claimed. Had Christ and his disciples then been impostors, it is reasonable to conclude, that they would never have claimed a power which they knew themselves not to possess. The persons, before whom their alleged miracles were wrought, afford another argument for the real performance of something which at least appeared to be out of the common course of nature. Pretended miracles may without much difficulty be palmed upon mankind for real miracles, when they, in whose presence they are wrought, favour the actors and are predisposed to believe the genuineness of the portents. Thus # They say: We will by no means believe on thee, until thou cause a spring of water to gush forth for us out of the earth; or thou have a garden of palm-trees and vines, and thou cause rivers to spring forth from the midst thereof in abundance; or thou cause the heavens to fall down upon us, as thou hast given out, in pieces; or thou bring down God and the angels to vouch for thee; or thou have a house of gold; or thou ascend by a ladder to heaven: neither will we believe thy ascending thither alone, until thou cause a book to descend unto us, bearing witness of thee, which we may read. Answer: My Lord be praised! Am I other than a man, sent as an apostle ? And nothing hindereth men from believing, when a direction is come unto them, except that they say: Hath God sent a man for his apostle? Say: God is a sufficient witness between me and you; for he knoweth and regardeth his servants. Koran. chap. xvii. They have sworn by God, by the most solemn oath, that, if a sign came unto them, they would certainly believe therein. Say: Verily signs are in the power of God alone; and he permitteth you not to understand, that, when they come, they will not believe. Koran. chap. vi. neither the Pagans nor the Papists have wanted devout believers in their spurious wonders: but, as the wonders themselves will not stand the test of a severe examination, so the believers in them have always previously symbolized with the performers of them*. The very reverse of this was the * Respecting the pretended miracles wrought at the tomb of the Abbè Paris, see Bp. Douglas's Criterion. His lordship has the following just observations on the point before us. The religion, in confirmation of which the miracles of Jesus were appealed to, was subversive of that believed by those, to whom they were proposed. That pretensions to miracles, whose end was to confirm opinions and doctrines already established, should be admitted without due examination by the favourers of such opinions, is not at all to be wondered at: and this greatly invali dates the most boasted wonders of Popery. But the miracles of Jesus, whose end was not to countenance but to overturn the established doctrines, could not possibly meet with an easy reception: assent to them would be difficult to be obtained; and never could be obtained, without serious examination and the strongest conviction. Other pretensions to miracles did not gain credit, but after the establishment of those opinions which they were thought to confirm, and among persons previously biassed in favour of those opinions. But every thing is the reverse with regard to the miracles of Jesus: for they were previous to the belief of Christianity, and gave cause to the belief of it: every witness of them was a convert, and every believer had been an enemy. Criter. p. 292, 293. These remarks may equally apply to the pretended miracles, which have been recently set up by modern Papists; particularly that in Ireland, where a young woman is said to have been instantaneously cured of dumbness. Her tongue had been examined by medical practitioners, and there was found to be no defect whatsoever; a tolerably strong proof, that her previous silence was voluntary: for she had not been dumb from her infancy. case with Christ and his apostles. Whatever deeds they performed, they performed them before enemies, not before friends; before persons prejudiced against them, not before persons prepossessed in their favour. Would any reasonable being make such an attempt, when, if an impostor, he could scarcely escape detection? Would any reasonable being appeal to those who had been his enemies for the truth of the miracles wrought by him, if no miracles whatsoever had been performed, or at least if nothing had been performed which was believed to be miraculous? Yet did Christ fearlessly appeal to the Jews themselves, as to the reality of his preternatural works : and Paul, in writing to the gentile churches of Rome and Corinth and Galatia, reminds them, in letters still extant, of the miracles, which had effected the conversion of many of their members though once bigoted and prejudiced heathens *. That such appeals should be confidently made on the one hand, and freely admitted on the other, when all the while both parties knew full well, that no miracles had ever been wrought: a circumstance, like this, beggars the utmost profuseness of credibility. As these appeals were fearlessly made, so not a single instance can be produced either of the denial or the detection of any one of the miracles 12. * John x. 24, 25, 37, 38. Rom. xv. 18, 19. 2 Corinth. xii. Galat. iii. 5. recorded in the New Testament. Some of the persons, that wrote the histories had conversed with Christ; and others of them were the immediate disciples of the apostles. Hence the histories were composed and published so short a time after the alleged occurrences, that numerous individuals must have been alive, who could easily have contradicted them if they were mere fabrications and, when we consider the bitter hostility of the Jews, we cannot doubt, that their interested diligence would readily have adduced witnesses to silence and put to merited shame such scandalous attempts to impose upon the world. Thus Matthew records, that, at two several times, near the sea of Tiberias, Christ miraculously fed five thousand men and four thousand men, beside women and children, with only a few loaves and small fishes*: and thus John gives a very circumstantial account of the resuscitation of Lazarus, after he had been dead and buried four days; stating, that it took place at Bethany which was only two miles from Jerusalem, and that many of the Jews were eye-witnesses of the fact †. Now, if these matters had never occurred, what could have been more easy than their confutation? Numerous witnesses might have been brought from the neighbourhood of the lake of Tiberias, who would readily have declared, that the alleged facts of twice miraculously feed† John xi. *Matt. xiv. 13-22. xv. 29–39. ing large multitudes were wholly unknown to them and the whole town of Bethany would have attested, that the marvellous tale of the resurrection of Lazarus was, from beginning to end, a bare-faced fabrication. Yet we hear not, that these facts were ever controverted, though the Jewish rulers were from the very first decidedly hostile to the cause of Christianity, and though the falsification of the miracles would above all other things have promoted their object. Hence the obvious presumption is, that such facts were too notorious to be safely contradicted. Nor were Christ and his apostles the only persons who confidently appealed to the evidence of miracles, in the very face of their enemies; thus daring them, as it were, to a detection of imposture, if any imposture had existed. There was a class of writers in the primitive Church, who composed what were styled Apologies. These were addressed to the Pagans: and it was their avowed design, to defend Christianity, and to vindicate the reception of it. The oldest writer of this description, with whose works we are at all acquainted, is Quadratus. He lived about seventy years after the death of Christ, and presented his Apology to the Emperor Adrian. A passage of it has been preserved by Eusebius; from which it appears, that he formally and confidently appealed to the miracles of Christ, as a matter which admitted not of the least doubt or controversy. The works of our Saviour, says he, |