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CHA P. IX.

PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON MIRACLES, AND ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH OUGHT TO ACCOMPANY AND TO CHARACTERIZE THEM.

T seems to me that there is one essential

IT

condition requisite in the character of miracles, viz. that they should always be accompanied with circumstances adequate to the establishment of their purpose.

These circumstances may be very foreign to the secret and efficient cause of the miracle; particular words, spoken by a man in an audible voice, are not the efficient. cause of the resurrection of a dead man. But, if nature instantaniously obey the voice of that man, who can doubt that the LORD of nature has spoken? From the principles, therefore, which I have endeavoured to establish, it follows, that they would have happened, had there been neither a divine messenger, nor witnesses, who seemed to

command nature. The miracles for which I contend, according to my principles, were linked to that universal chain, which predetermines the time and the manner of the appearances of things *.

*But, because, consistently with my hypothesis, miracles sprang from a particular system of the laws of nature, and this constituted a part of the great chain which connects all events, the following inference would not be well-grounded—that, according to my hypothesis (to employ the words of à certain critic), miracles do not differ from the most ordinary events, and that, consequently, they can in no manner be produced as a proof of an extraordinary mission, Undoubtedly, to superior intelligences, intimately acquainted with the secret of the composition of the world, and with the whole extent and force of those laws which govern natural beings, and all the combinations whereof these laws are susceptible; to such intelligences, miracles undoubtedly would not essentially differ from the most ordinary events: if GOD, therefore, meant to speak to such intelligences, if he chose to reveal to them somewhat not included within the actual sphere of their faculties, it is evident that this language of the laws of nature (on which I very particularly enlarged in Chap. iv. v. vi. Part xvii. Phil. Palin.) could not answer his purpose. Faculties of a different order, require revelations of a different order. But who does not distinctly see the wide difference between man and those intelligences? Is it not plain, that the resurrection of a man effected in a moment, by the divine messenger pronouncing a few words, must be to men a speaking proof of the extraordinary mission of CHRIST? The intelligent and attentive reader, who has well digested, and who is thoroughly conversant in my principles, will not be at a loss to confute the objections which may arise from them, and those principles are laid down only for readers of that kind. Neither will it appear to them, as to the critic whom I am endeavouring to confute, that the proofs of the miracles are supported with difficulty by philosophical reasonings.

But, had there been neither a divine messenger, norwitnesses to interpret to mankind this extraordinary dispensation, and to develope the design of it, it would have remained unfruitful, and would have been merely an object of curiosity and idle culation*.

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The miracles might then have appeared consistent with the ordinary course of nature, or to depend on some uncommon circumstances. They would have been nothing but mere prodigies, on which the learned would have built systems, and which the ignorant part of mankind would have attributed to some invisible power.

Several of these miracles too could not have taken place, because the performance of them was connected with outward circumstances, which were to be pre

*Christ, therefore, would not have acted conformably to the design of the miracles, had he revealed to the spectators how he wrought these miracles, or the secret of their execution. For the persuasion and instruction of the spectators, it sufficed, that the facts in question were not included in the ordinary course of events, and that nature appeared to obey instantaneously the voice of Christ.

pared by the Messiah or his ministers. But in the plan of divine wisdom all was har. mony and connexion; the miracles bore a specific relation to a certain point of time and space; their appearance was to depend on that of those persons who were to signify to nature the orders of the legislator, and to men the intentions of his goodness. This, therefore, would be the proper place to enquire into that parallelism of nature and grace, so well fitted to proclaim to reflecting beings that supreme intelligence which has pre-ordained every thing by one single act*.—If the messenger and his mi

* My principles on this pre-ordination would be very ill understood, were it argued, that they destroy human liberty. Free actions have been foreseen, because they essentially supposed *motives, and because the motives have been foreseen by him whẹ tryeth the reins and the heart.

To foresee a free act, is not the same as to effect it; to permit it, is not the same as to produce it.

Prescience is always relative to the nature of the act, and to that of the agent. To foresee, therefore, is, to know with certainty the influence of causes, and the particular nature of the mixed being on whom these causes act, or on account of which this being determines itself. Does not the Creator of man know bow man is fashioned? Is the secret of the composition of the world hidden to him who has made the world? Does not the

misters prayed for extraordinary cures, or Other miraculous events, their prayers also constituted a part of that great chain; they

workman know his work? And, because the author of man knows how man is made, does it follow, that man should have neither will nor liberty? Because God knows the intimate natur of these free agents, is it a consequence, that this knowledge destroys the liberty of these beings? If knowledge supposes always an object, that knowledge will be certain and infallible, whenever the object is perfectly known; and if this object has natural relations to other objects, these last to others, &c. and if certain effects are to result from these various relations, these effects will be precisely foreknown, if these various relations are exactly known. The effects were intended to be subordinate to causes; these last to each other; otherwise there would have been neither order nor harmony.

Fore-knowledge was a natural consequence of this subordi

nation.

The adorable intelligence to whom every thing in the universe is laid open, who discovers the effects in their causes, these causes in himself, who has beheld, from all eternity, the minutest work of the ant, as well as the prodigies of the cherubim; this intelligence, properly speaking, does not foresee free actions; it sees them. For futurity is to that intelligence as the present moment, and all ages are as an indivisible instant.

I shall not engage myself any further on a subject so elevated, and so much controverted. I wish that what I have advanced concerning liberty, in Art. xii. and xiii. of the abridged Analysis, may be read over with attention. And I flatter myself, that it will appear plainly that my principles on that matter do not in the least incline to fatality.

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