they fhall fay, that the Lord performed these things by an illufory appearance (φαντασιωδως), leading there objectors to the prophecies, we will fhew from them, that all things were thus predicted concerning him, and strictly came to país *." Lactantius, who lived a century lower, delivers the fame fentiment, upon the fame occafion. "He performed miracles-we might have fuppofed him to have been a magician, as ye say, and as the Jews then supposed, if all the prophets had not with one spirit foretold that Christ should perform these very things t."

But to return to the Chriftian apologists in their order: Tertullian-" That person whom the Jews had vainly imagined, from the meanness of his appearance, to be a mere man, they afterwards, in confequence of the power he exerted, confidered as a magician, when he, with one word, ejected devils out of the bodies of men, gave fight

to the blind, cleanfed the leprous, ftrengthened the nerves of those that had the palfy, and laftly, with one command, restored the dead to life; when he, I fay, made the very elements obey him, affuaged the ftorms, walked upon the feas, demonftrating himfelf to be the word of God."

Next in the catalogue of profeffed apologifts we may place Origen, who, it is well known, published a formal defence of Chriftianity, in answer to Celfus, a heathen, who had written a discourse against it. I know no expreffions, by which a plainer or more pofitive appeal to the Christian miracles can be made, than the expreffions used by Qrigen: "Undoubtedly we do think him to be the Chrift, and the Son of God, because he healed the lame and the blind; and we are the more confirmed in this perfuafion, by what is written in the prophecies, Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, and the lame men fhal

* Tertull. Apolog. p. 20, ed. Priorii, Par. 1675

leap as an hart. But that he also raised the dead, and that it is not a fiction of those who wrote the Gofpels, is evident from hence, that, if it had been a fiction, there would have been many recorded to be raised up, and fuch as had been a long time in their graves. But, it not being a fiction, few have been recorded: for inftance, the daughter of the ruler of a fynagogue, of whom I do not know why he faid, She is not dead but fleepeth, expreffing fomething peculiar to her, not common to all dead perfons; and the only fon of a widow, on whom he had compaffion, and raifed him to life, after he had bid the bearer of the corpfe to ftop; and the third Lazarus, who had been buried four days." This is pofitively to affert the miracles of Chrift, and it is also to comment upon them, and that with a confiderable degree of accuracy and candour.

In another paffage of the fame author *, we meet with the old folution of magic

* Or. con. Celf. lib. ii. fec. 48.

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appled to the miracles of Chrift by the adverfaries of the religion. Celfus," faith Origen, "well knowing what great works may be alledged to have been done by Jefus, pretends to grant that the things related of him are true; fuch as healing diseases, raifing the dead, feeding multitudes with a few loaves, of which large fragments were left." And then Celfus gives, it feems, an answer to these proofs of our Lord's miffion, which, as Origen understood it, refolved the phenomena into magic; for Origen begins his reply, by obferving, "You fee that Celfus in a manner allows that there is fuch a thing as magic *.'

It appears alfo from the teftimony of St, Jerome, that Porphyry, the most learned and able of the heathen writers against Christianity, reforted to the fame folution: "Unless," fays he, speaking to Vigilantius, "according to the manner of the Gentiles,

* Lard. Jewish and Heath. Test. vol. ii. p. 294, ed.

quarto.

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and

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and the profane, of Porphyry and Eunomius, you pretend that these are the tricks of demons *."

This magic, these demons, this illufory appearance, this comparison with the tricks of jugglers, by which many of that age açcounted fo eafily for the Chriftian miracles, and which anfwers the advocates of Chrif tianity often thought it neceffary to refute, by arguments drawn from other topics, and particularly from prophecy (to which, it seems, these solutions did not apply), we now perceive to be grofs fubterfuges. That fuch reasons were ever seriously urged, and feriously received, is only a proof, what a glofs and varnish fashion can give to any opinion.

It appears, therefore, that the miracles of Christ, understood, as we understand them, in their literal and historical sense, were pofitively and precisely afferted and appealed

* Jerome con. Vigil.