instantly redressed, a dæmon authoritatively dispossessed, a man four days buried, recalled to life; these are effects of power too substantial to be mistaken; and too lasting to be suspected of having passed through a superficial examination.

Lastly, it is said in the above definition of a proper and credible miracle, that it must be declared by the worker of it to be wrought expressly in confirmation of some particular doctrine, which doctrine must be such as to commend itself to the unprejudiced reason of mankind, and to bear the marks of a revelation worthy of God, and useful for men. A miracle, or wonderful effect, connected with no particular doctrine, is to be called a natural or artificial phenomenon, or a prodigy; not a miracle in a theoligical sense, which last alone is what we are at pres ent concerned with.

No miracle whatever, nor any number of miracles, would be sufficient to prove twice two to be five. Because we are more clearly and undoubtedly certain of the proportions of numbers, than of any thing supernatural. And all miracles are supernatural. And it would be absurd to imagine that the infinitely wise Author of reason should expect us to question the certain information of our reason upon evidence less certain.

Again, if miracles are pretended to be wrought in proof of a doctrine which leads to any vicious or impious practice, as we may, by a proper examination, and due use of our faculties be more certain, that such a doctrine cannot be from God, than we can be, that a pretended miracle, in support of it, is from him; it is plain we are to reject both the doctrine and pretended miracle, as insufficient against the clear and unquestionable dictates of reason. But if miracles, answering in every part the above definition, are wrought before credible witnesses, in express attestation of a doctrine, though not discoverable by reason, yet not contradictory to it, and tending to the advancement of virtue and happiness, we ought in any reason to conclude such miracles, when properly attested, to have been performed by the power of God, or of some being authorised by him; and may judge ourselves safe in receiving them as such; because we cannot suppose that God would leave his creatures in a state ob

noxious to remediless delusion; nay, we cannot but think it criminal to neglect, or oppose, miracles in such a manner attested, or the doctrine intended to be established by them,

It has been objected against the account, we have in scripture, of innumerable miracles performed by Moses, and the prophets, Christ, and his apostles; that it is not likely, they should be true, because we have none such in our times. That, as we have no experience of miracies, we have no reason to believe that ever there were any performed.

Supposing it were strictly true, that we have no experience, or ocular conviction, of the possibility of miracles, which is by no means to be taken for granted; those who urge this objection, would do well to consider, before they embark their unbelief upon it, how far it will carry them. If, because we see no miracles now, we may sately argue that there never were any, it will be as good sense to say, because we now see an earth, a sun, moon, and stars; there never was a time, when they were not; there never was a time when the Divine wisdom governed his natural, or moral system otherwise than he does now; there are no different states of things, nor any different exigencies in consequence of those differences; it is absurd to conceive of any change in any one particular, or in the general œconomy of the universe.

The account we have in the New Testament, of the dæmoniacs miraculously cured by our Saviour, has, particularly, been thought to pinch so hard, that some have, in order to get rid of the difficulty, attempted, (in my hum. ble opinion, altogether unwarrantably) to explain away the whole doctrine of possession by spirits. How comes it, say the objectors, that we read of such numbers of persons in Christ's time possessed with dæmons; while we have no instances of any such in our days? To this, some gentlemen, whose abilities I should be proud to equal, and of whose sincere belief of christianity I have no more doubt than of my own, have given an answer, which I cannot "The Do. help thinking extremely hurtful to the cause.

moniacs," say those gentlemen, "were no more than mad people, who were not then, nor are now, possessed with spirits, any more than other diseased persons. Their being

spoken of as possessed, was no other than a common way of expressing their disease or distress; and the dispossessing them, was only the cure; which was still miraculous" But, if any man can reconcile this notion with the accounts we have from the Evangelists, he must have a key, which, I own, I am not master of. That a set of grave historians, sacred historians, should fill up their narration with accounts of what was said by such a number of madmen, that those madmen should universally speak to better purpose, than the bulk of those who were in their senses; that they should at once, the first moment they cast their eyes on our Saviour, know him to be the Christ, while some even of his own disciples hardly knew what to think of him; that our Saviour himself should enumerate his casting cut evil spirits, besides curing diseases, as a miracle entirely separate, and of its own kind, and mention his conquest over Satan and his wicked spirits, as a mark of his being the true Messiah; that he should allow his disciples to continue in a mistake with respect to a point of such consequence; that he should advise them to rejoice more in the thought of their names being written in heaven, than in their having received power over spirits, without telling them at the same time, that they were altogether in a mis take about their having received any such power; that we should be gravely told that the madness (not the spirits) which possessed the men in tombs, intreated our Saviour. to send it into the herd of swine; that the madness (not the spirit) should so often intrcat and adjure him not to send it to the place of torment before the time, that is, probably, before the last judgment, or perhaps an earlier period spoken of in the Apocalypse; that all these solemn accounts should be given in such a history, and nothing to show them to be figurative, nor, as far as I can see, any possibility of understanding them otherwise than literally; seems wholly unaccountable. Nor can I help thinking that the solution is incomparably harder to grapple with than the difficulty. I deny not, that there are passages in the gospels, where a disease is in one place spoken of as an infliction of an evil spirit, and in another as a mere disease. But this does not at all affect the point in dispute; because the question is not, whether the demoniacs spoken of in the gospels were not persons labouring under a bod.

ily complaint besides the possession by evil spirits; but, whether the people said to be possessed, were at all possessed, or not. If a person, whose brain was distempered, was likewise possessed with an evil spirit, he might with sufficient propriety be spoke of in one place as a lunatic, and in another as a dæmoniac.

I should humbly judge it a much more easy and natural way of getting over this difficulty, to proceed upon our Saviour's answer to his disciples concerning the man born blind. "Neither did this man sin," says he, (in any extraordinary manner) nor his parents; but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." If the whole human species are offenders, and at all times deserving of punishment, where is the difficulty of conceiving, that it might be suitable to the Divine scheme of government, that at the time of our Saviour's appearance, or any other period, a greater variety of punishments might be suffered to fall upon a guilty race of beings, and afterwards, through the Divine mercy, their sufferings might be abated. Particularly, is there not even a propriety in God's giving to Satan, and his angels, the ancient and inveterate opposers of the Messiah, and his kingdom, a short triumph over mankind, in order to render the Messiah's victory over him more conspicuous and more glorious. This I say on the supposition, that possession by evil spirits was altogether peculiar to those ancient times; and that there is at present absolutely no such thing in any country in the world. But, before any person can positively affirm, that there is no such thing in our times as possession by spirits, he must be sure of his knowing perfectly the natures and powers of spirits, and be able to show the absolute impossibility of a spirit's having communication with embodied minds; and must be capable of showing, that all the symptoms and appearances in diseases, in madness, and in dreams, are utterly inconsistent with the notion of spirits having any concern with our species. Now to establish this negative will be so far from being easy to do, that, on the contrary, universal opinion, as well as probability, and the whole current of revelation, are on the opposite side. Who can say that it is absurd to imagine such a state of the human frame, especially of the brain, as may give spiritual agents an opportunity of making

impressions upon the mind? Who can say, that sleep may not lay the mind open to the impressions of foreign beings; and that waking again may not, by some laws of Nature unknown to us, exclude their communications? Who can say, that part (I do not say all) of the symptoms in phrenetic, epileptic, lunatic, and melancholic cases, especially in the more violent paroxysms, may not be owing to the agency of spirits? Were this to be allowed, it would not at all vacate the use of medicines or dieting. For if the access of spirits to our minds depends upon the state of our bodies, which it is no way absurd to suppose, it is evident, an alteration in the state of the body may prevent their access to our minds, and deprive them of all power over us; and in that light medicines and regimen may be effectual even against spirits, so far as they may be concerned, by being so against the natural disorder of the frame occasioned merely by the disease. So that there may, for any thing we know to the contrary, be dreams, in which foreign agents may be concerned, and there may be others occasioned by mere fumes of indigestion, as the poet speaks. There may be epileptics and maniacs, who are so from mere obstructions and disorders in the brain and nerves; and there may at this day be others attacked by those maladies, whose distress may be heightened by wicked spirits. The amazing strength of even women and youths, in some of their violent fits, seems to countenance a suspicion, that something acts in them, separate from their own natural force, and which is hardly to be accounted for from any extraordinary flow of animal spirits. And why in scripture we should have so many accounts of revela tions communicated in dreams: from whence probably the heathens, ever since Homer, have had the same notion; seems unaccountable upon any other footing, than that of supposing some natural mechanical connexion between a particular state of the bodily frame, and communication from separate spirits. The behaviour of the prophet in the Old Testament, who calls for an instrument of music, when he waits for an inspiration, does likewise countenance the same notion; as if the natural effect of melody was to open the way to the mind in a mechanical manner, in order to the more full admission of the super