HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND JAMES YORK, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF ELY. MY LORD, WHEN, five years ago, an important station in the University of Cambridge awaited your Lordship's disposal, you were pleased to offer it Lo me. The circumstances under which this offer was made, demand a public acknowledgment. I had never seen your Lordship; I possessed no connexion which could possibly recommend me to your favour; I was known to you, only by my endeavours, in common with many others, to discharge my duty as a tutor in the University; and by some very imperfect, but certainly well-intended, and, as you thought, useful publications since. In an age by no means wanting in examples of honourable patronage, although this deserve not to be mentioned in respect of the object of your Lordship's choice, it is inferior to none in the purity and disinterestedness of the motives which suggested it. How the following work may be received, I pretend not to foretell. My first prayer concerning it is, that it may do good to any: my second hope, that it may assist, what it hath always been my earnest wish to promote, the religious part of an academical education. If in this latter view it might seem, in any degree, to excuse your Lordship's judgment of its author, I shall be gratified by the reflection, that, to a kindness flowing from public principles, I have made the best public return in my power. In the mean time, and in every event, I rejoice in the opportunity here afforded me, of testifying the sense I entertain of your Lordship's conduct, and of a notice which I regard as the most flattering distinction of life. I am, my MY LORD, With sentiments of gratitude and respect, Your Lordship's faithful And most obliged servant, WILLIAM PALEY A VIEW OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. PREPARATORY CONSIDERATIONS. I DEEM it unnecessary to prove that man-no other) the objection to the divine governkind stood in need of a revelation, because I ment in not putting a difference between the have met with no serious person who thinks good and the bad, and the inconsistency of that, even under the Christian revelation, we this confusion with the care and benevolence have too much light, or any degree of assur- discoverable in the works of the Deity, is done ance which is superfluous. I desire moreover, away; suppose it to be of the utmost importhat, in judging of Christianity, it may be re-tance to the subjects of this dispensation to membered, that the question lies between this know what is intended for them; that is, supreligion and none: for, if the Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other. pose the knowledge of it to be highly conducive to the happiness of the species, a purpose which so many provisions of nature are calculated to promote: Suppose, nevertheless, alSuppose, then, the world we live in to have most the whole race, either by the imperfechad a Creator; suppose it to appear, from the tion of their faculties, the misfortune of their predominant aim and tendency of the provi- situation, or by the loss of some prior revelasions and contrivances observable in the uni- tion, to want this knowledge, and not to be verse, that the Deity, when he formed it, con- likely, without the aid of a new revelation, to sulted for the happiness of his sensitive crea- attain it: Under these circumstances, is it im tion; suppose the disposition which dictated probable that a revelation should be made? is this counsel to continue; suppose a part of the it incredible that God should interpose for such creation to have received faculties from their a purpose? Suppose him to design for manMaker, by which they are capable of render-kind a future state; is it unlikely that he ing a moral obedience to his will, and of vo- should acquaint him with it? luntarily pursuing any end for which he has designed them; suppose the Creator to intend for these, his rational and accountable agents, a second state of existence, in which their situation will be regulated by their behaviour in the first state, by which supposition (and by Now in what way can a revelation be made, but by miracles? In none which we are able to conceive. Consequently, in whatever degree it is probable, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be communicated to mankind at all; in the same degree is it pro bable, or not very improbable, that miracles Now there appears a small ambiguity in the should be wrought. Therefore, when miracles term "experience," and in the phrases, "conare related to have been wrought in the pro- trary to experience," or "contradicting expemulgating of a revelation manifestly wanted, rience," which it may be necessary to remove and, if true, of inestimable value, the impro- in the first place. Strictly speaking, the narbability which arises from the miraculous na- rative of a fact is then only contrary to expeture of the things related, is not greater than rience, when the fact is related to have existthe original improbability that such a revela- ed at a time and place, at which time and place tion should be imparted by God. we being present, did not perceive it to exist: viz. that of not having ourselves experienced any thing similar to the thing related, or such things not being generally experienced by others. I say "not generally :" for to state concerning the fact in question, that no such thing was ever experienced, or that universal experience is against it, is to assume the sub I wish it, however, to be correctly under- as if it should be asserted, that in a particular stood, in what manner, and to what extent, room, and at a particular hour of a certain this argument is alleged. We do not assume day, a man was raised from the dead, in which the attributes of the Deity, or the existence of room, and at the time specified, we being prea future state, in order to prove the reality of sent and looking on, perceived no such event miracles. That reality always must be proved to have taken place. Here the assertion is by evidence. We assert only, that in mira- contrary to experience properly so called: and cles adduced in support of revelation, there is this is a contrariety which no evidence can surnot any such antecedent improbability as no tes-mount. It matters nothing, whether the fact be timony can surmount. And for the purpose of a miraculous nature or not. But although this of maintaining this assertion, we contend, that be the experience, and the contrariety, which the incredibility of miracles related to have Archbishop Tillotson alleged in the quotation been wrought in attestation of a message from with which Mr. Hume opens his Essay, it is God, conveying intelligence of a future state certainly not that experience, nor that conof rewards and punishments, and teaching trariety, which Mr. Hume himself intended mankind how to prepare themselves for that to object. And, short of this, I know no instate, is not in itself greater than the event, telligible signification which can be affixed to call it either probable or improbable, of the two the term "contrary to experience," but one, following propositions being true: namely, first, that a future state of existence should be destined by God for his human creation; and, secondly, that, being so destined, he should acquaint them with it. It is not necessary for our purpose, that these propositions be capable of proof, or even that, by arguments drawn from the light of nature, they can be made out ject of the controversy. to be probable; it is enough that we are able Now the improbability which arises from to say concerning them, that they are not so the want (for this properly is a want, not a violently improbable, so contradictory to what contradiction) of experience, is only equal to we already believe of the divine power and the probability there is, that, if the thing were character, that either the propositions them- true, we should experience things similar to it, selves, or facts strictly connected with the pro- or that such things would be generally experi positions (and therefore no further improbable enced. Suppose it then to be true that mira. than they are improbable,) ought to be reject-cles were wrought on the first promulgation ed at first sight, and to be rejected by what- of Christianity, when nothing but miracles ever strength or complication of evidence they could decide its authority, is it certain that be attested. such miracles would be repeated so often, and This is the prejudication we would resist. in so many places, as to become objects of geFor to this length does a modern objection to neral experience? Is it a probability approach. miracles go, viz. that no human testimony can ing to certainty? is it a probability of any in any case render them credible. I think the great strength or force? is it such as no evireflection above stated, that, if there be a re-dence can encounter? And yet this probabivelation, there must be miracles, and that un-lity is the exact converse, and therefore the der the circumstances in which the human exact measure, of the improbability which arisspecies are placed, a revelation is not improba-es from the want of experience, and which ble, or not improbable in any great degree, to Mr. Hume represents as invincible by human be a fair answer to the whole objection. testimony. But since it is an objection which stands in It is not like alleging a new law of nature, the very threshold of our argument, and if ad- or a new experiment in natural philosophy: mitted, is a bar to every proof, and to all fu- because, when these are related, it is expected ture reasoning upon the subject, it may be ne- that, under the same circumstances, the same cessary, before we proceed further, to examine effect will follow universally; and in proporthe principle upon which it professes to be tion as this expectation is justly entertained, founded; which principle is concisely this, the want of a corresponding experience negaThat it is contrary to experience that a mira- tives the history. But to expect concerning a cle should be true, but not contrary to experi- miracle, that it should succeed upon a repetience that testimony should be false. tion, is to expect that which would make it |