the rulers were all alarmed lest Jesus should destroy their credit, and hurl them from their seats.

Nor were the miracles all of one kind; so as to excite a suspicion that they were the effects of some secret art, some peculiar method of doing one surprising thing. All sorts of works were wrought to prove the Gospel true. People afflicted in various ways were brought promiscuously before Jesus," and he healed them all." Now the blind were restored to sight, and then the paralytic to the use of their limbs; here the deaf and dumb obtained hearing and speech, and there the dropsical recovered their natural size and strength; this man was cured of a leprosy, and that woman with a crooked spine was made straight, and enabled to walk upright; to day four or five thousand were fed; and to morrow a storm in the sea shall be hushed to immediate calmness; in one place a man with a withered hand was restored to the use of his limb, and in another the servant of a nobleman was suddenly healed by Jesus, while at a distance. Last of all, Jesus, after raising others, is said to have raised himself from the dead, though he had been publicly executed, and his body was in the hands of his enemies, who placed a guard of soldiers round his tomb, aware that he had said, "After three days I will rise again."

Some of the miracles were on that grand scale that absolutely precludes all suspicion of any little juggling trick. Many thousands were fed with what would have scarcely satisfied a dozen; and the stormy sea was hushed in a moment by the voice of a man. The giving of the law on mount Sinai,

to millions of spectators, amidst the convulsions of nature, is a sufficient specimen of a miracle upon a vast scale, on which God alone can work. For every candid inquirer after truth must see, that the heavens and the earth are not a field for a juggler to play his feats upon. Every rational demand of evidence is fairly met, and turn which way we will, we see proof sufficient to convince us, that the miracles of divine revelation are satisfactory evidences that the message came from God.

But Infidels say, "It is easy to make men believe that miracles were wrought; for people are credulous, and fond of wonders, and run away with strange stories, and do not love to have them confuted." In all this there is some truth, and some falsehood. It is not so easy to succeed in a mere pretence to miracle-working as some may fancy. False pretences may be easily believed, but they are also easily detected, and exposed to ridicule, contempt and abhorrence. Of this we may bring many proofs.

It was for some time supposed that Ann Moor of Tutbury lived without food. But this depended much on her own testimony; for who could pretend to watch a person every moment, day and night, to be sure that she never received the smallest portion of nourishment? The strange report, however, brought to her house a multitude of visitors, who left her presents, by which she and her family were enriched; so that the wonderful tale was to them a goose with golden eggs. But how soon was the goose cut open and prevented from laying any more eggs? The imposture was detected. She was watched

by scientific men night and day. She was placed on one of Merlin's beds, and weighed every hour, and found to lose weight as any other person would

who had not taken food. She was made to breathe into lime water, and the film produced on it shewed that her stomach contained food, which emitting carbonic acid gas, produced, on the surface of the water, a carbonate of lime. She was proved to have taken food, she confessed it, and sunk into contempt and wretchedness.

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In the reign of Louis the fourteenth, miracles were said to be wrought in France at the tomb of a Frenchman, called the Abbé Paris. But the king commanded the burying ground to be shut up, and all the miracles ceased; so that one of the French wits inscribed on the gates of the burying ground, " By order of His Majesty the King; the Almighty is forbidden to work any more miracles here." But who does not see that this spurious pretence to miracles serves to show, by force of contrast, the reality of those wrought by prophets and apostles? For when these were forbidden, by priests and rulers, to go on with the Divine work, did miracles cease? No; the enemy said with mortification and shame, "What do we? For that notable miracles are wrought by these men is manifest to all, and we cannot deny it."

In the reign of one of the first princes of the house of Hanover, some persons that were called French prophets, claiming the power of working miracles, made a great noise in this country. At last, they asserted that they could raise the dead, and one of their number, having been buried in St. Paul's

Church yard, they undertook to raise him to life again. The government wisely suffered them to try, and, in order to give them a fair field, soldiers were placed around to keep off the mob. The attempt failed, and the whole affair sunk, first into ridicule, and then into oblivion.

Prince Hohenlohe, a Catholic Priest, lately pretended to work miracles; but the subjects of them were all friends, Catholic devotees, who were well disposed to believe, or fancy them true; and they were not of that nature to satisfy scrupulous inquirers. And what do we hear of them now? Unable to bear investigation, they have been scouted and compelled to flee from the laughter of ridicule and the finger of scorn.

It is not so easy an affair, then, to set up for a worker of miracles, and to maintain their credit as may be imagined. For if some are eager to believe, others are as eager to expose them; and while one party has an appetite for the marvellous, another is as obstinately incredulous.

But you who say, that it is so easy to make men believe we can work miracles, ought to prove your own words, by making us believe that you can. You say miracles were juggling tricks, such as conjurors play to deceive the senses of men. Well, there are as clever conjurors now as ever there were, let them try to do such things as were wrought to prove religion divine. Let them deceive people by making them believe the blind have been restored to sight. Did any conjurors make weeping sisters fancy that their brother was raised from the grave,

and brought home to live with them again? Jesus made people believe this. What juggler would profess to be able to allay a storm at sea? Jesus did this. What professor of phantasmagoria could make a whole nation believe that he led them all through the sea, as Moses did? Where is the slight of hand that can quench the thirst of myriads, by making people fancy that water was brought for them from a rock?

You say, that these things were not really done, but men's senses were imposed upon by deceptive appearances. The best way to prove this, would be, to do something similar yourselves, and try if you cannot deceive people too. The religion of the Bible which you dislike, was established in the world by these means, and has taken such root that you cannot tear it up. Why? Because you have done nothing like this in the world, to strike the minds of men and take hold of their hearts. But why do you not attempt something of this kind, and fight religion with its own weapons? The field is open before you. There is no act of parliament against working miracles. Why should you not set about it?

Perhaps you say, "Those ages when religion was introduced were ignorant and barbarous, just fit to be wrought upon by such deceitful tricks; but this age is too knowing and refined to be gulled by such arts." Such an assertion is more easily made than proved. When Christianity arose, there were such writers as, Virgil, and Cicero, and Horace. Were these ignorant barbarians? Euclid had then written, and he is our master in mathematics still :

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