miracles of Jesus were published give us an assurance that they underwent a strict examination, and consequently that they could not have escaped a detection, had they been impostures.

Though some of the pretended miracles rejected by us may be traced up to contemporary witnesses, and were publicly attested on the spot, yet that they underwent no examination, I inferred from this, that no instances of them could be produced which were not liable to one or both of the following objections: either that the persons to whom the accounts of them were proposed, were previously disposed, through a blind credulity, and an eagerness of belief, to admit them unexamined; or that the persons who encouraged and promoted them were armed with power which rendered any examination impracticable. If, therefore, the reverse shall appear to be the case with regard to the gospel miracles, you cannot, consistently with your claim of impartiality, persist in asserting that the former stand upon the same footing of credibility with the latter.

First, then, I am to shew, that the persons who believed the miracles of Jesus, at their first publication, cannot be supposed to have admitted them without careful examination of the evidence, and the clearest conviction of their truth.

Had Jesus laid claim to miracles, without declaring the end proposed by them, in this case, as the facts would not have been generally interesting, few or none would have thought it worth while to examine into them. They might then have passed on, without notice, in their own age, and owed their future credit to the contempt they were treated with at first, which has no doubt frequently screened

forged miracles from a formal detection. But when we consider what the gospel miracles were connected with, that they were works urged by Jesus their performer as the foundation of a new religion, here the importance of the end left it no longer a matter of indifference whether they were true or false, but every one to whom they were proposed must have had a sufficient motive to weigh the evidence of them with care and diligence.

This argument acquires double strength, when we consider that the religion, in confirmation of which the miracles of Jesus were appealed to, was subversive of that believed by those to whom they were proposed. That pretensions to miracles whose end was to confirm opinions and doctrines already established should be admitted, without due examination, by the favourers of such opinions, is not at all to be wondered at; and this, as I have observed, greatly invalidates the most boasted wonders of popery. But the miracles of Jesus, whose end was not to countenance, but to overturn the established doctrines, could not possibly meet with an easy reception; assent to them would be difficult to be obtained, and never could be obtained, without serious examination and the strongest conviction. Other pretensions to miracles did not gain credit, but after the establishment of those opinions which they were thought to confirm, and amongst persons previously biassed in favour of those opinions. But every thing is the reverse with regard to the miracles of Jesus, for they were previous to the belief of Christianity, and gave cause to the belief of it; every witness of them was a convert, and every believer had been an enemy.

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But it has been alleged, that the Jews in general were extremely credulous, and prone to give credit to stories of the miraculous kind; and that therefore there is room for a suspicion, that some of them might admit the miracles of Jesus without sufficient grounds and careful examination of the evidence. In answer to this, suffer me to observe, that granting the Jewish nation to be ever so much disposed to believe pretences to miracles, the end for which those of Jesus were said to be wrought must have hindered this general disposition from operating, so as to make them receive these particular miracles upon slight grounds. However apt any one may be to admit stories of the miraculous kind, yet he will not believe hastily such as have an obvious tendency to overturn his favourite sentiments. The cause of his too easy assent ceases here. So long as

the miracles strike in with and confirm his settled opinions and prejudices, they will be too easily admitted; but when once these begin to interfere, the more of credulity and enthusiasm there is in his temper, it will be the more difficult to obtain his assent. For instance, take one from any of the sects of enthusiasts amongst Christians, a Quaker, we will suppose, or a Methodist. How ready shall we find such a person to believe, upon the slightest grounds, the truth of a Divine revelation or inspiration pretended to by one of his own sect, and which tends to confirm its favourite doctrines! Being extremely credulous, as we suppose from his general character, it is natural to imagine that he will greedily embrace, without weighing the evidence, a fact highly agreeable to his preconceived opinions, and which indeed he cannot examine coolly and impartially

through the previous bias of his mind. But put the case, that the same credulous Methodist is attacked on the footing of one's having had a revelation, which expressly condemned the tenets of Methodism, will the general credulity of his temper induce him to give this a ready admission? The reverse is obvious: the more of enthusiasm and credulity there is in him, the less liable will he be to be convinced. His prejudices will be too strong for the evidence of what is so disagreeable to him; or if he be convinced, the conviction of one so averse to it will be no weak motive to our believing, that such a revelation, to be believed by such a person, must have had very glaring marks of truth.

Supposing, therefore, what is objected to be true, (though I see no sufficient grounds for such a supposition,) that the disciples of Jesus, under which name I include, with the apostles, the whole multitude of believing Jews, were credulous persons, and previously disposed to believe miracles on slight grounds; yet, when we consider that the miracles of Jesus were connected with doctrines subversive of those which education and prejudice had rooted in their minds, from this we may infer, that their general credulity would rather obstruct than promote their conversion, and, consequently, that before such persons admitted Jesus's claim to be a divine teacher, they had carefully attended to the evidence of those miraculous facts, on the truth of which this claim was founded.

This may suffice to prove that credulity and eagerness of belief, on the part of those to whom the miracles of Jesus were proposed, was not the cause of the credit they met with. I come now to

shew, that on the part of those who encouraged and attested them, there was not only no possibility of a confederacy strong enough to obstruct an examination of the facts, but farther, that the persons who had all the means of examination in their hands actually put their power in execution, in order, if possible, to detect them.

Miracles the offspring of imposture, can never have any chance to gain credit, or pass undetected, in the time or at the place where they are pretended to be wrought, unless there is a strong confederacy on foot, privy to the imposture, and engaged to carry it on; and this, as I observed, has been generally the case of the most noted pretensions of popery. But we have the fullest assurance that can possibly be had, that there was not any such confederacy on foot to propagate the miracles of Jesus. Had Christianity, indeed, been a religion already established in the world when these miracles were pretended to, and previously believed by those who believed the miracles, a combination to deceive the public might have been possible, and the very possibility of such a combination would justly have excited suspicions of its being real. But when we reflect from what beginnings Christianity arose, and in what manner it made its entrance into the world, that Jesus the great Founder of it had not one follower when he set up his claim, and that it was his miracles which gave birth to his sect, not the sect already established that appealed to his miracles; from these circumstances we may conclude unexceptionably, that there could not possibly be a confederacy strong enough to obstruct an examination of the facts, and obtrude a history of lies upon the public.