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a miracle in reply. His answer is, "that God giveth the power of working miracles, when and to whom he pleafeth * ;" that if he should work miracles, they would not believet;"" that they had before rejected Mofes, and Jefus, and the Prophets, who wrought miracles ;"" that the Koran it† felf was a miracle §."

The only place in the Koran in which it can be pretended that a fenfible miracle is referred to (for I do not allow the secret visitations of Gabriel, the night journey of Mahomet to heaven, or the presence in battle of invisible hofts of angels, to deserve the name of fenfible miracles) is the beginning of the fifty-fourth chapter. The words are thefe "The hour of judgement approacheth, and the moon bath been split in funder; but if the unbelievers fee a fign, they turn afide, faying, “This is a powerful charm.' The Mahometan expofitors difagree in their

Sale's Koran, c. v. x. xiii. twice.
c. iii. xxi. xxviii.

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interpretation of this paffage; fome explaining it to be a mention of the splitting of the moon, as one of the future figns of the approach of the day of judgement; others referring it to a miraculous appearance which had then taken place*. It seems to me not improbable, that Mahomet may have taken advantage of fome extraordinary halo, or other unusual appearance of the moon, which had happened about this time; and which fupplied a foundation both for this paffage, and for the ftory which in after times had been raifed out of it.

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s. After this more than filence; after thefe authentic confeffions of the Koran, we are not to be moved with miraculous, ftories related of Mahomet by Abulfeda, who wrote his life about fix hundred years after his death; or which are found in the legend of Al Jannabi, who came two hundred years later, On

* Vide Sale in loc.

It does not, I think, appear, that these hiftorians had any written accounts to appeal to more ancient than the Sonnah, which was a collection of traditions

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On the contrary, from comparing what Mahomet himself wrote and faid, with what was afterwards reported of him by his followers, the plain and fair conclufion is, that, when the religion was established by conqueft, then, and not till then, came out the ftories of his miracles.

Now this difference alone conftitutes, in my opinion, a bar to all reasoning from one cafe to the other. The fuccefs of a religion founded upon a miraculous hiftory, fhews the credit which was given to the history; and this credit, under the circumftances in which it was given, i.e. by persons capable of knowing the truth, and interested to enquire after it, is evidence of the reality of the history, and, by confequence, of the truth of the religion. Where a miraculous hiftory is not alledged, no part of this argu

made by order of the Caliphs two hundred years after Mahomet's death. Mahomet died A. D. 632; ALBochari, one of the fix doctors who compiled the Sonnah, was born A. D. 809, died 869, Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 192, éd, 7th,

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ment can be applied. We admit that multitudes acknowledged the pretenfions of Mahomet; but these pretenfions being destitute of miraculous evidence, we know that the grounds upon which they were acknowledged, could not be fecure grounds of perfuafion to his followers, nor their example any authority to us. Admit the whole of Mahomet's authentic hiftory, fo far as it was of a nature capable of being known or witneffed by others, to be true (which is certainly to admit all that the reception of the religion can be brought to prove), and Mahomet might ftill be an impoftor, or enthufiaft, or an union of both. Admit to be true almost any part of Chrift's history, of that, I mean, which was public, and within the cognisance of his followers, and he must have come from God. Where matter of fact is not in queftion, where miracles are not alledged, I do not fee that the progrefs of a religion is a better argument of its truth, than the prevalency of any fyftem of opinions in natural religion, morality, or phyfics, is a proof of the truth of thofe opi

nions. And we know that this fort of argument is inadmiffible in any branch of phi lofophy whatever.

But it will be faid, If one religion could make its way without miracles, why might not another? To which I reply, first, that this is not the question: the proper queftion is not, whether a religious inftitution could be fet up without miracles, but whether a religion, or a change of religion, founding itself in miracles, could fucceed without any reality to reft upon? I apprehend these two cafes to be very different; and I apprehend Mahomet's not taking this course to be one proof, amongst others, that the thing is dif ficult, if not impoffible, to be accomplished: certainly it was not from an unconsciousness of the value and importance of miraculous evidence; for it is very obfervable,. that in the fame volume, and fometimes in the fame chapters, in which Mahomet fo repeatedly disclaims the power of working miracles himself, he is inceffantly referring to the miracles of preceding prophets. One would

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