Swedish generals, when he gave them the honourable appellation of his masters in the art of war, I may, with great sincerity, pay my acute and ingenious adversary. I shall add a few things concerning the occasion and form of the following dissertation. Some of the principal topics here discussed were more briefly treated in a sermon preached before the Synod of Aberdeen, and are now made public at their desire. To the end, that an argument of so great importance might be more fully and freely canvassed than it could have been, with propriety, in a sermon, it was judged necessary to new-model the discourse, and to give it that form in which it now appears. The edition of Mr. Hume's Essays, to which I always refer in this work, is that printed at London, in duodecimo, 1750 *, intitled, Philosophical Essays concerning Human Uuderstanding. I have, since finishing this tract, seen a later edition, in which there are a few variations. None of them appeared to me so material as to give ground for altering the quotations and references here used. There is indeed one alteration, which candour required that I should mention: I have accordingly mentioned it in a note t. The arguments of the essayist I have endeavoured to refute by argument. Mere declamation I know no way of refuting but by analysing it; nor do I conceive how inconsistencies can be answered otherwise than by exposing them. In such analysis and exposition, which, I own, I have attempted without ceremony or reserve, an air of ridicule is unavoidable: But this ridicule, I am well aware, if founded in misrepresentation, will at last rebound upon myself. It is possible, that, in some things, I have mistaken the author's meaning; I am conscious, that I have not, in any thing, designedly misrepresented it. As this advertisement was prefixed to the first edition of the Dissertation, I was not a little surprised to observe, that the French translator declared, in the first sentence of his Avis au Lecteur, that he did not know what edition of Mr. Hume's Essays I had used in this work. On proceeding, I discovered that my advertisement has not been translated by him, which makes me suspect, that, by some accident, it had been left out of the copy which he used. † Page 101. Miracles are capable of Proof from Testimony, and Religious III. Mr. Hume himself gives up his favourite argument, IV. There is no peculiar presumption against such mira- V. There is a peculiar presumption in favour of such miracles as are said to have been wrought in support I. There is no presumption arising from human nature, against the miracles said to have been wrought in II. There is no presumption arising from the history of mankind, against the miracles said to have been wrought in proof of Christianity, III. No miracles recorded by historians of other religions are subversive of the evidence arising from the miracles 80 VI. Abstracting from the evidence for particular facts, we have irrefragable evidence, that there have been mira- cles in former times; or such events as, when compar- CONTENTS OF SERMONS, &c. |