chusetts, this person had for three years, been working all kinds of miracles, raising the dead, restoring the blind, maimed, and deaf, and curing all kinds of disease, and this too, in the most public manner, before thousands of people, before the governors, and judges, and clergy, and the most intelligent men of the nation.

They assert, that the rulers and clergy, fearing to be surplanted in their authority, were all opposed to this person, though the people were in his favour. They assert, that after a time, the magistrates of New-York, had this person publicly executed near the city, guarded by soldiers, who, when he was dead, allowed his burial to his followers, though they set a guard upon his tomb to prevent any farther trouble about his body; that an angel came down from heaven, and opened the tomb; that this wonderful personage, after having laid there three days, arose and appeared to more than five hundred persons, to whom these impostors address their communications.

In consequence of these tales, containing not a word of truth, men begin to believe that all these miracles had happened among them, and though professing such a belief, involved the loss of family, fortune, and often of life, it spread like a mania. These fishermen insist, that in consequence of these miracles they wrote about, all the various sects of Christians, all Jews, Infidels, and every class of religionists, should give up their faith, and take them for their teachers, and believe that this person about whom they wrote and preached, was God himself.

The

Immediately the clergy, and people, and churches, begin to change their religion, and form new establishments. Sabbath is changed to the day in which these men pretend this person arose from the dead; new rites take the place of old ones, and the forms of society seem all to break

up.

Meantime these fishermen write letters to their followers in Philadelphia, Boston, New-Haven, and other places, and

tell them of miracles they themselves have wrought among them, which were never heard of before; nay more, they tell their followers, that they work miracles themselves, and give them directions respecting them. These letters also are immediately believed, copied, sent all over the United States, and are considered as revelations from God.

Such

All in vain is persecution to stop this pernicious belief, which gains on all ranks and conditions of men. At last the whole United States become converts, together with all the nations of Europe, and these poor fishermen of New-York thus become the intellectual conquerors of the world. are the miracles of Infidelity! And what is the proof brought to enforce belief of a violation of the laws of mind the most terrific and entire, and accomplished for no possible benefit? Why truly, not a single well attested fact! Folios of proof are contradictory to their miracles, and not one fact in positive proof. And yet Infidels reject Christianity, because, as they assert, it is so difficult to believe in miracles!

Infidel sentiments have been sustained chiefly by ridicule, and invective, but some of its most distinguished advocates, unfortunately for themselves, have sometimes attempted to reason on the subject. As a specimen of the arguments by which such sentiments are defended, may be selected the famous argument of the learned David Hume, which, both by friends and foes, has been acknowledged as the most specious, and the best. From this may be learned the nature of other attempts at reasoning in defence of Infidelity.

Mr. Hume's argument is simply this: "Invariable experience is stronger evidence in favour of the continuance of the laws of nature, than any amount of human testimony can be, in favour of the violation of these laws. For human testimony sometimes deceives, but the evidence of invariable past experience cannot deceive. In reply to this, it must appear, that Mr. Hume cannot mean his own personal experience alone, for that has extended only to a few places, and

through a few years, and could not determine what the laws of nature are. If he does mean his own experience, he must maintain that he never can believe any thing he has not experienced himself, which will reduce his knowledge to a very small amount, and very much below what has generally been supposed. But his mode of reasoning does not imply this. Of course, he must refer to the invariable experience of mankind in general. The enquiry then may be urged, how did Mr. Hume gain a knowledge of this universal, invariable, experience? Why truly, by human testimony, just as Christians obtain their evidence of miracles.

The argument then amounts to this. A certain number of men have testified that they never knew the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, lepers to be cleansed, and the dead to rise, at the command of any man, and have never known others who had witnessed such things. This evidence, is believed, because the witnesses have the proper evidence of being competent to establish truth by their testimony. A certain number of others testify, that they have seen all these miracles thus performed, and give the same evidence of being competent witnesses. But Mr. Hume, and other Infidels, cannot believe them, simply because a great many others have not seen these things. Such persons have minds so peculiarly constituted, that if twelve men of veracity should testify, that on a certain evening they saw a brilliant Aurora Borealis of a peculiar form, they could never believe them, because all the rest of the neighbourhood were asleep, and in the morning, testify that they never saw the thing, and never heard before, that any one else had.

There is another curious mental phenomenon in regard to this class of persons, and that is, the estimation with which they seem to regard their own intellectual powers, and the contempt and pity, which they bestow on those who dissent from their faith. After having swallowed such enormous absurdities, and been guilty of such lamentable reason

ing, they are suddenly siezed with the most distressing commiseration, for the intellectual infirmities of their fellow men; they are astonished, at the bigotry, and shocked with the irrationality, of all who, like them, have not concluded to give up the first principles of common sense. - They are greatly delighted with their own superior wisdom, and their freedom from the shackles of prejudice and folly; they take no pains to conceal their self-complacency, nor hesitate in making their claims on their fellow men, for the highest rank in the scale of intellect. It is doubtful, whether mankind will allow them exactly this elevated distinction; but when their pretensions are fairly examined, it is probable they will be deemed worthy of being placed in a separate class as sui generis; as a curious specimen of lusus naturæ, among beings, who claim the honours of our intellectual nature.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ON THE AUTHORITY, INTEGRITY, AND CORRECT TRANSLATION

OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

Man finds himself a probationer, in a transitory scene; feels that he has capacities, both for exquisite suffering and enjoyment, realizes the obligations of conscience, and knows that he is a guilty being. Of course, every reflecting mind must anxiously inquire, Whence did I come? Who has the control of this world, and of the happiness of the beings that inhabit it? How am I to secure His favour? Whither am going at death? Is this spirit immortal? Is punishment to follow the sins of this life? Are guilty habits, and their long train of accumulating ills, to follow the mind into another scene?

I

It has been shown, that the deductions of reason furnish a light which only serves to make "darkness visible;" which leads to forebodings of future ill, without telling of a remedy; which reveals no certain Deity; which leaves us as much in the dark as to where we go, as we are in regard to whence we came. Reason may serve to illustrate and confirm a Revelation, but alone, it gleams a melancholy light, that only leads to endless mazes, and fades into starless gloom.

A Revelation from the Creator then, is the most precious boon that could be bestowed upon man, and what if bestowed, should engage his most devout and diligent attention. No man can be said to possess a revelation from God, unless it is in such a form, that by applying the common rules for interpreting languge, he can obtain the truths communicated by God to his accredited messengers, unmixed with any falsehood. For reason can decide nothing respecting the being and character of God, His mode of existence, the way to obtain His favour, the mode of escaping the evil consequences of sin, the rules of duty, or the consequences of obeying or neglecting these rules. Of course, then, if falsehood is mingled with truth, in a work professing to be a revelation, all its authority is destroyed, unless a new revelation shall declare, what parts are true, and what parts are false.

Every man then, is obligated to ascertain, whether or not, he is in possession of a revelation from God; for if the work which professes to be such, is a mixture of truth and falsehood, he has no revelation; and this question can be determined only by examination.

The common English Bible is the work which, in this country, makes the claims of Revelation. Every man then, who adopts this work as the guide of his faith and practice, is obligated to ascertain from personal examination, whether it is, or is not a revelation from God. If the books it contains are not the works written by the inspired messengers of God; if the writers, either through prejudice, or ignorance, or a want