us know what number of converts was brought over by miracle;-and indeed every other appearance about our holy faith is utterly unaccountable.

To try farther to evade this difficulty by fay ing that it is not clear that thefe miracles were wrought, would have a worse appearance ftill: for to fuppofe, that God gave the Apoftles power of performing thefe miracles before the Jews, who on account of their remarkable Stubbornnes and folly deferved them less than the Gentiles; to fay likewife that they had the power of performing them before many of the Gentiles alfo ; that it was common with them, as the Scriptures affure us, to confirm the word with figns following; and that they leave room to conclude, that St. Paul himself did this all over Afia*;

and yet that this necessary faculty was taken from them at Rome where it most was wanted, and could best bring about the designs of God; -all this is utterly inconfiftent both with the natural notions we have of his proceedings, as well as with all that is revealed to us about this matter in the Sacred Writings themselves.

But to fhew how altogether inexplicable the prefent difficulty is on any other plan than that

we

Acts 19. v. 10, II.

we have laid dorën, let us grant, (what the Scriptures will never permit,) that no miracles were wrought at Athens or Rome, in Greece or Italy, the two principal places which our fyftem regards; yet to what is this to be imputed? and to what is this peculiar deviation from the general conduct of the Apostles owing? was it because the inhabitants of thefe Countries fought not, as St. Paul fays, in the introduction of any moral or religious fyftem, fo much after miracles as wisdom?· this is the fum of the point we are contending for. Was it becaufe most of the thinking and refined spirits of Antiquity were gathered together in thofe Countries, and were for the most part enclined to laugh at and defpife all pretenfions of this nature?- the fame conclufion must follow. or was it, laftly, that there was fuch an infinity of prodigies daily happening amongst them, which, if difbelieved, would difincline them to any other; and, if believed, would make them apt to think others but infignificant things? - this is ftill but returning to the old fuppofition, and is in effect the only refuge which even thofe objectors are able to find, whom we have even put upon raifing fuch peculiar fcruples as neither the fcripture nor reafon can justify.

I.

I will only add one obfervation more on this point, with which I fhall conclude all that I ever intend to say about the nature of a plan fo contested or misunderstood, except what must neceffarily follow from the train of the argument in these sheets: for to have faid any thing more about it than the general intimations which were given in my first essay on this fubject was not my choice, they being certainly fufficient to every fagacious and impartial Enquirer; and to have faid fo much about it as I have now done is only in compliance with two forts of Readers of a very different turn; the one of whom being startled at the appearance of any thing uncommon, and perplexed with the confiderations of a point which they have not been ufed to, and the other being furious against all that recede from the beaten track, and fearful of the bad confequences which generally flow from what they call innovations in religion, cry out Darkness where it is Light, and Light where it is Darkness; call for diftinct explications of one thing, which already glares of itself; and deny even the existence of another which is fo grofs as to frike every man that has any feeling.

Now though a due compaffion for the infirmities of one fort of these men, and an undeferved condefcenfion to the peevishness of the other, has put me upon clearing these things at large, and made me already, I fear, tedious to many of my Readers of a different complexion from them both; yet neither compaffion nor condefcenfion fhall make me any farther jo, than in the introduction of the following remark, of which however I already begin to be ashamed.

Huetius then a zealous Catholick, and in all refpects one of the greatest ornaments of the Romish Communion, has taken* great pains to fhew that there is fearce one miracle either in the Jewish or Chriftian records, of which the Heathens had not many parallels in theirs; and the profeft defign of this undertaking was to shew that faith and reason were not at fuch distance as fome imagine, and that the Pagans could have but little pretence to reject Chriftianity, when the most incredible parts of it were common to their own religion. How just this conclufion is, and whether this work was like to be of that use which this celebrated Author imagined, is not my business now to enquire: what I would obferve on it is, that if to all these parallels

rallels of the Chriftian miracles which Huetius has collected we add that vast variety of others. of which the Pagan histories are full; I would only ask whether the Heathens in general really believed them, or whether they did not:- if they did believe them, they might indeed be very well difpofed to admit the Chriftian miracles, but they must at the fame time look upon them as more infignificant things than they really were: if they did not believe them, they would certainly be inclined to place all others in the fame class of imposture.

More particularly; the Refurrection of Chrift is that folid and ftedfaft bafis on which Chriftia nity ftands: But the Pagans had plenty of chimerical refurrections to oppofe to this real one: did they then fincerely admit them or no? if they did, the refurrection of Christ was no mighty matter; if they did not, it was what I need

not name.

Upon this foot ftands the general state of things in the Heathen World, as explained by me more at large in a late effay on this fubject; in which I claimed to myself this merit at least of endea vouring to free our Religion from a circumstance