sequent ages depended, were not inferior to the sanctity, the talents, and discernment of those whose testimony for the miracles of the preceding ages the Protestants themselves accepted, and pronounced to be sufficient." P. 39.

This is quite true, if Doctor Middleton's "account" can be substantiated. If every miracle rests upon evidence of equal strength, every one must be believed, or every one must be rejected. But whether the evidence be or be not of equal strength, is the question at issue between believers and unbelievers. And neither the judgment' of Doctor Middleton nor of any other man can be permitted to decide the dispute. It is a dispute upon which the external evidence for Christianity depends: and the decision of an individual whom Mr. Butler suspects of infidelity, is not worth appealing to. We confess that this disposition to agree with Doctor Middleton, is not very honourable to the Catholic church.

"An host of divines rose in arms again him; and a controversial war ensued. The assailants displayed learning and talent; but, when Doctor Middleton asked the overwhelming question,-What greater right to credit does the testimony admitted by you possess, than the testimony which you reject? it must be admitted that he received no satisfactory answer." P. 43.

Unless therefore Mr. Butler provides us with an answer, the miracles recorded in Scripture must be given up. And what is the answer?

"Such was the result of this celebrated controversy. It próduced a great sensation, and made impressions which have not been obliterated.

"In general, Roman Catholics kept aloof from it. They perceived how greatly it served their cause. They thought it clear, that, -when Doctor Middleton proved, against his antagonists, that the evidence brought by them in support of the miracles, which they allowed was not greater than the evidence produced for the miracles which they rejected,-he completely established the Roman Catholic doctrine of the uninterrupted succession of miracles in their church: and that, on the other hand,-when the adversaries of Doctor Middleton proved against him, that the inspiration of the New Testament, and even the authenticity of its text, could only be proved by testimony, they completely established the Roman Catholic doctrine of tradition." P. 45.

To effect the first of these points it must have been shown not merely that one set of miracles was as good as another, but that both sets were genuine,-a conclusion the very reverse of that towards which Middleton's speculations tended. Again, when the Doctor's adversaries proved what no Protestant ever questioned," they completely established

the Roman Catholic doctrine of tradition"!! That is to say, because historical evidence or history is necessary to prove a matter of fact, therefore tradition or history is a part of revelation. The Roman Catholic places Scripture and tradition on a level, and deduces his creed from both; and Mr. Butler conceives that he is justified in so doing, because external evidence has been handed down to us by our forefathers. Mr. Butler is a subtle disputant; and such subtleties as these are required in the Catholic church. But let us hear him again :

"But, while the Roman Catholics assert, that it has pleased Almighty God to work in every age, from the first preaching of the Gospel to the present time, many and incontestible miracles in favour of his church and her doctrines, they admit, without qualification, that no miracles, except those which are related in the Old or the New Testament, are articles of faith; that a person may disbelieve every other miracle, and may even disbelieve the existence of the persons, through whose intercession they are related to have been wrought, without ceasing to be Roman Catholic. This is equally agreeable to religion and common sense; for all miracles, which are not recorded in Holy Writ, depend on human reasoning. Now, human reasoning being always fallible, all miracles depending on it rest on fallible proof; and, eonsequently may be untrue. Hence the divines of the Roman Catholic church never impose the belief of particular miracles, either upon the body of the faithful or upon individuals; they only recommend the belief of them. They never recommend the belief of any, the credibility of which does not appear to them to be supported by evidence of the highest nature; and, while they contend that the evidence is of this description, and cannot, therefore, be rationally disbelieved, they admit that it is still no more than human testimony, and therefore liable to error." P. 46.

The result of the whole, therefore, is this: the Roman Catholic church claims an uninterrupted succession of miracles; and Mr. Butler admits the claim, but is not required to believe the miracles. With the help of a new species of induction, he establishes a general truth, by denying all the particulars of which it consists: "And this is agreeable to religion and common sense," for miracles not mentioned in Scripture depend on human reasoning! The Scripture miracles we presume, though Mr. Butler neglects to tell us so, depend upon the church; and the church, what does that depend upon? Upon the succession of miracles. And how is that succession proved? By the liberty to" disbelieve every one of them, without ceasing to be a Roman Catholic." This may be good logic at St. Omers, but it will have no effect in England. The divines of the Roman Catholic church"

desire to establish their authority by a principle of blind submission to their decisions. But the right to demand such a submission is disputed: and Mr. Butler must prove it, if he proves it at all, not by exposing Christianity to the sneers of unbelief, but by showing that miracles are now wrought in his church. He assures us that they are claimed, and we admit that fact. He believes that they are performed, and we are bound to credit his assertion; but we ask him to adduce an instance, and substantiate it by evidence; and he answers that human testimony is liable to error, and that consequently he is at liberty to disbelieve the existence of the persons through whose intercession the miracles have been wrought." We are bound to congratulate the Catholic church upon the success of their laypatron and champion.

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But there is another point to which we much advert. Mr. Butler states, that when Dr. Middleton asked what greater right to credit does the testimony admitted by you possess, than the testimony which you reject? it must be admitted that he received no satisfactory answer. If the question had referred to the miracles recorded in Scripture on the one part, and the miracles claimed by the Roman church on the other, a very satisfactory answer might have been given. The case of the Anglo-Saxons, upon which Mr. Butler does not condescend to make a single remark, is directly in point. We have testimony that St. Augustine worked miracles, and we do not believe it, for the following reasons: in the first place, it is not stated either by Bede or Pope Gregory, what those miracles were. In the second place, the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons may be accounted for in another manner. The king of Kent married a Christian wife; Augustine came over, according to Gregory's own admission, on her invitation. Her husband embraced Christianity, and his example was followed by others. But after the king's death, his sons relapsed into idolatry, and the work of conversion was to be begun again. This can hardly be attributed to miracles. Again, the Northumbrians made that gradual advance towards Christianity, which is not to be expected from a conviction grounded upon miracles. Bede gives us the arguments adduced by a Northumbrian for listening to the lessons of Paulinus; and they contain no reference to his miracles. The second and more effectual mission from Iona, was unsuccessful at first. The Monks attributed the failure to the austere unconciliating disposition of the missionary; and supplied his place with a man of different character, Aidan, whose virtues are celebrated by Bede with unusual

eloquence; and to those virtues we may safely ascribe the conversion of the princes, and the gradual extension of the Gospel among their subjects. In the third place, when miracles are described by the Anglo-Saxon writers, they are generally of the most extravagant character. Augustine's are not detailed, but subsequent wonders occur in great plenty. Many of them are merely dreams, many might have been easily pretended, and more are monstrous and absurd. Here therefore we have a conversion which is explicable upon other grounds. The miracles which preceded it are not particularised. But after the establishment of Christianity, there is no end to the marvels which were witnessed; and there can be no doubt respecting the roguery of the inventors, or the folly of the dupes. Lastly, it is very doubtful whether the miraculous portions of these histories are authentic. For eight hundred years they were in the keeping of the monks. Those monks were the authors of the ludicrous fables recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis, and of others still more childish, ascribed to Geoffry of Monmouth. It is allowable therefore, to suppose that men who invented so largely on their own account, may have embellished the pages of Bede, and other early historians with the marvellous portion of their narratives. And there is no sufficient ground for believing that the Anglo-Saxon church was founded by any preternatural interposition in its favour.

This is our answer to Mr. Butler's question. The testimony for Scripture miracles differs in every point from the testimony for Augustine's miracles. In the former case, the works are distinctly specified; those works produced conversion; the persons first converted were not kings or rulers; the miracles are neither monstrous or childish; and the record in which they are contained, has not only been under the especial protection of the one true church, but what is much more satisfactory, it has been watched with suspicious care by all other churches and sects, and its authenticity admits of proofs which no other antient writings can obtain.

The same satisfactory distinction may be drawn between all other spurious miracles, and the real miracles upon which Christianity is founded. Let Mr. Butler select a specific instance of supernatural interposition, and state the evidence

which it is established. Let him begin with the wonders of the Apocryphal Gospels, and end with the last cure performed by Prince Hohenlohe, and Protestants will have no difficulty in pointing out the difference between the miracles they adopt, and the miracles they reject. Infidelity will not

be permitted to enjoy the triumph which it anticipates from the Book of the Roman Catholic church. The legendary wonders which have disgraced Christianity will be exposed, and the Church of Rome will lose the credit of those uninterrupted miracles, which Mr. Butler assures us that he believes in the gross, but claims the liberty of disbelieving in detail.

The fifth letter is not important. The sixth defends Dunstan against the charges which have been so frequently brought against him, and of which, in our review of the Book of the Church, we stated our belief that he was not guilty. But the evidence upon which we acquit the great monk, is fatal to the little monks who forged his injustice, and his miracles. And Mr. Butler treats us with the following apology for those rickety links of his uninterrupted chain:

"You conclude the present chapter with an account of the miracles at the death of Dunstan.' You thus express yourself upon them: Whether the miracles at the death of St. Dunstan were actually performed by the monks, or only averred by them as having been wrought, either in their own sight, or in that of their predecessors, there is the same fraudulent purpose, the same audacity of imposture, and the same irrefragable proofs of that system of deceit, which the Romish church carried on every where till the time of the Reformation, and still pursues, wherever it retains its temporal power or influence.'

"This is a most serious charge-In reply to it, I beg leave to refer you to what I have already said on the miracles performed in the Roman Catholic church. I must add, that the period in which the miracles attributed to Dunstan, were performed, was the darkest period in the Roman Catholic history. The nation was then suffering grievously from the effects of the Danish ravages. The demolition of monasteries; the slaughter of their unoffending inmates, who were the teachers and scholars of the times; the consequential destruction of books, and of all public and private memorials of literature and art, had occasioned,' to use your own words, the total loss of learning in the Anglo-Saxon church.'

"But the Gospel of the Anglo-Saxons still remained, and was still read. It informed them of the miracles wrought by Christ; and of his promises, that, until the end of time, his disciples should perform similar miracles, and even greater: and they knew that the promises of Christ could not fail. Besides,-as Doctor Lingard justly observes, Man is taught by human nature to attribute any event to a particular cause; and when an occurrence cannot be explained by the known laws of the universe, it is assigned, by the illiterate in every age, and in every religion, to the operation of an invisible agent. This principle was not extirpated; it was improved by the knowledge of the Gospel. From the doctrine of a superin