always been encouraged and supported, by those who, by their influence and power, could prevent any examination which might tend to undeceive the world. They have been the arts of the powerful few, to keep in awe the ignorant many, the forgeries of the rulers of the church, to countenance the corruptions with which they have disgraced the church; to add a sanction to doctrines and practices visibly calculated to extend their own influence, to add to their own riches, and to give themselves an unlimited command over their fellow-christians, though at the expense of their common Christianity.

This then being the case, it would have been next to impossible to have set about an examination of these pretences to miracles. For were we even to allow, that those to whom they were proposed had the best inclination in the world not to believe but upon proper evidence, the danger which must attend their giving any signs of this inclination would deter every one in his senses from attempting a detection. He who would set himself up to oppose a fraud supported by the authority and influence of the rulers of the church, in a country where, in matters of religion, the civil magistrate is guided by the priest, would soon find reason to repent of his temerity.

Can there, therefore, be any hesitation in refusing to admit the truth of miraculous facts, backed and supported by those who alone had the means of detecting the fraud, if there was any; and who, having the sword in their own hands, would never point it against themselves, to punish their own impostures P?

The author of the Essay on Miracles, p. 193, has thought

Having employed more attention than perhaps was necessary on the extraordinary works which

proper to expatiate on the story related by the cardinal de Retz, of a doorkeeper of the cathedral at Saragossa, who recovered a lost leg, by rubbing the stump of it with the holy oil. He sets off the evidence of this miracle to the greatest advantage, as attested by a contemporary writer, a person of eminence, and of a libertine and unbelieving character; and the fact as of such a nature that there could be no ambiguity about it, and so public as to be known to all the inhabitants of Saragossa. But it is obvious that the evidence of this miracle labours under both the defects just mentioned. There was here, on the one hand, the power and influence of the clergy, particularly the canons of the church, (who are the persons quoted by the cardinal as his witnesses,) asserting and supporting a story, the belief of which, by increasing the veneration for the miraculous image of the Virgin which is in their church, (to which image the holy oil, no doubt, owed its efficacy,) would be a sure means of increasing the wealth of their community. And on the other hand, there was the blind credulity of the superstitious inhabitants of Saragossa, bred up from their infancy with a persuasion that miracles were performed by the church, zealously devoted to the worship of the blessed Virgin, and eager to embrace, without examination, whatever might do honour to the image of her, which is thought the glory of their city. There is a story in Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormonde, which I shall here quote, as it shews us how little regard ought to be paid to miracles published amongst those who are previously disposed to believe such stories, and where there is power and influence acting upon superstition and credulity. Whilst he (the marquis of Ormonde) was there, (at Lyons,) he called at a shop to have his peruke mended. The master was a cripple, both in his hands and feet, but said he would direct his sister to mend it as it "ought to be. The marquis taking another peruke from him, "went to gaze about the streets, and stepping accidentally into the next church, he saw a chapel in it, which was hung with the presents of several votaries who had received cures from our lady. Among the rest, he observed an inscription as well as offering, made by the very man he had left. When he came

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gentlemen of your way of thinking have usually put upon the same footing of credibility with the Gospel miracles, though the manifest fabrications of imposture, I now proceed to take into consideration another class of them-works, really performed, but which required no miraculous interposition, being brought about by the operation of causes merely natural.

Many instances of this kind might be assigned, but I shall, in a great measure, confine myself to one single instance, as most to my purpose of all others, because most insisted upon by my antagonists; an instance which has been a favourite topic in all the late debates concerning miracles, and which has furnished you and your friends with matter of triumph, as if the objections drawn from it were unanswerable. I scarcely need inform you that I am now speaking of the miracles ascribed to the abbé Paris, and said to be performed at his tomb, in the metropolis of a neighbouring kingdom, within these thirty years.

The author of the Free Inquiry into the miraculous powers of the primitive church, is at great pains to place these works in a distinguished point of view. For after filling three or four pages with an account of them, set off to the greatest advantage, "back to the peruke-maker, he asked him about it, wondering "he should do so, being still decrepit. The man answered, "that he thought that he was rather better than he had been, "and hoped that by doing honour to the lady beforehand, he

might the sooner enjoy the rest of her benefit." Carte, vol. ii. p. 180. ad an. 1658. Is it to be imagined that this fellow would have ventured to assert this glaring falsehood, in so awful a manner, had he not known that any thing would pass unnoticed, and unexamined, that might do honour to our lady?

he concludes with the following reflection.

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"Let

our declaimers then, on the authority of the fa"thers, produce, if they can, any evidence of the primitive miracles half so strong as what is alleged for the miracles of the abbé Paris : or, if they "cannot do it, let them give us a reason why we "must receive the one and reject the other; or, if they fail likewise in this, let them be so ingenuous "at last as to confess, that we have no other part left, but either to admit them all, or reject them "all, for otherwise they can never be thought to act consistently 9."

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The above quotation aims only at the credibility of the miracles attested by the fathers; but a late celebrated author on the side of infidelity, and whose opinions I have already examined, has urged the miracles ascribed to the abbé Paris as what affect the credibility of all miracles in general. "There

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r

surely," says he, "never was so great a number of "miracles ascribed to one person, as those which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of the abbé Paris, the famous Jan

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senist, with whose sanctity the people were so long "deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing "to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were every "where talked of as the effects of that holy sepul"chre. But what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, at"tested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a “learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that "is now in the world. Nor is this all; a relation

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q See Middleton's Free Inquiry, p. 226.

r See above, page 4 to 20.

"of them was published and dispersed every where;

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nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, sup"ported by the civil magistrate, and determined "enemies to those opinions, in whose favour the "miracles were said to have been wrought, ever "able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where "shall we find such a number of circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And "what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miracu"lous nature of the events which they relate? And "this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, "will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutations.'

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What he has thus confidently asserted to the public has been often insisted on by yourself in our private debates. You used to talk of it as a point not to be disputed, that the marks of genuine miracles laid down by Mr. Leslie', in his Short Method with

t Mr. Leslie's four rules of judging of the credibility of miracles are, first, that the matter of facts be such, as that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it; secondly, that it be done publicly in the face of the world; thirdly, that not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed; fourthly, that such monuments, and such actions or observances be instituted, and do commence, from the time that the matter of fact was done.

The Short Method with the Deists has always been looked upon as Mr. Leslie's masterpiece. It may seem strange, therefore, that the French should claim this treatise as theirs. And yet they do; for I find it inserted, with some inconsiderable variations from the English copy, in the last edition of the works of abbé de St. Real. But that Mr. Leslie was the author of this excellent book is obvious, from the following reasons. First, this piece never had a place amongst St. Real's works till long