ask yourself,) whether her absurd pretensions to that very kind of miraculous powers you have here displayed as operating to the increase of Christianity, have not converted half her members to Protestantism, and the other half to Infidelity? Neither the sword of the civil magistrate, nor the possession of the keys of heaven, nor the terrors of her spiritual thunder, have been able to keep within her pale, even those who have becn bred up in her faith; how then should you think, that the very cause which hath almost extinguished Christianity among Christians, should have established it among Pagans? Í beg I may not be misunderstood. I do not take upon me to say, that all the miracles recorded in the history of the primitive Church after the apostolical age, were forgeries it is foreign to the present purpose to deliver any opinion upon that subject; but I do beg leave to insist upon this, that such of them as were forgeries must, in that learned age, by their easy detection, have rather impeded than accelerated the progress of Christianity; and it appears very probable to me, that nothing but the recent prevailing evidence of real, unquestioned, apostolical miracles, could have secured the infant Church from being destroyed by those which were falsely ascribed to it.

It is not every man who can nicely separate the corruptions of religion from religion itself, nor justly apportion the degrees of credit due to the diversities of evidence; and those who have ability for the task, are usually ready enough to emancipate themselves from gospel restraints, (which thwart the propensities of sense, check the ebullitions of passion, and combat the prejudices of the world at every turn,) by blending its native simplicity with the superstitions which have been derived from it. No argument so well suited to the indolence or the immorality of mankind, as that priests of all ages and religions are the same we see the pretensions of the Romish priesthood to miraculous powers, and we know them to be false; we are conscious, that they at least must sacrifice their integrity to their interest, or their ambition; and being persuaded, that there is a great sameness in the passions of mankind, and in their incentives to action, and knowing that the history of past ages is abundantly stored with similar claims to supernatural authority, we traverse back in imagination the most distant regions of antiquity; and finding, from a superficial view, nothing to discriminate one set of men,

or

one period of time, from another, we hastily conclude, that all revealed religion is a cheat, and that the miracles attributed to the apostles themselves are supported by no better testimony, nor more worthy our attention, than the prodigies of Pagan story, or the lying wonders of Papal artifice. I have

no intention, in this place, to enlarge upon the many circumstances, by which a candid inquirer after truth might be able to distinguish a pointed difference between the miracles of Christ and his apostles, and the tricks of ancient or modern superstition. One observation I would just suggest to you upon the subject: The miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament are so intimately united with the narration of common events, and the ordinary transactions of life, that you cannot, as in profane history, separate the one from the other. My meaning will be illustrated by an instance: Tacitus and Suetonius have handed down to us an account of many great actions performed by Vespasian; amongst the rest, they inform us of his having wrought some miracles, of his having cured a lame man, and restored sight to one that was blind. But what they tell us of these miracles, is so unconnected with every thing that goes before and after, that you may reject the relation of them without injuring, in any degree, the consistency of the narration of the other circumstances of his life: on the other hand, if you reject the relation of the miracles said to have been performed by Jesus Christ, you must necessarily reject the account of his whole life, and of several transactions, concerning which we have the undoubted testimony of other writers besides the Evangelists. But if this argument should not strike you, perhaps the following observation may tend to remove a little of the prejudice usually conceived against gospel miracles, by men of lively imaginations, from the gross forgeries attributed to the first ages of the Church.

The phenomena of physics are sometimes happily illustrated by an hypothesis; and the most recondite truths of mathematical science not unfrequently investigated from an absurd position: what if we try the same method of arguing in the case before us? Let us suppose, then, that a new revelation was to be promulged to mankind; and that twelve unlearned and unfriended men, inhabitants of any country most odious and despicable in the eyes of Europe, should by the power of God be endowed with the faculty of speaking languages they had never learned, and per forming works surpassing all human ability; and that being strongly impressed with a particular truth, which they were not commissioned to promulgate, they should travel not only through the barbarous regions of Africa, but through all the learned and polished states of Europe; preaching everywhere with unremitted sedulity a new religion, working stupendous miracles in attestation of their mission, and communicating to their first converts (as a seal of their conversion) a variety of spiritual gifts: does it appear probable to you, that after the death of these men, and probably after the death of most of

their immediate successors, who had been zealously attached to the faith they had seen so miraculously confirmed, that none would ever attempt to impose upon the credulous or the ignorant by a fictitious claim to supernatural powers? would none of them aspire to the gift of tongues? would none of them mistake frenzy for illumination, and the delusions of a heated brain for the impulses of the Spirit? would none undertake to cure inveterate disorders, to expel demons, or to raise the dead? As far as I can apprehend, we ought, from such a position, to deduce, by every rule of probable reasoning, the precise conclusion which was in fact verified in the case of the apostles; every species of miracles, which Heaven had enabled the first preachers to perform, would be counterfeited, either from misguided zeal or interested cunning, either through the imbecility or the iniquity of mankind; and we might just as reasonably conclude, that there never was any piety, charity, or chastity in the world, from seeing such plenty of pretenders to these virtues, as that there never were any real miracles performed, from considering the great store of those which have been forged.

But, I know not how it has happened, there are many in the present age (I am far from including you, Sir, in the number) whose prejudices against all miraculous events have arisen to that height, that it appears to them utterly impossible for any human testimony, however great, to establish their credibility. I beg pardon for styling their reasoning, prejudice. I have no design to give offence by that word. They may, with equal right, throw the same imputation upon mine; and I think it just as illiberal in divines to attribute the scepticism of every Deist to wilful infidelity, as it is in the Deists to refer the faith of every divine to professional bias. I have not had so little intercourse with mankind, nor shunned so much the delightful freedom of social converse, as to be ignorant that there are many men of upright morals and good understandings, to whom, as you express it, "a latent and even involuntary scepticism adheres," and who would be glad to be persuaded to be Christians; and how severe soever some men may be in their judgments concerning one another, yet we Christians, at least, hope and believe that the great Judge of all will make allowance for "our habits of study and reflection," for various circumstances, the efficacy of which, in giving a particular bent to the understandings of men, we can neither comprehend nor estimate. For the sake of such men, if such should ever be induced to throw an hour away in the perusal of these letters, suffer me to step for a moment out of my way, whilst I hazard an observation or two upon the subject.

Knowledge is rightly divided by Mr Locke into intuitive, sensitive, and demonstrative. It is clear, that a past miracle can neither be the object of sense nor of intuition, nor consequently of demonstration. We cannot, then, philosophically speaking, be said to know, that a miracle 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 become acquainted with the experience of all ages and nations? You will reply, from history. Be it 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, perhaps, to make an impression upon your judgment. I answer, therefore, in the second place, that the admission of the principle by which you reject miracles, will lead

Dr Smith, late Master of Trinity College.

us into absurdity. The laws of gravitation are the most obvious of all the laws of nature; every person in every part of the globe must, of necessity, have had experience of them. There was a time when no one was acquainted with the laws of magnetism; these suspend in many instances the laws of gravity. Nor can I see, upon the principle in question, how the rest of mankind could have credited the testimony of their first discoverer; and yet to have rejected it would have been to reject the truth. But that a piece of iron should ascend gradually from the earth, and fly at last with an increasing rapidity through the air; and attaching itself to another piece of iron, or to a particular species of iron ore, should remain suspended in opposition to the action of its gravity, is consonant to the laws of nature. I grant it; but there was a time when it was contrary-I say not to the laws of nature, but to the uniform experience of all preceding ages and countries; and at the particular point of time, the testimony of an individual, or of a dozen individuals, who 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 to us general, should not be suspended, and their action overruled 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.* I am, &c.

For a fuller elucidation of the points here adverted to, see Campbell on Miracles, Part I. §§ 2, 4.

SIR,

LETTER IV.

I READILY acknowledge the utility of your fourth cause, "the virtues of the first Christians," as greatly conducing to the spreading their religion; but then you seem to quite mar the compliment you pay them, by representing their virtues as proceeding either from their repentance for having been the most abandoned sinners, or from the laudable desire of supporting the reputation of the society in which they were engaged.

That repentance is the first step to virtue, is true enough; but I see no reason for supposing, according to the calumnies of Celsus and Julian, "that the Christians allured into their party men who washed away in the waters of baptism the guilt for which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any expiation." The apostles, 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, imbolden 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 can recommend it to the serious and judicious. The apostles, Sir, were not like the Italian Fratricelli of the thirteenth, nor the French Turlupins of the fourteenth century: in all the dirt that has been raked up against Christianity, even by the worst of its enemies, not a speck of that kind have they been able to fix, either upon the Apostles, or their Divine Master. The gospel of Jesus Christ, Sir, was not preached in single houses or obscure villages, not in subterraneous caves and impure brothels, not in lazars and in prisons; but in the synagogues and in the temples, in the streets and in the market-places of the great capitals of the Roman provinces; in Jerusalem, in Corinth, and in Antioch; in

Athens, in Ephesus, and in Rome. Nor do I any where find that its missionaries were ordered particularly to address themselves to the shameless women you mention: I do indeed find the direct contrary; for they were ordered to turn away from, to have no fellowship or intercourse with such as were wont "to creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts." And what if a few women, who had either been seduced by their passions, or had fallen victims to the licentious manners of their age, should be found amongst those who were most ready to receive a religion that forbade all impurity? I do not apprehend that this circumstance ought to bring an insinuation of discredit, either upon the sex, or upon those who wrought their reformation.

That the majority of the first converts to Christianity were of an inferior condition in life, may readily be allowed; and you your self have in another place given a good reason for it; those who are distinguished by riches, honours, or knowledge, being so very inconsiderable in number, when compared with the bulk of mankind: but though not many mighty, not many noble, were called; yet some mighty, and some noble, some of as great reputation as any of the age in which they lived, were attached to the Christian faith. Short, indeed, are the accounts which have been transmitted to us, of the first propagating of Christianity; yet even in these we meet with the names of many, who would have done credit to any cause. I will not pretend to enumerate them all; a few of them will be sufficient to make you recollect, that there were, at least, some converts to Christianity, both from among the Jews and the Gentiles, whose lives were not stained with inexpiable crimes. Amongst these we reckon Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; Joseph of Arimathea, a man of fortune and a counsellor ; a nobleman and a centurion of Capernaum; Jairus, Crispus, Sosthenes, rulers of synagogues; Apollos, an eloquent and learned man; Ženas, a Jewish lawyer, the treasurer of Candace queen of Ethiopia; Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band; Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus at Athens; and Sergius Paulus, a man of proconsular or prætorian authority, of whom it may be remarked, that if he resigned his high and lucrative office in consequence of his turning Christian, it is a strong presumption in its favour; if he retained it, we may conclude, that the profession of Christianity was not so utterly incompatible with the discharge of the offices of civil life, as you sometimes represent it. This catalogue of men of rank, fortune, and knowledge, who embraced Christianity, might, was it necessary, be much enlarged; and probably another conversation with St Paul would have enabled us to grace it with the names of Festus and King Agrippa

himself not that the writers of the books of the New Testament seem to have been at all solicitous in mentioning the great or the learned who were converted to the faith; had that been part of their design, they would, in the true style of impostors, have kept out of sight the publicans and sinners, the tanners and the tent-makers with whom they conversed and dwelt; and introduced to our notice none but those who had been brought up with Herod, or the chief men of Asia, whom they had the honour to number amongst their friends.

That the primitive Christians took great care to have an unsullied reputation, by abstaining from the commission of whatever might tend to pollute it, is easily admitted; but we do not so easily grant, that this care is a "circumstance which usually attends small assemblies of men, when they separate themselves from the body of a nation, or the religion to which they belonged." It did not attend the Nicolaitanes, the Simonians, the Menandrians, and the Carpocratians in the first ages of the church, of which you are speaking and it cannot be unknown to you, Sir, that the scandalous vices of these very early sectaries brought a general and undistinguished censure upon the Christian name; and so far from promoting the increase of the church, excited in the minds of the Pagans an abhorrence of whatever respected it: it cannot be unknown to you, Sir, that several sectaries, both at home and abroad, might be mentioned, who have departed from the religion to which they belonged; and which, unhappily for themselves and the community, have taken as little care to preserve their reputation unspotted as those of the first and second centuries. If, then, the first Christians did take the care you mention, (and I am wholly of your opinion in that point,) their solicitude might as candidly perhaps, and as reasonably, be derived from a sense of their duty, and an honest endeavour to discharge it, as from the mere desire of increasing the honour of their confraternity by the illustrious integrity of its members.

You are eloquent in describing the austere morality of the primitive Christians, as adverse to the propensities of sense, and abhorrent from all the innocent pleasures and amusements of life; and you enlarge, with a studied minuteness, upon their censures of luxury, and their sentiments concerning marriage and chastity:-but in this circumstantial enumeration of their errors or their faults (which I am under no necessity of denying or excusing), you seem to forget the very purpose for which you profess to have introduced the mention of them; for the picture you have drawn is so hideous, and the colouring so dismal, that instead of alluring to a closer inspection, it must have made every man of pleasure or of

sense turn from it with horror or disgust; and so far from contributing to the rapid growth of Christianity by the austerity of their manners, it must be a wonder to any one, how the first Christians ever made a single convert. It was first objected by Celsus, that Christianity was a mean religion, inculcating such a pusillanimity and patience under affronts, such a contempt of riches and worldly honours, as must weaken the nerves of civil government, and expose a society of Christians to the prey of the first invaders. This objection has been repeated by Bayle; and though fully answered by Bernard and others, it is still the favourite theme of every esprit fort of our own age; even you, Sir, think the aversion of Christians to the business of war and government, 66 a criminal disregard to the public welfare." To all that has been said upon this subject, it may with justice, I think, be answered, that Christianity troubles not itself with ordering the constitutions of civil societies, but levels the weight of all its influence at the hearts of the individuals which compose them; and, as Origen said to Celsus, was every individual in every nation a gospel Christian, there would be neither internal injustice nor external war; there would be none of those passions which imbitter the intercourses of civil life, and desolate the globe. What reproach then can it be to a religion, that it inculcates doctrines which, if universally practised, would introduce universal tranquillity, and the most exalted happiness amongst mankind?

It must proceed from a total misapprehension of the design of the Christian dispensation, or from a very ignorant interpretation of the particular injunctions forbidding us to make riches or honours a primary pursuit, or the prompt gratification of revenge a first principle of action, to infer, that an individual Christian is obliged by his religion to offer his throat to an assassin, and his property to the first plunderer; or that a society of Christians may not repel, in the best manner they are able, the unjust assaults of hostile invasion.

I know of no precepts in the gospel which debar a man from the possession of domestic comforts, or deaden the activity of his private friendships, or prohibit the exertion of his utmost ability in the service of the public; the nisi quietum nihil beatum is no part of the Christian's creed: his virtue is an active virtue; and we justly refer to the school of Epicurus the doctrines concerning abstinence from marriage, from the cultivating of friendship, from the management of public affairs, as suited to that selfish indolence which was the favourite tenet of his philosophy. am, &c.

I

SIR,

LETTER V.

"The union and the discipline of the Christian Church," or as you are pleased to style it, of the Christian republic, is the last of the five secondary causes to which you have referred the rapid and extensive spread of Christianity. It must be acknowledged, that union essentially contributes to the strength of every association, civil, military, and religious; but unfortunately for your argument, and much to the reproach of Christians, nothing has been more wanting amongst them, from the apostolic age to our own, than union. "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ," are expressions of disunion which we meet with in the earliest period of church history and we cannot look into the writings of any, either friend or foe to Christianity, but we find the one of them lamenting, and the other exulting in an immense catalogue of sectaries; and both of them thereby furnishing us with great reason to believe, that the divisions with respect to doctrine, worship, and discipline, which have ever subsisted in the church, must have greatly tended to hurt the credit of Christianity, and to alienate the minds of the Gentiles from the reception of such a various and discordant faith.

I readily grant, that there was a certain community of doctrine, an intercourse of hospitality, and a confederacy of discipline established amongst the individuals of every church; so that none could be admitted into any assembly of Christians, without undergoing a previous examination into his manner of life, (which shews, by the bye, that every reprobate could not, as the fit seized him, or his interest induced him, become a Christian,) and without protesting in the most solemn manner, that he would neither be guilty of murder, nor adultery, nor theft, nor perfidy; and it may be granted also, that those who broke this compact, were ejected by common consent from the confraternity into which they had been admitted: It may be farther granted, that this confederacy extended itself to independent churches; and that those who had, for their immoralities, been excluded from Christian community in any one church, were rarely, if ever, admitted to it by another; just as a member who had been expelled any one college in an university, is generally thought unworthy of being admitted by any other: but it is not admitted, that this severity and this union of discipline could ever have induced the Pagans to forsake the gods of their country, and to expose themselves to the contemptuous hatred of their neighbours, and

Nonnulli præpositi sunt, qui in vitam et mores eorum, qui admittuntur, inquirant, ut non concessa facientes candidatos religionis arccant a suis conventibus. Orig. con Cels. Lib. 2.