counter? and yet this probability is the exact converse, and therefore the exact meafure of the improbability which arises from the want of experience, and which Mr. Hume represents as invincible by human testimony.

It is not like alledging a new law of nature, or a new experiment in natural philofophy, because, when these are related, it is expected that, under the fame circumstances, the fame effect will follow univerfally; and in proportion as this expectation is juftly entertained, the want of a correfponding experience negatives the hiftory. But to expect concerning a miracle that it should fucceed upon repetition, is to expect that which would make it cease to be a miracle, which is contrary to its nature as fuch, and would totally deftroy the use and purpose for which it was wrought,

The force of experience as an objection to miracles is founded in the presumption, either that the courfe of nature is invariable,

or

or that, if it be ever varied, variations will be frequent and general. Has the neceffity of this alternative been demonftrated? Permit us to call the course of nature the agency of an intelligent Being, and is there any good reason for judging this state of the cafe to be probable? Ought we not rather to expect, that fuch a Being, upon occafions of peculiar importance, may interrupt the order which he had appointed, yet, that fuch occafions should return feldom; that these interruptions confequently should be confined to the experience of a few; that the want of it, therefore, in many, should be matter neither of furprise nor objection?

But as a continuation of the argument from experience it is faid, that, when we advance accounts of miracles, we affign effects without caufes, or we attribute effects to causes inadequate to the purpose, or to causes of the operation of which we have no experience. Of what causes, we may ask, and of what effects does the objection speak? If it be answered that, when we ascribe the

We

cure of the pally to a touch, of blindness to the anointing of the eyes with clay, or the raifing of the dead to a word, we lay ourselves open to this imputation, we reply that we afcribe no fuch effects to fuch caufes. perceive no virtue or energy in these things more than in other things of the fame kind. They are merely figns to connect the miracle with its end. The effect we afcribe fimply to the volition of the Deity; of whose existence and power, not to say of whose presence and agency, we have previ ous and independent proof. We have therefore all we feek for in the works of rational agents, a fufficient power and an adequate motive. In a word, once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not incredible.

Mr. Hume ftates the cafe of miracles to be a contest of oppofite improbabilities, that is to fay, a question whether it be more improbable that the miracle should be true, or the teftimony falfe; and this I think a fair account of the controverfy. But herein I remark a want of argumentative juftice, that,

in

in describing the improbability of miracles, he fuppreffes all thofe circumstances of extenuation, which refult from our knowledge of the existence, power, and difpofition of the Deity, his concern in the creation, the end answered by the miracle, the importance of that end, and its fubferviency to the plan pursued in the works of nature. As Mr. Hume has reprefented the queftion, miracles are alike incredible to him who is previously affured of the conftant agency of a divine Being, and to him who believes that no fuch Being exists in the universe. They are equally incredible, whether related to have been wrought upon occasions the most deferving, and for purposes the most beneficial, or for no affignable end whatever, or for an end confeffedly trifling or pernicious. This furely cannot be a correct statement. In adjusting alfo the other fide of the balance, the ftrength and weight of tefti mony, this author has provided an answer to every poffible accumulation of historical proof by telling us, that we are not obliged to explain how the ftory or the evidence arofe.

arofe. Now I think that we are obliged; not, perhaps, to fhew by pofitive accounts how it did, but by a probable hypothefis how it might fo happen. The existence of the testimony is a phenomenon. The truth of the fact folves the phenomenon. If we reject this folution we ought to have fome other to rest in; and none even, by our adverfaries can be admitted, which is not confiftent with the principles that regulate human affairs and human conduct at present, or which makes men then to have been a different kind of beings from what they are

now.

But the fhort confideration which, independently of every other, convinces me that there is no folid foundation in Mr. Hume's conclufion is the following. When a theorem is propofed to a mathematician, the first thing he does with it is to try it upon a fimple cafe; and, if it produce a falfe refult, he is fure that there must be some mistake in the demonftration. Now to proceed in this way with what may be called

Mr.