the motives that tempt them to falfify, that we come to distrust or difbelieve what they fay.

In general, when we doubt a man's word, we have always one or other of these four reasons for it: we think, that what he fays is incredible or improbable; or that there is fome temptation or motive which inclines him in the prefent cafe to violate truth; or that he is not a competent judge of the matter wherein he gives teftimony; or perhaps we doubt his veracity now, because we have known him to be a deceiver formerly. If we have no reason to distrust his integrity; if we think him a competent judge of that which he affirms; if we know of no motive of vanity or intereft that might incline him to falfify; and if he affirms nothing but what is credible and probable, we shall without fcruple acquiefce in his declaration.

OUR faith in teftimony often rifes to abfolute certainty. That there are fuch towns as Conftantinople and Smyrna, and fuch countries as Asia, Africa, and America; that Cæfar and Annibal were real men and great commanders, the one a Roman, the other a Carthaginian; that Wilkam of Normandy conquered England; that Charles I. was beheaded, &c.-every person, who knows any thing of hiftory, accounts him

felf abfolutely certain. For the teftimonies that confirm these and the like truths are fo many, fo various, and fo confiftent, that we justly think it impoffible they fhould be fictitious.

WHEN a number of perfons, not acting in concert, having no intereft to conceal what is true or affirm what is falfe, and competent judges of what they testify, concur in making the fame report, it would be thought madness to difbelieve them. Even when three, or when two witneffes, feparately examined, and who have had no opportunity to contrive a plan before-hand, agree in their declaration, we believe them, though we have had no experience of their veracity; because we know, that in fuch a cafe their teftimonies would not be uniform, if they were not true.In this way, men have judged in all ages; and upon this principle the most important queftions relating to life and property are decided: and of fuch decifions and judgments the general experience of mankind proves the utility and the rectitude.

AN impoffible fact no teftimony whatever, not even that of our own fenfes, would make us believe. If I were to fee the fame individual man double, or in two places at the fame time, I fhould certainly think, not that it was fo, but

that fomething was wrong in my fight, or that the appearance might be owing to fome peculiarity in the medium through which I faw it.When a fact is poffible, and ftill more when it is not improbable, the teftimony of a stranger would incline us to believe, unless we had reafon to fufpect him of a defign to impose upon

us.

MIRACULOUS facts are not to be ranked with impoffibilities. There was a time, when the matter that composes my body was as void of life, as it will be when it fhall have lain twenty years in the grave; when the elementary particles, whereof my eye is made up, could no more enable a percipient being to fee, than they can now enable one to fpeak; and when that which forms the fubftance of this hand was as inert as a ftone. Yet now, by the goodness of the Creator, the firft lives, the laft moves, and by means of the fecond I perceive light and colours. And if Almighty power can bring about all this gradually, by one particular fucceffion of caufes and effects, may not the fame power perform it in an inftant, and by the operation of other causes to us unknown? Or will the atheist say (and none who believes in God can doubt the poffibility of miracles) that he himself knows every poffible caufe that can operate in the

d

production of any effect? Or is he certain that there is no fuch thing in the universe as Almighty power?

To raise a dead man to life; to cure blindness with a touch; to remove lamene fs, or any other bodily imperfe&ion, by speaking a word, are all miracles; but muft all be as easy to the author of nature, or to any person commiffioned by him for that purpose, as to give life to an embryo, make the eye an organ of fight, or caufe vegetables to revive in the spring. And therefore, if a person, declaring himself to be fent of God, or invefted with divine power, and faying and doing what is worthy of fuch a commiffion, should perform miracles like thefe, mankind would have the best reafon to believe, that his authority was really from heaven.

As the common people have neither time nor capacity for deep reasoning; and as divine revelation of religion must be intended for all forts of men, the vulgar as well as the learned, the poor as well as the rich; it is necessary, that the evidence of fuch a revelation fhould be of that kind which may command general attention, and convince men of all ranks and characters, and fhould therefore be levelled to every capacity. It would be cafy, no doubt, for the Deity to convey his truths

immediately to every man by inspiration, so as to make inquiry unneceffary and doubt impoffible. But this would not be confiftent with man's free agency and moral probation; and this would be very unlike every other dispensation of Providence with refpect to man, who, as he is endowed with rational faculties, feels that he is under an obligation to use and improve them. This would be to make him love religion, and believe in it, without leaving it in his power to do otherwife; and fuch faith, and fuch love, would be no mark of either a good difpofition or a bad. Now there is no kind of evidence, confiftent with our moral probation and free agency, that is likely to command univerfal attention, and carry full conviction in religious matters to men of all ranks and capacities, except the evidence arifing from miracles, or fupernatural events.

ONE author has indeed affirmed, that miracles can be no evidence of any doctrine; because no teftimony whatever can, in his opinion, render a miracle credible even in the loweft degree. But I need not quit the tract of my argument, for the fake of a paradox, fo contrary to the natural dictates of rationality, and which has been unanfwerably confuted by Dr. Campbell, in his Differ tation on Miracles. In fact, every event admits