impoffible for us to know the attributes or actions of fuch a Being, otherwife than from the experience which we have of his productions, in the ufual courfe of nature. This ftill reduces us to paft obfervation, and obliges us to compare the inftances of the violations of truth in the teftimony of men with thofe of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the teftimony concerning religious miracles, than in that concerning any other matter of fact; this must diminish very much the authority of the former teftimony, and make us form a general resolution, never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered. Lord BACON feems to have embraced the fame principles of reasoning. "We ought, says he, to make a "collection or particular hiftory of all monfters and pro digious births or productions, and in a word of every thing new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. But "this must be done with the most severe fcrutiny, left "we depart from truth. Above all, every relation must "be confidered as fufpicious, which depends in any de"gree upon religion, as the prodigies of LIvy: And "no lefs fo, every thing that is to be found in the writers "of natural magic or alchimy, or fuch authors, who feem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite "for falfehood and fable *." I am the better pleafed with the method of reafoning here delivered, as I think it may ferve to confound those dangerous friends or difguifed enemies to the Chriftian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. Our most holy religion is Nov. Org. lib. ii. aph. 29. founded founded on Faith, not on reafon; and it is a fure method of expofing it to put it to fuch a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. To make this more evident, let us examine thofe miracles, related in fcripture; and not to lofe ourselves in too wide a field, let us confine ourfelves to fuch as we find in the Pentateuch, which we fhall examine, according to the principles of thefe pretended Chriftians, not as the word or teftimony of God himself, but as the production of a mere human writer and hiftorian. Here then we are firft to confider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, writ in an age when they were ftill more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates; corroborated by no concurring teftimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin. Upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the prefent: Of our fall from that ftate: Of the age of man, extended to near a thousand years: Of the deftruction of the world by a deluge: Of the arbitrary choice of one people, as the favourites of heaven; and that people the countrymen of the author: Of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most aftonishing imaginable: I defire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after ferious confideration declare, whether he thinks that the falfehood of fuch a book, fupported by such a teftimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received, according to the measures of probability above established. What we have faid of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as fuch only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the ca pacity of human nature to foretel future events, it would be abfurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine miffion or authority from heaven. So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at firft attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable perfon without one. Mere reafon is infufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to affent to it, is confcious of a continued miracle in his own perfon, which fubverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is moft contrary to custom and experience. SECTION XI. Of a PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE and of a FUTURE STATE, WAS lately engaged in converfation with a friend I who loves fceptical paradoxes, where, though he advanced many principles, of which I can by no means approve, yet as they feem to be curious, and to bear some relation to the chain of reafoning carried on throughout this enquiry, I fhall here copy them from my memory as accurately as I can, in order to fubmit them to the judgment of the reader, Our converfation began with my admiring the fingular good fortune of philosophy, which, as it requires entire liberty above all other privileges, and chiefly flourishes from the free oppofition of fentiments and argumentation, received its first birth in an age and country of freedom and toleration, and was never cramped, even in its most extravagant principles, by any creeds, confeffions, or penal ftatutes. For, except the banishment of PROTAGORAS, and the death of SOCRATES, which laft event proceeded partly from other motives, there are scarcely any inftances to be met with, in ancient history, of this bigotted jealousy, with which the present age is fo much infefted. EPICURUS lived at ATHENS to an advanced age, in peace and tranquillity: EPICU * REANS were even admitted to receive the facerdotal * LUCIANI συμπ. ἤ, λαπίθαιο character. character, and to officiate at the altar, in the most facred rites of the established religion: And the public encouragement of penfions and falaries was afforded equally, by the wifeft of all the ROMAN emperors †, to the profeffors of every fect of philofophy. How requifite fuch kind of treatment was to philofophy, in her early youth, will eafily be conceived, if we reflect, that, even at prefent, when she may be fuppofed more hardy and robust, The bears with much difficulty the inclemency of the feafons, and those harth winds of calumny and perfecution, which blow upon her. You admire, fays my friend, as the fingular good fortune of philofophy, what feems to refult from the natural course of things, and to be unavoidable in every age and nation. This pertinacious bigotry, of which you complain, as fo fatal to philofophy, is really her offfpring, who, after allying with fuperftition, separates himself entirely from the intereft of his parent, and becomes her most inveterate enemy and perfecutor. Speculative dogmas of religion, the present occafions of such furious difpute, could not poffibly be conceived or admitted in the early ages of the world; when mankind, being wholly illiterate, formed an idea of religion more fuitable to their weak apprehenfion, and compofed their facred tenets of such tales chiefly as were the objects of traditional belief, more than of argument or disputation. After the first alarm, therefore, was over, which arose. from the new paradoxes and principles of the philofophers; these teachers feem ever after, during the ages of antiquity, to have lived in great harmony with the establifhed fuperftition, and to have made a fair partition of mankind between them; the former claiming all the learned and wife, and the latter poffeffing all the vulgar and illiterate. + Id. & Dio. LUCIANI EUT |