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reft of mankind in any other circumftances; and felf-intereft with equal force. His auditors may not have, and commonly have not, fufficient judgment to canvafs his evidence: What judgment they have, they renounce by principle, in thefe fublime and mysterious fubjects: Or if they were ever fo willing to employ it, paffion and a heated imagination difturb the regularity of its operations. Their credulity encreases his impudence: And his impudence overpowers their credulity.

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reafon or reflection; but addreffing itself entirely to the fancy or affections, captivates the willing hearers, and fubdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it feldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demofthenes could fcarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching fuch grofs and vulgar paffions.

The many inftances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and fupernatural events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect themfelves by their abfurdity, prove fufficiently the ftrong propenfity of mankind to the extraordinary and the marvellous, and ought reasonably to beget a fufpicion against all relations of this kind. This is our natural way of thinking, even with regard to the most common and moft credible events. For inftance: There is no kind of report, which rifes fo eafily, and spreads fo quickly, efpecially in country places and provincial towns, as thofe concerning marriages; infomuch that two young perfons of equal condition never fee each other twice, but the whole neighbourhood immediately join them together. The pleasure of telling a piece of news fo intereft

ing, of propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, fpreads the intelligence. And this is fo well known, that no man of fenfe gives attention to these reports, till he find them confirmed by fome greater evidence. Do not the fame paffions, and others ftill ftronger, incline the generality of mankind to believe and report, with the greateft vehemence and affurance, all religious miracles?

Thirdly. It forms a ftrong prefumption against all fupernatural and miraculous relations, that they are obferved chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admiffion to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who tranfmitted them with that inviolable fanction and authority, which always attend received opinions. When we perufe the firft hiftories of all nations, we are apt to imagine ourselves tranfported into fome new world; where the whole frame of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operations in a different manner, from what it does at prefent. Battles, revolutions, peftilence, famine, and death, are never the effect of those natural caufes, which we experience. Prodigies, omens, oracles, judgments, quite obfcure the few natural events, that are intermingled with them. But as the former grow thinner every page, in proportion as we advance nearer the enlightened ages, we foon learn, that there is nothing myfterious or fupernatural in the cafe, but that all proceeds from the ufual propensity of mankind towards the marvellous, and that, though this inclination may at intervals receive a check from fenfe and learning, it can never be thoroughly extirpated from human nature.

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It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perufal of thefe wonderful hiftorians, that

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fuch prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men fhould lie in all ages. You muft furely have feen inftances enow of that frailty. You have yourself heard many fuch marvellous relations ftarted, which, being treated with fcorn by all the wife and judicious, have at last been abandoned even by the vulgar. Be affured, that those renowned lies, which have fpread and flourished. to fuch a monstrous height, arofe from like beginnings; but being fown in a more proper foil, fhot up at laft into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate.

It was a wife policy in that falfe prophet, Alexander, who, though now forgotten, was once fo famous, to lay the firft fcene of his impoftures in Paphlagonia, where, as Lucian tells us, the people were extremely ignorant and ftupid, and ready to swallow even the groffeft delufion, People at a diftance, who are weak enough to think the matter at all worth enquiry, have no opportunity of receiving better information. The ftories come magnified to them by a hundred circumftances. Fools are induftrious in propagating the impofture; while the wife and learned are contented, in general, to deride its abfurdity, without informing themselves of the particular facts, by which it may be diftinctly refuted. And thus the impoftor above-mentioned was enabled to proceed, from his ignorant Paphlagonians, to the enlifting of votaries, even among the Grecian philofophers, and men of the most eminent rank and diftinction in Rome: Nay, could engage the attention of that fage emperor Marcus Aurelius; fo far as to make him truft the fuccefs of a military expedition to his delufive prophecies.

The advantages are fo great, of starting an imposture among an ignorant people, that, even though the delufion fhould be too grofs to im

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pofe on the generality of them (which, though feldam, is fometimes the cafe) it has a much better chance for fucceeding in remote countries, than if the firft fcene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and knowledge. The most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry the report abroad. None of their countrymen have a large correfpondence, or fufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the delufion. Men's inclination to the marvellous has full opportunity to display itself. And thus a ftory, which is univerfally exploded in the place where it was firft ftarted, fhall pafs for certain at a thoufand miles diftance. But had Alexander fixed his refidence at Athens, the philofophers of that renowned mart of learning had immediately spread, throughout the whole Roman empire, their fenfe of the matter; which, being fupported by fo great authority, and difplayed by all the force of reafon and eloquence, ; had entirely opened the eyes of mankind. It is true; Lucian, paffing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity of performing this good office. But, though much to be wished, it does not always happen, that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to expose and detect his impoftures.

I may add as a fourth reafon, which diminishes the authority of prodigies, that there is no teftimony for any, even thofe which have not been exprefsly detected, that is not oppofed by an infinite number of witneffes; fo that not only the miracle deftroys the credit of teftimony, but the teftimony deftroys itself. To make this the better understood, let us confider, that, in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and that it is impoffible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China fhould, all of them, be established on any folid foundatiVOL. II.

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on. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct fcope is to establish the particular fyftem to which it is attributed; fo has it the fame force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other fyftem. In deftroying a rival fyftem, it likewife deftroys the credit of thofe miracles, on which that system was established, so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of thefe prodigies, whether weak or ftrong, as oppofite to each other. According to this method of reafoning, when we believe any miracle of Mahomet or his fucceffors, we have for our warrant the teftimony of a few barbarous Arabians: And on the other hand, we are to regard the authority of Titus Livius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and, in fhort, of all the authors and witneffes, Grecian, Chinese, and Roman Catholic, who have related any miracle in their particular religion; I fay, we are to regard their teftimony in the fame light as if they had mentioned that Mahometan miracle, and had in exprefs terms contradicted it, with the fame certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. This argument may appear over fubtile and refined; but is not in reality different from the reasoning of a judge, who fuppofes, that the credit of two witneffes, maintaining a crime against any one, is deftroyed by the teftimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues diftant, at the fame inftant when the crime is faid to have been committed.

One of the best attefted miracles in all profane hiftory, is that which Tacitus reports of Vefpafian, who cured a blind man in Alexandria, by means of his fpittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot; in obedience to a vision of the god Serapis, who had enjoined them to have recourse

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