to make the matter still more clear, that this objection was felt and understood by Mr. Locke, hear him proceed in the same chapter. "Though the common experience, and the ordinary course of things, have justly a mighty influence upon the minds of men, to make them give or refuse credit to any thing proposed to their belief; yet there is one case wherein the strangeness of the fact lessens not the assent to a fair testimony given of it. For where such supernatural events are suitable to ends aimed at by him, who has the power to change the course of nature; there, under such circumstances, they may be the fitter to procure belief, by how much more they are beyond, or contrary to ordinary observation. This is the proper case of miracles, which, well attested, do not only find credit themselves, but give it also to other truths which need such confirmation.

From these passages it is evident, that Mr. Locke perceived and stated Mr. Hume's objection in all its force, but with that deep insight into things, which always distinguished him, discerned at the same time, in what manner the argument in favour of miracles might be relieved from it. Mr. Hume stopped short in the objection, and endeavoured with all the subtilty and address, which he could summon to his aid, to set it off to advantage; Mr. Locke with clearer views and deeper penetration perceived, that although the objection is natural and not without its weight, yet a satisfactory answer might be furnished to it; thereby verifying the excellent apothegm of lord Bacon; certissimum est et experientia comprobatum, leves gustus in philosophia movere fortassè ad atheismum, sed pleniores haustus ad religionem reducere.*

The reader will perceive, that the only difference between the argument here stated by Mr. Locke, and that of Mr. Hume, consists merely in the artful manner, in which the latter has dressed it off to advantage. They are in substance the same; but Mr. Hume has contrived to render it more imposing, by his mode of exhibiting it. Mr. Locke allows that, a great difficulty which we find in receiving the report of witnesses, lies in that re

Let us now proceed to answer this celebrated objection, which Mr. Hume has thus purloined from Mr. Locke, and endeavoured to palm upon the world as his own invention; while at the same time he has infused into it all the venom of his own subtilty, and recommended it by all the parade of language, and embellishments of fancy and illustration, of which he was capable. From the account which we have before given of the progress of the human mind, in its advancement in knowledge, and the grounds of our assent to truth, we doubt not, that we shall render the solution of this difficulty, about the proof of miracles from human testimony, extremely easy and completely satisfactory..

In our entrance upon this inquiry, which is undoubtedly of fundamental importance to mankind, we cannot but remark, how little solicitous a professed sceptic is, whether one part of his works coheres with another, and whether opinions hazarded at one time, be in exact coincidence with those he had delivered at another. In this treatise upon miracles, we hear Mr. Hume talking of, "experience giving us assurance of the uniform course of nature," and of "the laws of nature being established, (or rather shown to be established,) by a uniform experience." And yet this is the same writer, who, as we have shown, in his Treatise of Hu

port clashing with the ordinary course of nature; Mr. Hume states, in substance, the same objection; but discovers his utmost skill and adroitness, in representing the evidence of testimony, as always resting upon a variable experience only, while the course of nature is found to be established by an invariable experience. Of course, he concludes, that that evidence which we have of the established laws of nature, which is derived from an invariable experience, must, in all cases, preponderate over that which we derive from the testimony of witnesses, which, at best, can be substantiated only by a variable experience. How far this view of the subject is wellfounded, we have undertaken to show in the text; but we take this opportunity of endeavouring to illustrate still further, the objection of Mr. Hume, as perhaps, no subject was ever more grossly misunderstood and misrepresented.

man Nature, maintains the atheistical doctrine, that we have no reason to believe that in any case, there is any power in causes to produce their effects, that there is no ground for that universally received maxim, that for every effect there must be a cause, that all we can know from experience in reference to cause and effect, is, that they are objects bearing towards each other the relations of contiguity and conjunction; and finally, that even in regard to these, we have no reason to draw any conclusion beyond our own experience." Now, if after a complete course of observation in regard to the order of nature, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning the past or future, what ground has Mr. Hume for deducing any conclusion from his own experience, in reference to those events which took place in the days of the Apostles, and the early ages of Christianity? Upon his own principles, for aught he can know, at any period before his time, nature may have produced all sorts of monsters, centaurs, giants, pigmies, gorgons, hydras, and chimæras, and have sported herself with the violation of her own laws. If we have no right to reason from our own experience, to what in all probability has taken place in time past, or may take place in future, then, the slightest degree of evidence derived from the testimony of others, and he allows that testimony affords us probability as to matters of fact, should lead us with the blindest credulity, to embrace all the fabulous tales of heathen mythology, as well as the wildest stories of fiction and romance. Into such absurdities and contradictions, are men driven by the wanton spirit of scepticism!

Dr. Campbell, in his answer to Mr. Hume's Essay upon Miracles, pays him the very high-wrought and unmerited compliment of remarking, that," he has not only been much entertained and instructed by his works, but if he possessed any talent for abstract reasoning, he was not a little indebted to what he (Mr. Hume,) had written on human nature,

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for the improvement of that talent." He then concludes, in the following terms. "If, therefore, in this tract, I have refuted Mr. Hume's essay, the greater share of the merit is, perhaps, to be ascribed to Mr. Hume himself. The compliment which the Russian monarch, after the famous battle of Pultowa, paid the Swedish generals, when he gave them the honourable appellation of his masters in the art of war, I may with great sincerity pay my acute and ingenious adversary." This it must be admitted is very courteous treatment of the Arch-Atheist, and the inveterate enemy of all religion and morals. What advantage Dr. Campbell could have derived from reading Mr. Hume's Treatises upon the Principles of Human Nature, which, as far as we have become acquainted with them, as represented by him, are false, hollow and counterfeit, we cannot imagine; but we certainly must be indulged in thinking that there would have been no difficulty in recommending him to much more able masters in abstract reasoning, in whose school he might have imbibed much more wholesome, and certainly not less profound lessons of instruction, than the author of the Treatise of Human Nature. Must he pass by Bacon, Locke, Clarke, Chillingworth, Barrow, Stillingfleet, Butler, Warburton, and a host of others of similar pretensions, in whose presence Mr. Hume twinkles but as a dim star, in the midst of so many suns, to obtain his views of human nature, and cultivate his powers of abstract reasoning from the great perverter, and falsifier of reason? Could he not have obtained from these champions of the truth, much more invincible arms with which to subdue an enemy to the faith, than those with which he was furnished by that enemy himself? To hold such language is certainly one of the best expedients, by which to give currency, and authority too, to the most pernicious productions that ever issued from the press in any age or country. The compliment too, as I have said, is as unmerited as it is far-fetched and over-strained. There is not a

single treatise of Mr. Hume, which his warmest friends and admirers, if they have just conceptions of such matters, could consider as a master-piece of abstract reasoning. Where is it? Which of his works deserves that praise? His merits as an historian, although even in this respect his fidelity and accuracy have been impeached, I am willing to admit; and to this I might add, that he sometimes discovers considerable acuteness and erudition as a critick, and polite scholar. But his claims to distinction and superiority, as a metaphysician or profound reasoner, I utterly deny. His logick is obscured and enfeebled by subtilty, his notions of metaphysicks are crude and unconcocted, a vein of cold and deadly scepticism pervades all his writings, together with the most abandoned profligacy of moral principles. Is this the author from whose works alone, a Christian Theologian could derive the weapons with which to subdue him?

But to pass from a discussion of the character and pretensions of Mr. Hume, let us proceed to the consideration of his objection to miracles. Never surely has any subject been more egregiously misconceived and misrepresented. Passing by all minor considerations, such as the ambiguous use of words with which this author is so frequently chargeable, and the inconsistencies with himself in which he has been detected in this essay, I shall enter immediately upon that objection, which every rational mind will perceive to be by no means destitute of force, and which of consequence, it is important to obviate. The whole force of the objection which has been so largely dilated upon by Mr. Hume, may be collected into a single point, and consists in this, Should we ever place such confidence in the veracity of human testimony, of which we can be assured only by a variable experience, since men sometimes tell truth, and sometimes falsehood, as to believe in a miracle, which is a violation of the laws of nature; when by an uniform and invariable experience, we know that those laws are established? In other