has ever been performed. But, in all the great concerns of life, we are influenced by probability rather than knowledge; and of probability, the same great author establishes two foundations; a conformity to our own experience, and the testimony of others. Now it is contended, that by the opposition of these two principles, probability is destroyed; or, in other terms, that human testimony can never influence the mind to assent to a proposition repugnant to uniform experience.-Whose experience do you mean? You will not say, your own; for the experience of an individual reaches but a little way; and no doubt, you daily assent to a thousand truths in politics, in physics, and in the business of common life, which you have never seen verified by experience. You will not produce the experience of your friends; for that can extend itself but a little way beyond your own.-But by uniform experience, I conceive, you are desirous of understanding the experience of all ages and nations since the foundation of the world. I answer, first; how is it that you you become acquainted with the experience of all ages and nations? You will reply, from history. Be it

1

so:-Peruse then by far the most ancient records

of antiquity: and if you find no mention of miracles in them, I give up the point. Yes;-but every thing related therein respecting miracles, is to be reckoned fabulous. Why? Because miracles contradict the experience of all ages and nations. Do you not perceive, Sir, that you beg the very question in debate? for we affirm, that the great and learned nation of Egypt, that the Heathens inhabiting the land of Canaan, that the numerous people of the Jews, and the nations which, for ages, surrounded them, have all had great experience of miracles. You cannot otherwise obviate this conclusion, than by questioning the authenticity of that book, concerning which, Newton, when he was writing his Commentary on Daniel, expressed himself to the person* from whom I had the anecdote, and which deserves not to be lost: "I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible, than in any profane history whatsoever.”

However, I mean not to press you with the argument ad verecundiam; it is needless to solicit your modesty, when it may be possible,

* Dr. Smith, late Master of Trinity College.

to us general, should not be suspended, and their action over-ruled by others, still more general, though less known; that is, that miracles should not be performed before such a being as man, at those times, in those places, and under those circumstances, which God, in his universal providence, had pre-ordained.

should have reported themselves eye-witnesses of such a fact, ought, according to your argumentation, to have been received as fabulous. And what are those laws of nature, which, you think, can never be suspended? are they not different to different men, according to the diversities of their comprehension and knowledge? and if any one of them (that, for instance, which rules the operations of magnetism or electricity) should have been known to you or to me alone, whilst all the rest of the world were unacquainted with it; the effects of it would have been new, and unheard of in the annals, and contrary to the experience, of mankind; and therefore ought not, in your opinion, to have been believed. Nor do I understand what difference, as to credibility, there could be between the effects of such an unknown law of nature and a miracle: for it is a matter of no moment, in that view, whether the suspension of the known laws of nature be effected, that is, whether a miracle be performed, by the mediation of other laws that are unknown, or by the ministry of a person divinely commissioned? since it is impossible for us to be certain, that it is contradictory to the constitution of the universe, that the laws of nature, which appear

Sir, did not, like Romulus, open an asylum for debtors, thieves, and murderers; for they had not the same sturdy means of securing their adherents from the grasp of civil power: they did not persuade them to abandon the temples of the gods, because they could there obtain no expiation for their guilt, but because every degree of guilt was expiated in them with too great facility and every vice practised, not only without remorse of private conscience, but with the powerful sanction of public approbation.

"After the example," you say, "of their Divine Master, the missionaries of the gospel addressed themselves to men, and especially to women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very often by the effects, of their vices."-This, Sir, I really think, is not a fair representation of the matter; it may catch the applause of the unlearned, embolden many a stripling to cast off for ever the sweet blush of modesty, confirm, many a dissolute veteran in the practice of his impure habits, and suggest great occasion of merriment and wanton mockery to the flagitious of every denomination and every age; but still it will want that foundation of truth, which alone