together with the real character of mankind, will hardly deny that, if they were wrought to give evidence to falsehood, they would unavoidably, in numberless instances, procure it credit; especially if he farther takes into the account the understanding and sagacity ascribed to created spirits. We are indeed exposed to the danger of delusion by the artifices of men. Nevertheless, against human craft human caution is a sufficient security: but men are not a match for superior beings.

Now, if God's allowing to evil spirits the liberty of working miracles in confirmation of false doctrines

* Dr. Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies, vol. ii. p. 275. Dr. Clarke likewise had advanced the same doctrine, vol. ii. p. 699, 700, 702, folio edition.

would

would necessarily subject mankind to great delusion, will it not follow from hence, that he cannot have granted them any such liberty? This consequence will be allowed by those who think honourably of the divine government. Who, without being compelled by such evidence as cannot be resisted, would represent the Deity as placing his rational creatures, even those who with upright hearts were endeavouring to learn his will, under a dispensation which, without any fault of theirs, would promote their deception in matters which concerned their moral conduct and their eternal happiness? Such a dispensation as this seems to, be utterly inconsistent with God's wisdom and goodness, with his essential rectitude, and love of righteousness and truth, and with all the noblest perfections of his nature. If God does not, and indeed (for the reasons assigned above *) cannot, suffer the order of the natural world to be disturbed at the will of created agents at any other time; can it be thought that he will permit and employ them to make this miraculous disturbance, merely to promote a farther and much greater evil, the delusion, depravity and misery of the moral world? Scarce is it possible for us to dishonour the Deity more than by so groundless and injurious an imputation. If falsehood and vice are objects of God's disapprobation, he must have reserved in his own hands the power of working miracles. Now, it is not more impossible that this prerogative of God should be usurped by violence, than that it should be voluntarily resigned and prostituted to unworthy purposes..

* Ch, i. sect, ii. p. 18; and sect. iii. p. 57.

SECTION VI.

If miracles may be performed without a divine interposition, and in support of falsehood, they cannot be authentic credentials of a divine mission, and criterions of truth.

It is a thing too obvious to require any laboured argument, that if miracles, in themselves, are evidences. only of the interposition of some superior beings, not of God more than any other, they can never be, in themselves, a certain criterion of a person's being sent

of God. "You could not know I came from, and was sent by, such a prince, by my bringing his seal along with me, if other people had the same seal, and would lend it to others to use as they saw fit*." If you cannot point out, with clearness and certainty, the specific difference between those miracles which are peculiar to God, and those which the devil can either perform or imitate, you will be in perpetual danger of mistaking the one for the other†. Accordingly we find Christians themselves, from the earliest ages down to the present, disparaging the evidence of mere miracles, as doubtful and uncertain; cautioning the world against receiving doctrines as true and di

*Fleetwood's Essay on Miracles, p. 6, 7.

+ Dr. Prideaux in his Letter to the Deists, p. 206, and many others, have undertaken to shew what sort of miracles the devil may perform or imitate. The task however seems to have been too hard for them; which it might well be, if it be true, as Dr. Clarke and others tell us, that there is no knowing how far the power of created spirits, good and evil, may extend. Why then do these writers undertake to determine the limits of their power? See Dr. Clarke, vol. ii. p.. 696,,&c,

vine, upon the bare attestation of these works, and censuring a faith founded upon them as manifestly rash and groundless*. Can it then be matter of surprise to us, that unbelievers should treat miracles with very little reverence, and except to the evidence arising from them? It has long provoked their scorn and indignation, to have that offered them as a valid proof of the truth, which equally attests falsehood; to see the very same works used to recommend some to their regard as divine messengers, and to disgrace others as magicians. For, I think, there is hardly a single miracle, either in the Old or New Testament, which Christians have not thought they could parallel ‡ with some similar miracle among the Pagans. There are two cases, however, in which miracles are considered

*Temerariam plane. Tertullian. in Marc. iii. 2. Origen, in his Answer to Celsus, 1. iii. p. 124, speaks of prophecies and supernatural cures, as things of an indifferent nature. And Jerome, or whoever is the author of the Breviary upon the Psalter, apud Hieron. t. ii. 334, 335, makes no difficulty of allowing to Porphyry, that the magicians of Egypt, Apollonius and an infinite number of other persons, wrought miracles. "Non est autem grande facere signa,” seems to have been the principle common both to Porphyry and Jerome.

It was this which afforded Celsus such matter of insult and triumph: Πως ουν ου σχέτλιον, από των αυτών έργων τον μεν θεον, τους de `yonTaç hy:lodai. Celsus apud Origen. contra Cels. 1. ii. p. 93. This it is that seems to have created the strongest prejudice in M. Rousseau against miracles. Can it be imagined," says he, "that God uses the same means to instruct men, as he knows the devil will use to deceive them?" Lettres écrites de la Montagne, p. 14.

This task was undertaken by the learned Huetins, in his Quæstiones Alnetanæ.

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