the miraculous power, there would soon have arisen numbers of pretenders; that from some miracles well attested, occasion would have been taken to propagate innumerable false reports. If so, with what colour of justice can the detection of many spurious reports among the primitive Christians be considered as a presumption against those miracles, the reality of which is the most plausible, nay the only plausible account that can be given of the origin of such reports: The presumption is too evidently on the opposite side to need illustration.

It is not my intention here to patronize either side of the question which the Doctor's free inquiry has occasioned. All that concerns my argument is, barely to evince, and this I imagine has been evinced, that, granting the Doctor's plea to be well founded, there is no presumption arising hence, which tends in the lowest degree to discredit the miracles recorded in holy writ; nay, that there is a contrary presumption. In further confirmation of this truth, let me ask, Were there ever, in any region of the globe, any similar pretensions to miraculous powers, before that memorable era, the publication of the gospel? Let me ask again, Since those pretensions ceased, has it ever been in the power of the most daring enthusiast to revive them any where in favour of a new system? Authentic miracles will, for a time, give a currency to counterfeits; but as the former become less frequent, the latter become more suspected, till at length they

are treated with general contempt, and disappear. The danger then is, lest men, ever prone to extremes, become as extravagantly incredulous, as formerly they were credulous. Laziness, the true source of both, always inclines us to admit or reject in the gross, without entering on the irksome task of considering things in detail. In the first instance, knowing some such events to be true, they admit all without examination; in the second, knowing some to be false, they reject all without examination. A procedure this, which however excusable in the unthinking herd, is altogether unworthy a philosopher.

But it may be thought, that the claim to miracles in the early ages of the church, continued too long to be supported solely on the credit of those performed by our Lord and his apostles. In order to account for this, it ought to be attended to, that in the course of some centuries, the situation of affairs, with regard to religion, was really inverted. Education, and even superstition, and bigotry, and popularity, which the miracles of Christ and his apostles had to encounter, came gradually to be on the side of those wonders said to have been performed in after times. If they were potent enemies, and such as, we have reason to believe, nothing but the force of truth could vanquish; they were also potent allies, and may well be supposed able to give a temporary triumph to falsehood, especially when it had few or no enemies to combat. But in dis

coursing on the prodigies said to have been performed in primitive times, I have been insensibly carried from the point, to which I propose in this section to confine myself. From inquiring into miracles ascribed to new systems, I have proceeded to those pleaded in confirmation of systems previously established, and generally received.

LEAVING SO remote a period, I propose, lastly, to inquire, whether, since that time, any heresiarch whatever, any founder of a new sect, or publisher of a new system, has pretended to miraculous powers. If the essayist had known of any such pretender, he surely would have mentioned him. But as he has not afforded us any light on this subject, I shall just recal to the remembrance of my reader, those persons who, either as innovators or reformers, have made some figure in the church. They were the persons from whom, if from any, a plea of this kind might naturally have been expected; especially at a time when Europe was either plunged in barbarism, or but beginning to emerge out of it.

Was ever then this high prerogative, the power of working miracles, claimed or exercised by the founders of the sects of the Waldenses and Albigenses? Did Wickliff in England, pretend to it? Did Huss or Jerom in Bohemia? To come nearer modern times, Did Luther in Germany, Zuinglius in Switzerland, Calvin in France, or any other of the reformers, advance this plea? Do such of them

as are authors, mention in their writings any miracles they performed, or appeal to them as the evidences of their doctrine? Do contemporary historians allege, that they challenged the faith of their auditors, in consequence of such supernatural powers? I admit, if they did, that their miracles might be ascribed to a new system. For though they pretended only to re-establish the Christian institution, in its native purity, expunging those pernicious interpolations, which a false philosophy had foisted into the doctrinal part, and Pagan superstition into the moral and the ritual; yet as the religion they inculcated greatly differed from the faith and worship of the times, it might, in this respect, be denominated a new system; and would be encountered by all the violence and prejudice, which novelties in religion never fail to excite: Not that the want of real miracles was a presumption against the truth of their doctrine. The God of nature, who is the God of Christians, does nothing in vain. No new revelation was pretended to; consequently there was no occasion for such supernatural support. They appealed to the revelation formerly bestowed, and by all parties acknowledged, as to the proper rule in this controversy: they appealed to the reason of mankind as the judge; and the reason of mankind was a competent judge of the conformity of their doctrine to this unerring rule.

But how, upon the author's principles, shall we account for this moderation in the reformers ?

Were they, in his judgment, calm enquirers into truth? Were they dispassionate reasoners in defence of it? Far otherwise. He tells us, They may safely be pronounced to have been univer

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sally inflamed with the highest enthusiasm *? And doubtless we cannot expect from this hand a more amiable picture of their disciples. May not we then, in our turn, safely pronounce, this writer himself being judge, that for a man to imagine he sees what has no reality, to impose in this manner not only on his own understanding, but even on his external senses, is a pitch of delusion higher than the highest enthusiasm can produce, and is to be imputed only to downright phrenzy †?

* History of Great Britain, James I. chap. 1.

+ Perhaps it will be pleaded, that the working of miracles was considered by the leaders in the Reformation as a Popish artifice, and as therefore worthy of being discarded with the other abuses which Popery had introduced. That this was not the light in which miracles were viewed by Luther, who justly possesses the first place in the list of reformers, is evident from the manner in which he argues against Muncer, the apostle of the Anabaptists. This man, without ordination, had assumed the office of a Christian pastor. Against this conduct Luther remonstrates, as being, in his judgment, an usurpation of the sacred function. Let him be asked,' says he, • Who made him a teacher of religion? If he answers, • God; let him prove it by a visible miracle: for it is by such signs that God declares himself, when he gives an extraor

dinary mission.' When this argument was afterwards retorted on himself by the Romanists, who desired to know how