At a time when men wanted neither power nor inclination to expose them if they were impostors, and were in no danger of being called atheists and heretics, of being insulted by the populace, hunted down by the clergy, or persecuted by the civil magistrate for ridiculing and deriding them. Various and numerous.

Of a permanent nature, and might be reviewed and examined.

Had nothing in them fantastical and cruel, but were acts of kindness and beneficence.

Miracles had ceased long before Christ appeared, and therefore these pretensions would the more excite the attention of mankind.

Did in fact convert multitudes.

Were attested by proper witnesses.

For any men to publish such a history of such things as lately done, if not true, could have been only to expose themselves to an easy confutation and certain infamy. Suppose three or four books should now appear amongst us in the language most generally understood, giving an account of many remarkable and extraordinary events which had happened in some kingdom of Europe, and in the most noted cities of the country next adjoining to it, some betwixt sixty and seventy, others between twenty or thirty, others again within a very few years, and should call upon mankind to change their principles and practice upon the credit of these events, when nothing of the kind had ever actually happened-would they not be treated as a manifest and ridiculous forgery? Is it likely a design so wild and extravagant should enter into the head of any sober serious person in the world?

AN ADEQUATE OCCASION FOR THE MIRACLES.

Whether God did or did not interpose in establishing the Christian religion, is another question; but most certain it is, that it was worthy of him: it was agreeable to all the notions we entertain of his attributes, to show himself, to put forth his power, in behalf of a religion which was to set mankind right in a matter they had almost universally mistaken, and of the utmost consequence,—the character and unity of the being who governed them, which was to supersede paganism, and that looseness of manners which it produced or tolerated; and above all, was to give men surer and clearer hopes of a future state, than they either had or could have from any faculties God had furnished them with, and upon which hopes the happiness and virtue of mankind so much depend-and a religion too, which, from the insuperable difficulties that stood in its way, could not have established itself without such assistance.

Infidels lay much stress on the natural improbability of the thing itself. I see little in that: if you once allow that there is a God who made and takes care of the world, it is the likeliest thing imaginable that he should give his creatures, who were capable of it, a rule of life, and establish it by suitable sanctions-and one does not see how this could be done otherwise than by miracle.

HUME'S OBJECTIONS.

Obj. 1st. That a miracle can never be made credible by any human testimony whatever, as it contradicts all our experience; that the miracle should be true, does not contradict experience that human testimony should be false.

A single instance will answer the objection.

It absolutely contradicts the experience of the Emperor of China, that water should become hard by cold; yet if twelve men should solemnly affirm they had seen it so; if they were men of good characters and exemplary lives, if there was no discoverable temptation for them to tell a lie about the matter, if it was impossible they could be mistaken,-if they were insulted and ill-treated for maintaining such a seeming absurdity, yet still persisted in it, if the emperor called them before him, and charged them to have done with such nonsense, and they went on affirming it,-if he imprisoned, beat, banished them, and they neither varied nor retracted their story, if he offered them their lives and liberty if they would confess it to be false, and, instead of confessing it, they insisted upon their assertions to the last, the Emperor of China, I say, notwithstanding all his experience, and all the confidence that the most conceited man upon earth ever placed in his experience, must be a madman not to believe them.

Obj. 2d. That there are miracles supported by as good testimony as those of the Gospel, which yet we allow to be false-some of the miracles of popery, for instance; and consequently such testimony cannot be depended upon.

We deny that these miracles are built upon the like evidence that we have for those of Christ.

Vid. Campbell on Miracles.
Douglas's Criterion.

There are two principal circumstances which extend to them all.

1st. That they taught men nothing different from what they believed before called upon them to do nothing but what they had all along donemade no converts from one religion to another-and consequently men had neither the same reluctance to receive, nor the same reason to examine them, as those of Christ.

2dly. That they were supported by authority, or had on their side the established opinions and prejudice of those among whom they were wrought; insomuch that it was highly dangerous, not only to inquire, but hint a suspicion about them; the direct contrary of which was the case with the miracles of Christ. Hence we hear nothing of those miracles where they should be most wanting,-in protestant countries. No examples of miracles, properly attested, few indeed ever pretended to, by persons in circumstances at all similar to those of Christ; that is to say, among enemies, unbelievers -to make converts-in contradiction to the power and prejudices of the country; none, for instance, by any of the old reformers, the founders of the sects of the Waldenses and Albigenses; Wickliffe in England; Huss or Jerome in Bohemia; Luther in Germany; Zuinglius in Switzerland; Calvin in France; or the Anabaptists of Munster, though the most outrageous fanatics that ever appeared; nor even by Mahomet, with still greater opportunities.

3dly. No man ever gave up his time, traversed sea and land, quitted his

profession, parted with his family and fortune, to publish them to the world -no man ever laid down his life, or even suffered persecution and distress in attestation of them.

Obj. 1.

The Propagation of false Religions, especially the Success of
Paganism and Mahometanism.

As to paganism, scarce deserving the name of religion-not the same, even as to the history or object of worship, hardly in any two countries of the world—no public, authentic, or generally received history of facts-no system of laws and precepts built upon them; that is to say, no miracles produced as connected with a system of doctrines, or as express vouchers for the truth of it-their mythology ridiculed and rejected by almost every man of learning and reflection among them-contained only in the writings of poets and fabulists, whose very profession was fiction, or in vague oral traditions. If their stories found a place in any serious history, it was generally some hundred years after the fact, evidently borrowed from one country to another, with additions and modifications of their own.

Their magic rites contemptible.

Nero was extravagantly fond of the art of magic, and sent for the most eminent professors of it from all parts of the world. The issue was, his own and the general conviction of the folly of their pretences.

As to Mahometanism,

Vid. Reland de Religione Mohammed.

Mahomet never pretended to miracles, and, consequently, whatever proof the Mahometans may have of their religion, it cannot be of the same nature

as ours.

Again, Mahomet acknowledged Christ to be a prophet-contended that he was the Tapakλnтos whom Christ promised; so that Mahometanism at the most is only a heresy; it is still a species of Christianity.

Mahomet would find an easier reception in the world, as he did not call either upon Jews or Christians to deny or own the falsehood of their former religion-only made additions to it.

Mahomet was a soldier and a conqueror. Multitudes were invited to follow him by his successes, many forced into obedience, and more still dazzled by his victories—a very different case and character from that of Christ.

Mahomet's religion in some respects flattered the passions of the East, particularly in the allowance of polygamy, divorce, and the sensual pleasures of his paradise: and a cause which contributed as much as any to the success of Mohometanism was the corrupt state of Christianity when it made its appearance, i. e. A. D. 622. Most of the absurdities of the Romish church were by this time creeping into the Christian religion-absurdities, some of them which shocked and disgusted the common reason of mankind, and drove them to a religion which, though little else can be said for it, is simple and intelligible.

Mahometanism prevailed also in the darkest ages and countries in the

world.

Obj. 2. The Rejection of Christ by Jews and Gentiles.

If we can account for this rejection consistently with the reality of the miracles, we answer the objection.

The Jews of Christ's time attributed his miracles to evil spirits, Matt. xii. 24, in which they were followed by the authors of the Talmud.

Exasperated against him by his reproofs, and the disappointment of their expectations. The character he assumed was directly contrary to what they had for ages believed their Messiah would be-contrary, as they thought, to the express declaration of many of their prophecies.

The Heathens ascribed his miracles to magic, as the Jews did to evil spirits, as appears from Porphyry, Julian, Celsus, Hierocles; too idle and unconcerned in general to inquire about it, regarding it as one of the many thousand various religions which subsisted in the world, and which the wiser sort treated as so many ridiculous superstitions.

The best of them acquiesced in the general persuasion that all they had to do was to practise the duties of morality, and to worship the Deity more patrio-a persuasion which at once shut out all arguments for any new religion.

What a contempt do the great and rich men of rank, and fortune, and wit, and abilities, the generality of them, however, entertain for the Methodists! How difficult would a poor Methodist find it to gain access to such persons, to persuade them into his opinions, or even to obtain an equitable or impartial hearing, let him have what he would to offer! An infinitely greater contempt was there at that time of the teachers of Christianity, and a greater reluctance to be taught by them. They passed with the great men and philosophers of that time as so many madmen, babblers; their religion, as a superstition of their own concerning one Jesus, who was put to death, and whom they affirmed to be alive; and what much increased their contempt of Christianity was, that they reckoned it a species or sect of Judaism.

Obj. 5.

The Silence of Josephus about Christ or his Religion.

This objection, if it proves any thing, proves too much; for it proves that there was no such person as Christ, no such religion as Christianity preached in the world, which is impossible, as well as contrary to the express testimony of all antiquity both sacred and profane.

This silence, therefore, of Josephus's, can only be accounted for by supposing it designed, ex consulto, from his resolving to say nothing upon a subject, which, perhaps, he doubted about, and did not know how to represent from its reflecting too much upon the honour of his country, which he was extremely jealous of-or, lastly, for fear of giving offence or alarm to the Roman rulers, under whom he lived and wrote.

Now if we can account for the existence of so much infidelity, without supposing any want of reasonable evidence for religion, we answer the objection.

Causes, therefore, of unbelief are, first,

Vice.

Many infidels are, at the same time, men of loose and profligate lives, who begin at the wrong end; with the practice first, and then take up the

principles. No argument in the world will ever persuade such men to part with their mistresses, their gaming, their revels; to give up their diversions, habit, company, conversation. It may look like scurrility to charge men in the lump with immorality, because they do not believe as we do; but if one considers the manners of high life; how repugnant they in general are to the rules of the Gospel; what a revolution of conduct, what a stripping-off of pleasure there must be, if you put them under the discipline of religion; what ways and means they are put to to get or keep their places and honours; and, consequently, what it would cost them to turn virtuous: and besides, what little leisure high life affords for reflection,-what few opportunities of information,-what slender inducements and extreme aversion they have to turn their thoughts upon a subject so melancholy and gloomy as religion appears to them to be;-I say, if one lays all these considerations together, one may see that it is no small number of unbelievers who come under this class.

Over and above the invincible bias which vicious pleasures create against religion, it is also a certain though unaccountable effect of them to confuse and debilitate the understanding, so as to leave a man a proper judge scarce of any thing. Besides, a man, who, living up to the rules of Christianity, finds the good effects of them upon himself, has a species of evidence which those others want. John vii. 17.

Vanity.

Every man of science or distinction has a passion for lifting himself above the vulgar. Nothing so flattering as to fancy one's self placed upon an eminence, and looking down upon the errors and absurdities, and follies and foibles, and tricks and contrivances, of the rest of mankind. Now to believe religion is to believe and know no more than what the lowest person in the street knows in the main, and believes as well as we do: it is setting ourselves upon a level with carpenters, and tailors, and farmers, and mechanics; with methodists, old women, and country parsons: whereas to see into it, and through it to get as it were behind the scenes, and see mankind paying one another off, is infinitely gratifying to the conceit and ambition of the human mind.

Rashness.

A large tribe of infidels are your giddy, hasty young fellows, who, without information or inquiry about the matter, take up infidelity all of a sudden, upon the first difficulty they meet with, upon a single objection or two which they happen to hear, (a ridiculous story, perhaps, of a forged miracle, without at all attending to the distinguishing circumstances,) and when once they have avowed their disbelief of Christianity, it becomes a point of honour, as well as of obstinacy, to persist in it.

There are many such, whom, if you were to examine, you would find extremely quick and ready with their objections, but with very little knowledge either of the facts, or reasons, or answers on the other side of the question. A trifling objection, by being frequently urged, and advanced, and maintained, makes so great an impression upon the person himself, that though at first he did not believe it, yet afterwards he will not be able to dispossess himself of it.

Company and Conversation.

Whatever arguments there may be on one side of a question, if it is a man's luck to mix with company and conversation which is for the most part on the other, it is great odds but he falls in with them. In our American