think of in the most material cases? He goes on "is it not absurd that the meanest witnesses should be picked and culled out for the best and greatest affairs?" What he intends by the meanest I know not. Men may surely be good witnesses without having great estates, and be able to report what they see with their eyes, without being philosophers as far, then, as the truth of the resurrection depended on the evidence of sense, the apostles were duly qualified. But how comes he to lay such stress on their meanness? Did their meanness stand in the way of the evidence, which arose from the great powers with which they were endowed from above? Consider their natural and supernatural qualifications, they were in every respect proper witnesses; take these qualifications together, and they were witnesses without exception. But the Considerer thinks the apostles were "interested in the affair, and that half-adozen watchmen would have been better than a dozen apostles." I would fain know what sort of witnesses he requires. Suppose halfa dozen watchmen had seen and believed the resurrection, I doubt their being believers | would have been, in his way of reckoning, an objection; he would have told us they expected commissions in the Messiah's army. Would he then have evidence from unbelievers? A witness, who does not believe the truth of what he affirms, is a mere cheat. Nobody therefore could be a witness to the resurrection but a believer; and such a one he esteems to be interested. But this is an absurd objection, because it is an objection to every honest witness that ever lived; for every honest witness believes the truth of what he says. If he means to charge the apostles with views or hopes of temporal advantage to themselves, he shews himself to be a mere stranger to the history of the Church, or wilfully imposes on his ignorant readers. How much the apostles endured and suffered for the testimony of the truth; what havoc was made among the converts to Christianity by persecution on persecution for three hundred years together, until the empire became Christian, is as notorious as any part of history; and he may as well, and with as much truth, deny that there were any heathen emperors of Rome, as that the apostles and first Christians were afflicted, tormented, and put to cruel deaths by them.

In the next page the Considerer repeats the old objection," that Jesus did not shew him

self to the Jews after his resurrection." This plea had been examined, and answered in the Trial; and since the Considerer has thought fit to pass over in silence what he found there, I must refer the reader to the Trial itself for an answer to this old objection. And if he wants farther satisfaction, I recommend to him a little piece written on this point only,

and published in 1730.* The Considerer wonders," that an extraordinary action, highly necessary to be known to mankind, should be so secretly done, that no man saw it; and that Jesus should require men to believe his disciples rather than their own senses." When so many saw him dead, and so many saw and conversed with him after he arose from the grave, it is surprising to hear this assertion, that no man saw the resurrection. Is any thing more wanting to complete a sensible proof of a resurrection, than to see a man dead and buried and to see him alive again? But it seems the Jews could not believe the disciples in the report they made of the resurrection, without contradicting their own senses. They had then, in this writer's opinion, the evidence of sense against the truth of the resurrection. This is great news, and it is a pity this evidence was not produced; it would have been material to inform us which of their senses afforded that evidence; and by what means he came to know this piece of evidence which the Jews had, and which the world never heard of before, and which probably they will never hear of again.

The author of the Trial had taken notice of our Saviour's prediction just before his death, that the Jews should see him no more, till they said, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," (Luke, xiii. 35 ;) and then added, "The Jews were not in this disposition after the resurrection, nor are they in it yet." The Considerer says that "Jesus himself found them in that disposition before his death;" and he refers for proof of this bold assertion to Luke, xix. 38. The case there is this: on our Lord's entrance into Jerusalem, the multitude of disciples cried, "Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord." This was the language of the disciples only, and the Considerer does not think all the Jews were disciples. How comes he then to abuse the Scripture and his reader so grossly, as to quote this passage as a proof of the disposition of the Jews? Did he not read in the very next verse that the pharisees called on Christ" to rebuke the disciples" for what they said? How could he be so shameless as to give this for evidence, that the Jews were in a good disposition, which proves so undeniably that they were in a bad one?

The author of the Trial observed, that notwithstanding the story propagated among the people, that the disciples stole the body, yet in all the persecutions raised against them on several pretences, as of heresy, sedition, &c. they never were charged with any fraud in the resurrection. He observed too that the Christian faith, being grounded on the truth of the resurrection as the basis

"An impartial Examination and full Confutation of the Argument, &c. against the truth of our Saviour's Resurrection, viz. that he appeared only to the disciples."

and foundation of the whole," the thing for which they suffered was the truth of the resurrection." "So then," says this smart writer," the chief priests never so much as charged the apostles with any fraud in the resurrection, but they put them to death because they believed it."

I wish this writer loved trifling less, or that I liked it better, for at present it is too hard work to follow him. But I submit, and desire him to say whether every man that does not believe the story of the stealing the body by the disciples, must necessarily believe the resurrection; if not, then surely the chief priests might, consistently with their notions, persecute the apostles for preaching the resurrection, though they did not charge them with stealing the body, or any fraud in contriving the resurrection.

The evidence of the Spirit in the signs and wonders wrought by the disciples in confirmation of the truth of their doctrine, was insisted on in the Trial; and I refer the reader to it, since the Considerer has made no reply to it. He says, "in this age we have almost lost it, except amongst the disciples of the inspired Mr Whitfield, who has blown up a new light of it- -and has ventilated it by his bellows." What can be done with this profane buffoonery! I am sorry to see it; and if the author is not quite obdurate, I wish he may come to such a temper of mind as to be sorry for it too.

When the apostles were brought before the chief priests and the council of the Jews, and preached to them the resurrection, Gamaliel, one of the council, said, "If this be the work of men it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, (Acts, v. 38, 39.) From this passage the author of the Trial argued that Gamaliel could not possibly have said this, or the council heard it with patience, if they had believed the resurrection a cheat, and that the disciples had stole the body. The argument was too strong for the Considerer, and therefore he questions the truth of Gamaliel's uttering these words; and for fear that should not be sufficient, he says, "Gamaliel might be so much a philosopher, as well as a scholar, to dissuade them from rigid persecution." How his philosophical notion of persecution comes in here is hard to say; one would think he was dreaming of persecution and talking in his sleep. The question is, how Gamaliel could make the supposition that the resurrection might be the work of God, if he knew it to be the fraud and cheat of men? What has his notion of persecution to do here? Besides, if Gamaliel knew the apostles to be cheats, would his philosophy about persecution incline him to spare cheats, who (if they were cheats) were guilty of forgery and perjury, and every other crime necessary to carry on such a fraud?

The case of Agrippa, and the argument from it in the Trial, is much of the same kind. The Considerer supposes Agrippa to mean that Paul was mad, and says, "he had told Paul before he was a madman." Agrippa never did tell Paul so. The Considerer, I suppose, mistook Agrippa for Festus. It was natural for the Roman soldier, who knew nothing of the Jewish prophets, when he heard Paul appealing to them, to say, "much learning had made him mad," (Acts, xxvi. 24;) but to put these words into Agrippa's mouth, who was bred up in a regard to the prophets, is quite out of character, as well as false in fact.

SECTION IV.

We have now gone through the Considerer's exceptions to the evidence of the resurrection, and to the defence of that evidence in the Trial of the Witnesses: but the business is not yet over. The Considerer has one argument still in reserve, which, were there any thing in it, would strike at the credit of revelation in general. He had given his opinion of miracles incidentally in several parts of his book, but at the conclusion he endeavours to support it at large. He thinks, “that miracles of any kind are impossible and exclude all evidence; that they are an absurdity to common sense and understanding; that they are inconsistent with the reason of man and nature of things; that they contradict all that mankind calls truth and reason; that they are contrary to the experience and reason of all mankind, and utterly impossible."

I shall discuss this point with him, and see what reason he has thus to dogmatize in opposition to the general opinion of all mankind in all ages of the world.

For the possibility of the resurrection, I must do the reader the justice once more to refer him to the Trial of the Witnesses; where he will find this point stated and explained in such a manner that no man, that is less a sceptic than the Considerer, can have any doubt about it. The Considerer has made a show of answering this part of the Trial, without stating the author's argument, without seeming to understand one word of the scope of it, and without citing one sentence fairly. So far as that author is concerned, it is sufficient to say in his own words, what is the real truth, "that he has said nothing on this occasion than what any man who never saw ice might say against a hundred honest witnesses, who assert that water turns to ice in cold climates."

For the reason and possibility of miracles in general, I shall now beg leave to talk with him. He is very frank in declaring his opinion with regard to this point, and I have laid it

before the reader in his own words. Nothing can well be stronger than the language in which he has expressed it. He seems plainly to declare that miracles are not only impossible in a moral, but in a physical sense; that they are not only inconsistent with the moral attributes, but impossible even to the power of God.

But be this as it will. I shall take the arguments as he himself has stated them, and examine them by the rules of common language and common sense. He has indeed so involved himself in words, that when he has a meaning, it is not easy to come at it. Reason, right reason, truth, and the nature of things, are words of great weight in the apprehensions of most men. Let us see what place they hold in the Considerer's estimation. "What conceptions any man frames to himself of the course of nature from his own experience and observation, are not prejudices and imaginations, but what sense and reason are concerned about. This is the very foundation of that right reason, which can never contradict the truth of things." In the first edition it stands thus: "this is the very foundation of right reason; and reason formed from hence can never contradict the truth of things."

If every man's notion of the course of nature is the very foundation, &c. of right reason, then right reason varies as much as people's notions of the course of nature. It is then right reason that says the sun goes round the globe, for this the vulgar reckon to be the course of nature. It is right reason also, to say the sun is fixed, and the planets move round him; for this appears from the experience and observation of astronomers to be the course of nature. But how absurd is it to make right reason depend on the notions which men entertain of the course of nature; when it is the very office and business of reason to rectify the errors which men perpetually fall into in the judgments they make in this case. Experience and observation shew that a cane half in the water and half out is crooked; but reason, on the principle of true science, informs us otherwise. Here then experience and observation are on one side, and reason on the other; and the same conclusion holds true in a thousand instances, and every instance indeed where men make a wrong judgment of what they see. And the fault in this case does not lie in the experience and observation, but in the reasoning on them. Thus men do not err in their observation when they say that water never grows solid in hot climates; but they err in reasoning on this observation, and concluding that the case can never be otherwise. That men die and come not to life again here, is a true observation; but will this observation prove that it can never be otherwise? We see by observation the effects of the course of nature, but this

course of nature depends on causes removed out of our sight. Observation shews how these causes operate generally, but cannot shew that they are immutable, and must operate invariably in every instance.

But let us see how he reasons the point of miracles. Take the proposition as it stands, with the reason annexed. "Things asserted which are contrary to the experience and reason of all mankind, and what they know of the law and usual course of nature, (that is, miracles,) are to the common sense and understanding of man utterly impossible." We must rectify the proposition before we come to the reason. In the first part, which is intended as a description of miracles, the Considerer assumes too much; a miracle is indeed contrary to common experience and the usual course of nature, but why contrary to reason? If by reason he means right reason or truth, it is supposing the very thing in question. It he means the faculty of reason, it will come to the same thing, supposing that faculty to be rightly used, otherwise it is nothing to the purpose.

With the Considerer's leave, then, I shall expunge the word "reason," (which will not injure the argument,) and the proposition will stand thus: "things asserted, which are contrary to the experience of all mankind, and to what they know of the laws and usual course of nature, (that is, miracles,) are, to the common sense and understanding of men, utterly impossible." Now comes the reason; "because such assertions contradict all men's notions of such laws that are known by experience." That is to say, things contrary to experience are impossible, because they are contrary to experience; or things contrary to what men know of the laws of nature are impossible, because they are contrary to what men know of the laws of nature. This is what the Considerer calls giving a reason.

But I cannot yet part with the proposition. Miracles, it seems, 66 are to the common sense and understanding of men impossible." How are we to understand this expression? Does he mean impossible to the reason of men, or impossible to the conceptions of men? Impossible to the reason of man they are not, because the reason of man tells him there is a being who originally gave laws to matter, and regulates the course of nature; and consequently who can, if he pleases, alter or suspend those laws, and change the course of nature. If he means that miracles are impossible to the conceptions of men, it is granted: that is, it is granted that men do not conceive how they are wrought; they do not conceive how or in what manner a dead body is raised to life, nor how or in what manner a word only should give a blind man sight. In this sense the Considerer's proposition may be true, but then it is nothing to his purpose. Miracles

are inconceivable; yes, and so are many things that happen every day, which we do not reckon miraculous. It is inconceivable how matter acts on matter, either in gravitation, attraction, magnetism, or in any other well known operation; but we do not therefore give the lie to our senses, and say it does not act, because we cannot conceive how it acts. So that if the Considerer means that miracles are impossible to the reason of men, it is evidently false; if he means that they are impossible to the conceptions of men, it may be true, but is quite beside his purpose.

But let us see how this point is argued in the next page. Perhaps we shall meet with a better reason there. "To believe it possible, (that is, for a dead body to rise again,) contradicts this maxim, that nature is steady and uniform in her operations.' Nature, or the laws of nature, would doubtless, when not controlled by the author of nature, operate steadily and uniformly. A lion would produce a lion, an acorn an oak: matter would continue to gravitate, human beings to die, and dead bodies to mix with the earth, and not come to life again. What does the maxim prove then? Only that a dead body cannot come to life again in the natural way. Nobody disputes this with the Considerer. The question is, whether it may not be done in a supernatural way; whether the great Author of nature, whenever he thinks it convenient, cannot supersede or suspend the general laws of nature. Will the Considerer deny this? If he believes a God and a providence, as he professes to do, he cannot. Well; but it contradicts the aforesaid maxim, because, "one miracle or action done contrary to her (that is, nature's) laws, contradicts all her regular springs and movements, and all that mankind calls truth and reason." How does such an action contradict all nature's uniform movements? Does it imply that her movements are not uniform when uncontrolled? Nothing like it. Does it imply that they are not uniform in that particular instance? that is, that her movements in that instance are contrary to the general course of nature? Most certainly it does, for it is of the essence of a miracle to be contrary to the general course of nature. What then? This proves nothing it is only giving the thing in dispute as a reason against itself. But let us hear the other part of the reason: "a miracle contradicts all that mankind calls truth and reason." How does this appear? Why, you must take the Considerer's word for it. But does he not know that it is the very thing in question? The inquiry is, whether miracles are contrary to reason. The Considerer undertakes to prove that they are; and how does he prove it? Why thus: "miracles are contrary to reason, because they contradict this maxim, that nature is steady and uniform in her

operations." And how do they contradict this maxim? Why, because "they contradict what mankind calls truth and reason." Is not this saying that miracles are contrary to reason, because they are contrary to reason? "A miracle," the Considerer says, "contradicts all that mankind calls truth and reason." Let us try it in a particular instance. We read in the gospel that our Saviour walked on the water. What truth or what reason does this contradict? It is a well known truth that all bodies gravitate, and it is another that human bodies will sink in fluids. Does it contradict either or both these truths? Surely not. All bodies continue to gravitate, and human bodies to sink in fluids, as they did before; and Christ's own body followed the law of gravitation, that particular case only excepted. All that this fact supposes is, that there is a power in nature that can suspend the laws of gravity, or change fluids into solids. If this is contradicting truth, let the Considerer shew it.

It is an unwelcome and an unprofitable task to deal with an author who gives words only for arguments. By the specimen I have given of this author's reasoning on the natural possibility of miracles, the reader, I believe, will find this to be the case here. He goes on to shew that they are impossible in a moral view, that, supposing God to have power over his own works, or, as he expresses it, "that he can do things contrary to nature, there is no reason that he ever did or will do it." It is, he thinks, contrary to the perfection of his nature, to his unchangeableness, his wisdom, his justice, and his goodness. Let us see how he proves it.

Those," says he, "who found religion on extraordinary pretensions, say that nature, which is the offspring of God, is degenerate and deficient." It is not easy to deal with an author who uses terms so equivocally, that one can come at his meaning only by guess. It is difficult to say what we are to understand by nature. If by nature the Considerer means, what he seems most commonly to understand by it, the constitution of the material world, the proposition is evidently false extraordinary pretensions do not imply that nature in this sense is deficient, nor indeed do they imply any thing with regard to nature; for what connection is there between the extraordinary pretensions of the Christian religion, and the perfection of the material world? When our Lord, for instance, by a word caused the fig-tree to wither, did it suppose any deficiency in the constitution of vegetables? No more than if the tree had been felled by an axe. Whatever the constitution of vegetables, or whatever the constitution of the material world be, such actions declare nothing either as to their perfection or imperfection; they only declare that the God

of nature has authority over his own workmanship.

But perhaps by nature the Considerer means human nature, or the moral nature of man. Let us try the proposition in this sense. "Those who found religion on extraordinary pretensions, say that human nature, which is the offspring of God, is deficient." Man is subject to error and corruption; and in this sense human nature may well be said to be deficient, whether God interposes or not. Whether religion be founded on extraordinary pretensions or not, human nature is still deficient; if this be an objection under revealed religion, it is an objection under natural religion too. When a youth is taught to read and to write; when he is instructed in religion and the sciences; does it not imply that human nature wants help, and is in itself deficient? And what does it imply more when God vouchsafes to help and assist it? It is very improper, it is false to say the offspring of God or the work of God is deficient; but it is not improper to say that man is imperfect or deficient. The truth is, the sense of the word deficient is different in one case from what it is in the other. God's works are said to be perfect in this particular view, that they are adapted to the end for which they were designed; and yet man, or any other created being, is imperfect or deficient, when compared with a greater being, and especially when compared with the greatest of all beings.

The Considerer has another argument, which bears a near resemblance to this, and is as follows: "The whole production of God's wisdom, goodness, and power, must be a perfect work; therefore cannot be better.-If God be a perfect being, his works are perfect, and cannot be mended." The Considerer talks sometimes of Providence; I should be glad to know what is his notion of Providence. He seems to suppose that God formed the universe as a vast machine, with the several orders of beings in it, and then, like the Epicurean deities, left it to shift for itself, without concerning himself at all about it. If there be such a thing as Providence, which the Considerer himself confesses, if God ever interposes in his own creation, it must be to mend something, though not to mend his own original work. It is not proper to say that God's work is mended by revelation, as the Considerer supposes, in any other sense than it is mended by a good schoolmaster, or an able professor of the sciences. Revelation indeed mends or improves men; that is, it furnishes them with greater and better lights than mere reason could; but it alters not the nature and constitution of men, it affects not the original workmanship of God.

But farther: the material world is (like all machines of human contrivance) governed by

necessary laws, and the constitution of it cannot be altered by any power within itself. But it is not so in the moral world. Man was originally endued with properties of a different kind from those of matter. He has a power over his own actions, a power of improving or depraving his moral nature. One man makes the proper improvement of the powers which nature gave him, another abuses them. One nation or one age makes high advances in knowledge and virtue, another is sunk in ignorance and corruption. If such enormities are the natural consequences of the original constitution of man, what reason is there to exclude Providence from regulating and correcting them? If the system of man is to be considered under the notion of one great machine, it must be considered as a machine that has a power within itself of putting itself out of order; and if it should be out of order, as from the nature of its several springs and wheels it may well be supposed to be, where is the impropriety of the great Artificer inter posing and correcting it? If man has a power of choosing good or evil, he may choose the latter; if he has faculties for discovering truth, he may notwithstanding neglect it, he may overlook or mistake it: it is easy to see what room here is for error and corruption. So that, however perfect the original work was, it may in time, from the nature of the thing, want mending.

66

"Natural powers," the Considerer says, are fit to answer all the ends of religion, therefore, supernatural powers are needless." What he means by answering the ends of religion he tells you in what follows: "to teach the most excellent morals, with a reasonable belief of one God and providence." I shall not dispute with the Considerer how far some men may advance on the strength of mere reason some have no doubt gone great lengths; but man, the Considerer knows, is not infallible. He may embrace error under the notion of truth, and teach it as such; and the corruption may spread and become general. What is to be done in this case? The Considerer seems to think that a man of honesty and understanding would be well able to cure his disorder without supernatural endowments. I am not of this opinion; inveterate error is not to be expelled so easily; human reason and human authority, especially when it comes to be general, do not seem to be a match for it. If we may reason from fact, there is nothing more sure than this. There were, no doubt, some men of honesty and understanding in the heathen world; but what progress did they make in reforming it? How far did they advance in removing that universal corruption with which it is overrun? Take a view of paganism from the time of Socrates to the time of Christ, the most enlightened period of antiquity, and