A further reply to these philosophers, is, Your crying up the immutability of the Supreme Being, the eternity of his laws, with the regularity of his infinite worlds, signify nothing; our small heap of dirt has been covered with miracles: in history, prodigies are as frequent as natural events. The daughters of the high-priest Anius, changed whatever they would into wine or oil; Athalida, daughter of Mercury, rose from the dead several times; Esculapius restored Hippolytus; Hercules delivered Alcestes from death; Theros returned upon earth after staying a fortnight in the infernal regions; Romulus and Remus were the issue of a god and a vestal; the palladium dropped from heaven into the city of Troy; Berenice's tresses became a constellation; Baucis and Philemon's hut was changed into a stately temple; Orpheus's head uttered oracles after his death; the walls of Thebes were formed before numbers of Greeks, by stones moving of themselves, to the sound of a flute; innumerable cures were performed in Esculapius's temple; and we have still monuments with the names of ocular witnesses to his miracles.

Name me one nation, where incredible prodigies have not been performed, especially in times when reading and writing were little known.

All the answer unbelieving philosophers give to these objections, is a sneer and a shrug; but those who profess Christianity, say, We make no doubt of the miracles wrought within our holy religion; yet it is by faith we believe them, and not by reason; as for the latter, we turn a deaf ear to it; for we know, that when faith speaks, reason is to be mute. The miracles of Jesus Christ and his apostles we are fully and firmly persuaded of; but allow us to doubt a little of several others: indulge us, for instance, in suspending our judgment, concerning what is related by a weak man (Gregory,) who yet has been surnamed the Great. He affirms, that a little monk got such a custom of working miracles, that, at length, the prior forbade him to exercise his supernatural talent. The monk conformed to the order; but, one day, seeing a bricklayer falling from the roof of a house, he hesitated between monastical obedience and charity, in saving the poor man's life, and, only ordering him to remain in the air till he got orders, ran to acquaint the prior with the case. The prior gave him absolution for the sin of beginning a miracle without leave, and allowed him to go through with it, but never to do the like again. It is granted to philosophers, that this story may be a little mistrusted.

But it is again said to them, How will you dare to deny, that

St. Gervase and St. Protais appeared in a dream to St. Ambrose, and informed him of the place where their reliques lay; that St. Ambrose had them taken up; and that a blind man was cured by them? St. Austin was then at Milar, and it is he who relates this miracle, in his City of God, book xxii. and that it was performed "immenso populo teste." Here is a miracle with every circumstance of proof. Philosophers, however, say, that they believe nothing at all of Gervase and Protais appearing; that to know where the remains of their carcasses lie, is a thing of no concern to mankind; and that they give no more credit to that blind man, than to Vespasian; that it is a useless miracle; that God does nothing uselessly; in a word, they abide immovably by their principles. My regard for saints Gervase and Protais will not allow me to side with those philosophers; I only give an account of their incredulity. They are vastly fond of a passage of Lucian, in the death of Peregrinus, "A dexterous juggler, turning Christian, is sure of making his fortune;" but Lucian is a profane author, and, of course, should be of no weight among us.

These philosophers cannot bring themselves to believe the miracles of the second century, though eye-witnesses have in writing declared, that the bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, having, pursuant to the sentence passed on him, been thrown into a blazing fire, they heard a voice from heaven calling out, "Cheer up, Polycarp; be strong in the Lord, and show thyself a man;" at which the flames of the pile, drawing back from his body, formed a fiery canopy over his head, and out of the pile flew a dove: at last, they were obliged to cut off the good bishop's head. To what purpose was this miracle? say unbelievers; how came it, that the flames deviated from their nature, and the executioner's axe had the natural effect? How is it, that so many martyrs, after coming safe and sound out of boiling oil, have fallen under the edge of the sword?

The usual answer is, that such was God's will; but the philosophers will believe no such thing, unless they had seen it with their own eyes.

They who improve their reasonings by study, will tell you, that the fathers of the church have themselves often owned, that miracles were ceased in their time. St. Chrysostom says expressly, "that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit were given even to the unworthy, because the church then stood in need of miracles: but, at present, they are not so much as given to the worthy, the church no longer standing in need of them." Afterwards, he acknowledges, that there was no

body then who raised the dead, or so much as cured the

sick.

St. Austin himself, as if he had forgot the miracle of Gervase and Protais, says in his City of God, "Why are those miracles, which were performed some time ago, at present ceased?" and he gives the same reason, 66 Cur, inquiunt, nunc illa miracula quæ prædicatis facta esse, non fiunt? Possem quidem dicere, necessaria prius fuisse, quam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus."

It is objected to the philosophers, that St. Austin, notwithstanding this avowal, speaks of an old cobbler at Hippo, who, having lost his cloak, went to pray for relief at the chapel of the Twenty Martyrs, and, in his return home, found a fish, in the body of which was discovered a gold ring: the cook who dressed it, giving it to the cobbler, said, There is a present for you from the Twenty Martyrs.

To this the philosophers answer, that in that story there is nothing contrary to the laws of nature; that a fish may very naturally have swallowed a gold ring; and that there is no miracle in the cook's giving that ring to the cobbler.

If the philosophers are put in mind, that, according to St. Jerome, in his Life of the Hermit Paul, this devout person had several conversations with satyrs and fauns; that a raven, for thirty years together, daily brought him half a loaf for his dinner, and a whole loaf the day St. Anthony paid him a visit ; they may still reply, that nothing of all this is absolutely contrary to nature; that satyrs and fauns may have existed; and that, after all, if this story be a puerility, it does not in the least affect the real miracles of our Saviour and his apostles. Several good Christians have rejected the story of St. Simon Stilites, written by Theodoret. Many miracles, accounted authentic in the Greek church, have been questioned by Latin writers; so, in return, Latin miracles have been suspected by the Greeks in process of time, came the Protestants, who have made very free with the miracles of both churches.

A learned Jesuit, Ospinian, who preached a long time in the Indies, complains, that neither his brethren nor himself could ever perform one single miracle. Xavier, in several letters, laments his not having the gift of tongues. He says, that he is but as a dumb image among the Japanese; yet, according to the narrative of the Jesuits, he restored eight dead persons to life, and that is a great many; but it must withal be considered, that the scene of those restorations was six thousand leagues off. Some persons, of latter times, make the suppression of the Jesuits, in France, a much greater miracle

than all those of Xavier and Ignatius put together.

Be that as it may, all Christians hold the miracles of Jesus Christ and his apostles to be indisputably true and real, but allow that some miracles of our modern times, and which are without any certain authenticity, may very well be doubted of.

It were to be wished, for the legal verification of a miracle, that it should be performed before the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, or the Royal Society, or the College of Physicians, at London, with a detachment of guards to keep off the people, whose tumultuous indiscretion might hinder the performance of the miracle.

A philosopher was one day asked, what he would say, if the sun should stand still; that is, if the motion of the earth round that body ceased; if all the dead arose; and if all the moun. tains went and threw themselves into the sea; and all this to

prove some important truth; we will suppose versatile grace. What should I say? answered the philosopher; I would turn Manichee, and say, that there is a principle which undoes what the other has done.

MOSES.

IT has been the groundless opinion of many learned men, that the Pentateuch cannot have been written by Moses. They say, that, according to the Scripture itself, the first known copy was found in the time of king Josias, and that this only copy was brought to the king, by Saphan the scribe. Now, the interval from Moses to this circumstance of Saphan the scribe, according to the Hebrew computation, makes a space of 1167 years; for God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, in the year of the world, 2213, and Saphan the scribe made public the book of the law, in the year of the world, 3380. This book, which had been found under Josias, was unknown till the return from the captivity of Babylon; and Esdras is said, by divine inspiration, to have brought to light all the sacred writings.

But, whether Esdras, or any other person, was the compiler of this book, is absolutely a matter of indifference, admitting it to be inspired. The Pentateuch does not say that Moses was the author of it: so that it might, without profaneness, be attributed to any other sacred penman, if the church had not positively decided, that it was written by Moses.

Some adversaries add, that no prophet has quoted any of the books of the Pentateuch; that not the least mention is made

of it in the Psalms; in the books attributed to Solomon; nor in Jeremiah, nor in Isaiah; nor, in a word, in any canonical book of the Jews. Then the words, answering to those of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, are not to be found in any other book, received as authentic, by that nation.

Others more sanguine, have put the following questions :

1. In what language could Moses have written in a wilderness? It could be only in the Egyptian, for, from this very book, it is clear, that Moses and his whole people were born in Egypt, and very probably acquainted with no other language. The Egyptians were yet strangers to the use of the papyrus ; they had their hieroglyphics cut in marble and wood: the very tables of the commandments are said to have been engraven on stone: so that here were five volumes to be engraved on polished stones, a work of prodigious time and labour !

2. Is it probable, that in a wilderness, where the Jewish people had neither shoemaker nor tailor, and where the God of the universe was obliged to work a continual miracle, to preserve their old clothes and shoes, they should have among them persons of such skill, as to engrave the five books of the Pentateuch on marble or wood? It will be said, that workmen were found among them who could make a golden calf in one night, and afterwards reduce the gold to dust, (an operation beyond the skill of common chemistry; an art not yet invented;) who could build the tabernacle, adorn it with thirty-four brass pillars, with silver chapiters; who wove and embroidered linen veils with hyacinth, purple, and scarlet: but this very thing strengthens the adversaries' opinion; and they rejoin, that it is not in nature that such curious works should have been made in a desert, and under the want of every thing; that shoes and coats would have been the things to have begun with; that people wanting necessaries scarcely think of luxury; and that to say, they had founders, engravers, carvers, dyers, and embroiderers, when they had not so much as clothes, sandals, nor bread, is gross and palpable contradiction.

3. If Moses had written the first chapter of Genesis, would the reading of that chapter have been forbidden to all young people? Would the legislator be treated with such disregard? Had it been Moses who said, that God punishes the iniquities of the fathers to the fourth generation, would Ezekiel have presumed to say the contrary?

4. Had Moses written Leviticus, could he have contradicted