superstition," and the miracles which belong to them are "wild and ridiculous," proceeds to lay down a decisive criterion between true miracles and their counterfeits, and this criterion he considers to be the gift of inspiration in their professed workers. "Though

it

may be a matter more of curiosity than of use, to endeavour to determine the exact time when miraculous powers were withdrawn from the Church, yet I think that it may be determined with some degree of exactness. The various opinions of learned Protestants, who have extended them at all after the Apostles, show how much they have been at a loss with regard to this, which has been urged by Papists with an air of triumph, as if, Protestants not being able to agree when the age of miracles was closed, this were an argument of its not being closed as yet. If there be anything in this objection, though perhaps there is not, I think I have it in my power to obviate it, by fixing upon a period, beyond which we may be certain that miraculous powers did not subsist." Then he refers to his argument in favour of the New Testament miracles, that "what we know of the attributes of the Deity, and of the usual methods of His government, inclines us to believe that miracles will never be performed by the agency and instrumentality of men, but when these men are set apart and chosen by God to be His ambassadors, as it were, to the world, to deliver some message or to preach some

doctrine as a law from heaven; and in this case their being vested with a power of working miracles is the best credential of the divinity of their mission." So far, as Warburton, this author keeps within bounds; but next he proceeds, as Warburton also, to extend his argument from a defence of what is true to a test of what is false. "If we set out with this as a principle, then shall we easily determine when it was that miracles ceased to be performed by Christians; for we shall be led to conclude that the age of Christian miracles must have ceased with the age of Christian inspiration. So long as Heaven thought proper to set apart any particular set of men to be the authorized preachers of the new religion revealed to mankind, so long, may we rest satisfied, miraculous powers were continued. But whenever this purpose was answered, and inspiration ceased to be any longer necessary, by the complete publication of the Gospel, then would the miraculous powers, whose end was to prove the truth of inspiration, be of course withdrawn."b

12. Here he determines à priori in the most positive manner the "end" or object of miracles in the designs of Providence. That it is very natural and quite consistent with humility to form antecedent notions of what is likely and what not likely, as in other matters, so as regards the Divine dealings with us, has been implied above; but it is neither reverent

b Pp. 239-241, Edit. 4.

nor philosophical in a writer to "think he has it in his power" to dispense with good evidence in behalf of what professes to be a work of God, by means of a summary criterion of his own framing. His very mode of speech, as well as his procedure, reminds us. of Hume, who in like manner, when engaged in invalidating the evidence for all miracles whatever, observes that "nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument," (such as Archbishop Tillotson's against the Real Presence,) "which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations," and then "flatters himself that he has discovered an argument of a like nature, which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and, consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures."

13. It is observable that in another place Douglas had said, that "though we may be certain that God will never reverse the course of nature but for important ends, (the course of nature being the plan of government laid down by Himself,) Infinite Wisdom may see ends highly worthy of a miraculous interposition, the importance of which may lie hid from our shallow comprehension. Were, therefore, the miracles, about the credibility of which we now dispute, events brought about by invisible agency, though our being able to discover an important end served by a

miracle would be no weak additional motive to our believing it; yet our not being able to discover any such end could be no motive to induce us to reject it, if the testimony produced to confirm it be unexceptionable." The author is here speaking of the miracles of the Old and New Testaments, which he believes; and, like a religious man, he feels, contrariwise to Hume, that it is not "convenient," but dangerous, to allow of an antecedent test, which, for what he knows, and before he is aware, may be applied in disproof of one or other instance of those gracious manifestations. But it is far otherwise when he comes to speak of Ecclesiastical Miracles, which he begins with disbelieving without much regard to their evidence, and is engaged, not in examining or confuting, but in burdening with some test or criterion which may avail, in Hume's words, "to silence bigotry and superstition, and to free us from their impertinent solicitations." He acts towards the miracles of the Church, as Hume towards the miracles of Scripture.

14. And surely with less reason than Hume, from a consideration already suggested; because, in being a believer in the miracles of Scripture, he deprives himself of that strong antecedent ground against all miracles whatever, both Scriptural and Ecclesiastical, on which Hume took his stand. Allowing, as he is obliged to allow, that the ecclesiastical miracles are

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possible, because the Scripture miracles are true, he rejects ecclesiastical miracles as not subserving the object which he arbitrarily assigns for miracles under the Gospel, while he protects the miracles of Scripture by the cautious proviso, that "Infinite Wisdom may see ends" for an interposition, “the importance of which may lie hid from our shallow comprehension." Yet it is a fairer argument against miraculous agency in a particular instance, before it is known in any case to have been employed, that its object is apparently unimportant, than after such agency has once been manifested. What has been introduced for greater ends may, when once introduced, be made subservient to secondary ones. Parallel cases are of daily occurrence in matters of this world; and if it is allowable, as it is generally understood to be, to argue from final causes in behalf of the being of a God—that is, to apply the analogy of a human framer and work to the relation subsisting between the physical world and a Creator-surely it is allowable also to illustrate the course of Divine Providence and Governance by the methods and procedures of human agents. Now, nothing is more common in scientific and social arrangements than that works begun for one purpose should, in the course of operation, be made subservient, as a matter of course, to lesser ones. A mechanical contrivance or a political organization is continued for secondary objects, when the