thusiasm could have induced them to imagine such facts as those which they record as the basis of our religion. Still less could they have procured a general reception for facts, the belief of which, as of the doctrines founded on them, fell in no-where with the bent of men's opinions, but were, without exception, either among Jews a stumbling-block, or among Greeks, foolishness.

The only objection, which now remains to be disposed of, is the objection that, if the evidence had been in reality thus incontrovertible, the Scribes and Pharisees would have believed in our Saviour. But to this I answer that they did believe in him: that is, they did believe in the real performance of his miracles, which is here the single point in question. Those miracles, we know, they would have denied, if they could". But they could not deny them. They had no resource, therefore, but to deny the consequence which we draw from them, or to contend that they might be performed, not by God, but by the devil, or by the aid of occult or magical arts; or, at all events, that they might be performed by a sinner, and did not carry necessarily

a Acts, iv. 16.

with them the sanction of God. But this resource we know to be unavailing, and accordingly the proof of the real performance is all we ask or require.

With regard to the Mosaic miracles the case is the same. The reputation of Moses as a great and skilful magician, might, even if there existed no other reason, explain sufficiently why even the belief of those wonders, which he was generally reputed in the ancient world to have wrought, did not necessarily induce other nations to become Jews, did not prevent them from regarding the Jewish religion as both an unsocial and a disreputable superstition.

How remarkable a harmony may be inferred from these considerations between certain features of the history of our religion, the co-existence of which may at first appear to be paradoxical! We say, and it is commonly admitted by modern infidels, that the evidence of miracles, supposing them to be performed, is a decisive proof of the divine sanction and authority. Yet we admit that the revelation by Moses, though vouched by miracles of the greatest splendour and publicity, stood for fifteen centuries nearly alone in the world, making no pro

gress out of the limits of Judea. We admit that Christianity, though resting also on decisive miracles, made even in Judea, where those miracles were performed, only a gradual progress. How happened this, if the evidence was so decisive? This is the question triumphantly asked by the infidel.

But the answer is obvious, that though the miracles were performed, yet the real performance of them was not thought a decisive evidence by all those persons to whom it was originally addressed. We know now that they ought to have thought it so. We have also their clear testimony to the truth of the facts; and thus we reconcile with our plenary evidence of the divine origin of the Jewish and Christian religions, both the distinct subsistence of the Jewish polity for so many ages, and the gradual conversion of Jews and heathens to Christianity; for whatever reasons, known or unknown, the progress of our religion may have been thus guided by Providence. All this we reconcile in the most satisfactory manner, and on evidence the most indubitable; and I know not how else we could have reconciled it so satisfactorily, still retaining, as we do, that plenary evidence which

it is in our power to deduce clearly from miracles, without perplexing ourselves with any of those delusions concerning magic, or demons, or concerning any other occult principles of nature, from which it is the privilege of our age to be emancipated.

How satisfactory also both to reason and religion that we are emancipated from those pernicious delusions, and that our accurate investigation of those laws of the universe which may be deduced from our observation of the common course of events, allows us to conclude that events out of those laws may and do enable us, under certain circumstances, to infer with certainty either the immediate or the remote authority of the divine author of all.

SECTION V.

THAT THE LAPSE OF TIME SINCE THE MIRACLES WERE PERFORMED HAS NOT WEAKENED OUR GROUNDS OF RACONFIDENCE IN THE EVIDENCE OR TESTIMONY

TIONAL

ON WHICH THEY DEPEND.

occurrence.

Ir does not appear to me that the evidence which we possess of the real performance of the Scripture miracles is any way lessened by the lapse of time which has taken place since their A history transmitted through a succession of generations is said by Locke', to lose at each transmission some part of its evidence. But it has been justly remarked, that this can only be as it loses part of those proofs by which it was entitled to credit: and, assuming the authenticity of the records conveyed to us, I cannot perceive that, in any respect whatever, the proof which we possess that the Scripture miracles were performed, is inferior to the proof which, supposing the history true, was at

Essay on the Human Understanding. Book IV. Ch. xvi. $10.

b Horne's Introduction, Vol. I. p. 262.