ing the Mahometan the ground of miracles be wholly abandoned, and refers to prophecy as a shorter and safer way by which to prove the decisive truth of Christianity. These observations, and from so able a pen, render it, I think, a point of the greater importance to clear as much as possible the whole question of miracles. If there be, indeed, any case in which, as directed ad hominem, the argument from prophecy be safer or stronger than that from miracles, yet it is the duty of the Christian to exhibit the full strength of both. If this of miracles be clouded by superstition, or rendered intricate by sophism or difficulty, we should be

a We know that it was so thought by the early Christian apologists, and for the very same reason which seems to have operated with Dr. Lee, namely that their adversaries thought that the miracles might be accounted for by attributing them to magical agency. See Paley's Evidences, Part III. Chap. iv. v. How very remarkable to meet at every turn, among the unchanging inhabitants of the East, with the same opinions, as well as the same manners, which have been assigned to them from the earliest dawn of history.

the more diligent to explain the one, the more earnest to dispel the other.

I would gladly be permitted to request of Archdeacon Goddard not to omit some consideration of the Mahometan tracts here referred to, in his promised notes to the Bampton Lecture for 1823. It is evident, and particularly from the seventh Sermon, that he has given to the whole subject a long and careful attention.

A

TREATISE,

ETC.

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.

SECTION I.

OF THE NATURE OF MIRACLES; AND THAT, UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS, THE EXERTION OF AN UNEQUIVOCALLY SUPERHUMAN POWER MUST BE CONCLUSIVE OF A STRICTLY

DIVINE AUTHORITY.

A MIRACLE, if we speak of it merely as an event, without saying any thing of its author, or cause, is admitted by all to be, at the least, an event out of, or contrary to, that course of nature which comes under human cognizance, or which human experience and observation allow us to verify. Nothing contrary to that course can be effected by any merely human power or agency. To substitute a definition, therefore, which, instead of the effect, shall have for its subject the cause producing it, we may say also that a mi

B

racle is an act above human power. These two definitions coincide entirely. But in alleging miracles to prove the truth of a revelation, it is a reason for preferring this last definition, that it brings before us immediately, and without waiting to make an inference, the agent whose authority is the point to be proved, and the proof of which is the sole object of our inquiry whether an event be out of the course of nature or no. A miracle may be defined, therefore, to be an act above human powera.

a I must not be understood, in what is said above, to affirm that the definition of miracles as events contrary to the course of nature, and the definition of them as events above human power, are to be accounted actually convertible definitions, or as being only different forms of the same. Acts above human power may be in the common course of events. Superhuman beings may perform those acts habitually, and if it be contended that such acts so performed are not entitled to the appellation of miracles, I undertake not to uphold in this particular case, or in others similar to it, the exact propriety of that appellation. But since superhuman agency is the only point in a miracle which I see any reason for attempting to prove, the proof would be encumbered by here bringing into the definition niceties which concern only the name of the act. In the proof of a revelation, we may account every act a miracle which certainly indicates a superhuman agent. See note A, at the end of the volume.