person, whom he instructed in the immortality of the soul.

These instances, out of a great many others, must convince every impartial reader that Philostratus had the Gospels before him when he composed his life of Apollonius, and that he invented a set of miracles which might bear a striking resemblance to those of the Christian teacher.

1

Having detained you so long in reviewing it, and looking upon the similar exploits of Pythagoras, as related by Porphyry and Iamblicus, to be unworthy of particular notice, let us now descend to times nearer our own, to the times of monkish ignorance and fraud, shining with the glorious light of miracles, if we believe either the public decrees of the Church of Rome, or pay any credit to its private writers; but, in reality, times when the simplicity of the Gospel degenerated into gross superstition, and when the inventions of men, superadded to the word of God, were not more absurd, than the fraudulent contrivances to support them were numerous.

I think I may safely affirm that many of the most noted miracles among Roman Catholics, are to be ranked in the class of those facts whose credibility is destroyed, by their not having been published till length of time had thrown a veil over the forgery.

In

Nay, so certain is this, that it is demonstrable that many of those saints, to whom wonders have been attributed, never had existence, but in the brains of the shameless interpolators, and ignorant transcribers, of the Old Martyrologys, or were never heard of, but in the impudent legends of the Breviary.-Instances of this have been often assigned by Protestant writers. stances of persons canonized who never lived; of HEATHENS converted into CHRISTIAN Saints; of Heretics mistaken for orthodox, and of moral and Christian virtues personified into martyrs and miracle-workers. However as the scenes of the Romish miracles are not altogether in terra incognita, I shall take particular notice of one or two

* See Dr. Geddes' Tracts.

of their most boasted pretensions, which may give you a specimen of what you are to expect in most of the rest. The instances I propose to mention, are the miracles ascribed to the two famous heroes of the order of the Jesuits-Ignatius, the founder of their order, and Francis Xavier, their apostle in the East Indies.

Ignatius, according to Bouhours, Maffei, and several other writers of the order of Jesus (for above twenty of them have been his biographers) was not inferior to any of the saints, either for the number or the strangeness of his miracles. But that these miracles were impudently forged, long after he was dead, by an order of men remarkable for their forgeries, and with the obvious intention of extending their own power, by exalting the reputation of their founder, will, I think, be pretty evident from the following particulars:

Ribadeneira, a Spanish jesuit, was the first who undertook to give the world a life of this saint; and that he undertook it, with a view to exalt the character of the

head of his order, we might have supposed, even although he had not told us so himself, when he says, that he was well qualified to write the history of Ignatius, having, from his youth, been an eye witness and admirer of his most holy life. As, therefore, we cannot but suppose that Ribadeneira, a cotemporary, must have heard of Ignatius's miracles, if any had been pretended to, so it cannot be doubted, that such a biographer would have gladly laid hold of an opportunity of relating them; as the ascribing of miracles to his hero, would have advanced his reputation more than any thing else that could be related of him.

Does then Ribadeneira ascribe any miracles to Ignatius? So far is he from doing this, that we are certain, from his own declaration, not only that he himself did not believe his saint had ever performed miracles, but, farther, that this was a point universally known and agreed upon. For he enters upon an inquiry, in his book, whence it could happen, that so holy a

man had not the gift of miracles bestowed upon him; and the elaborate and sensible reasons which he assigns for this,* are a de

*The following specimen of them deserves our perusal: Hæc dixerim non ut miraculorum vim elevem, sed ut prudens lector intelligat, rem totam Deo committendam; qui dona sua unicuique distribuit prout vult. Potuit ille pro sua occultâ sapientiâ, nostræ hoc imbecillitati dare, la ne miracula unquam jactare possemus. Potuit utilitati, ut authore instituti minus illustri, a Jesu potius, quam ab illo, nomen traheremus et nostra nos appellatio sacra moneret, ne ab illo oculos unquam dimoveremus: quem non solum, ut communen humani generis liberatorem ac principem, sed etiam ut præcipuum ducem colere, atque imitari debemus, minimam hanc societatem sui nominis glorioso titulo decorantem. Potuit hoc etiam tribuere temporibus, quibus hæc miracule necessaria non sunt. P. 542, 543.

The vein of humility which runs through this passage, agrees but very ill with the character and conduct of the Jesuits, who have, ever since the foundation of their order given the world too many fatal proofs of their arrogance and ambition; and instead of endeavouring to deserve the glorious appellation assumed by them, by a blind obsequiousness to the pretensions of the Court of Rome, pretensions inconsistent with the security and independency of the civil magistrate, and by their odious attempts to sap the foundations of Christian morality, have rendered the appellation of Jesuit odious even among the moderate part of the Church of Rome; and have made the penal laws of protestant states, particularly of ours, against the religion they have propagated by treasons, assassinations, massacres, and villanies of every kind, to be acts necessary for our own preservation, and not to be charged to a spirit of persecution.