written authority against Christ's miracles; but I am well aware it may be said (and modern cavillers will affect to say it with triumph) that authorities are silent on the subject; there are none which make mention of these miracles, at least none have come down to our times.'-If this silence implies a want of collateral evidence, which, in the opinion of our modern disbelievers, vitiates the authenticity of the gospel, how much stronger would the argument have been in Celsus's time than in ours! Why does he not avail himself of it? And why does he take such pains to controvert accounts of which no man had ever spoken either in proofor disproof? May it not be fairly presumed, that he forbears to urge it from plain conviction, that it would operate the contrary way to what he wished, and that the reason why contemporary writers were silent, was not because they were ignorant of the facts, but because they could not confute them? Here then we will leave the case for the present; the heathen writers, contemporary with Christ, make no mention of his miracles; they are interested to disprove them, and they do not disprove them; modern unbelievers think this a reason that these miracles were never performed; Celsus writes fifty years after the time, never urges this silence as an argument for their non-existence, but virtually, nay, expressly, admits Christ's miracles, by setting up Pythagoras's in competition with them.

Neither is it Pythagoras alone he compares to Christ, he states the performances of Aristeas Proconnesius and Abaris also. Of Aristeas, the first account we have is in Herodotus, and he gives it only upon hearsay he relates that it was reported of him, that he died at Proconnesus, and appeared there seven years after, and having written some verses disappeared; but that two or three hundred years after, he had appeared again at Metapontum, where,

by special direction of Apollo, he was worshipped as a god: of Abaris, Celsus relates, that he rode through the air on an arrow, passing over mountains and seas in his passage out of Scythia into Greece, and back again into Scythia.

Hence it came to pass that other heathen writers, after the example of Celsus, published their accounts of Pythagoras and Apollonius Tyaneus; not so much for the purpose of giving the histories of those persons, as to set them up in opposition to Christ and his disciples. Porphyry composed the history of Pythagoras, after he had written fifteen books professedly against the Christian religion; these were suppressed by the Christian emperors who succeeded Galienus, in whose time Porphyry wrote his history of Pythagoras in the island of Sicily, whither he retired in disgust with the Emperor for his favour to the Christians, and would have put himself to death with his own hand, if Plotinus had not prevented him. Galienus soon died, and the succeeding emperors being disposed to persecute the Christians, Porphyry published his history. Jamblichus published his account of Pythagoras in the reign of the Emperor Julian, with whom he was in high favour, as the letters of that Emperor sufficiently testify. Hierocles also, in the time of Dioclesian, published two books against the Christian religion under the title of Philalethes,' and for these was promoted by Galerius from being chief judge at Nicomedia to the government of Alexandria. These books are now lost, but we are informed by Eusebius they were mostly copied from Celsus, and set up Aristeas, Pythagoras, and Apollonius Tyaneus against Christ, whom, he says, the Christians, on account of his doing a few teratyai, call a God, and concludes with these words, viz. That it is worth considering that those things of Jesus are boasted of Peter and Paul, and some others of the

like sort, liars and illiterate and impostors; but for these things of Apollonius, we have Maximus and Damis, a philosopher who lived with him, and Philostratus, men eminent for their learning and lovers of truth.'

As for these witnesses to Philostratus's legend of Apollonius, Maximus's minutes go no farther than to two or three years of Apollonius's life passed at Egæ, when he was about twenty years old; and what he had from Damis was a table-book of minutes, which a nameless man, pretending to be a relation of Damis, brought to Julia the mother and wife of Caracalla, and were by her given to the sophist Philostratus to dress up in handsomer language.

Such are the authorities for the legend of Philostratus, written above a hundred years after the death of Apollonius, who died a few weeks after the Emperor Domitian, in the year of Christ 96. This Apollonius was of the sect of Pythagoras, and the patroness of Philostratus's history was the monster Julia, mother and wife to the detestable Caracalla.

NUMBER XI.

It seems natural to suppose that any great and signal revelation of the Divine Will should be authenticated to mankind by evidences proportioned to the importance of the communication. Christians contend that in the purity and perfection of their religion, as it was taught by Christ, and in the miracles which he performed on earth whilst he was teaching, full and sufficient evidences are found of a Divine Revelation.

As for the religion of Christ it speaks for itself, the book is open which contains it, and however it may have degenerated in practice through the corruption of them who profess it, there seems no difference of opinion in the world as to the purity and perfection of its principles; of these evidences therefore, which are generally called internal, I have no need to speak.

Is it not possible to make the same direct appeal to the miracles as to the religion of Christ? Many centuries have revolved since they have ceased; nature has long since resumed her course, and retains no trace of them; their evidences therefore are not like those of Christ's religion, internal, but historical; it must, however, be acknowledged, that they are historical evidences of the strongest sort, for the historians were eye-witnesses of what they relate, and their relations agree.

It is easy therefore to see, that if the system of Christianity is to be attacked, it is in this part only the attack is to be expected. This has accordingly taken place in three different periods, and in three different modes.

The unbelieving Jews, contemporary with Christ, before whose eyes the miracles were performed, could not dispute their being done, but they attempted to criminate the doer by accusing him of a guilty communication with evil spirits, ascribing is supernatural deeds to the power of the devil. The heathens, who had not ocular demonstration, but could not contest facts so well established, made their attack upon his miracles, by instancing others who had done things altogether as wonderful, viz. Pythagoras, Abaris, Apollonius, and others.

Thus the matter rested for many ages, till modern cavillers within the pale of the Christian church struck upon a new argument for an attack upon

Christ's miracles; and this argument having been woven into a late publication, whose historical merit puts it into general circulation, many retailers of infidelity (and Dr. Mac-Infidel amongst the rest), have caught at it as a discovery of importance, and as they have contrived to connect it with topics of more erudition than the generality of people are furnished with, on whom they practise, it has been propagated with some success, where it has had the advantage of not being understood.

The strength of this argument lies in the discovery, that contemporary authorities are silent on the subject of Christ's miracles: naturalists and the authors who record all curious and extraordinary events of their own or of preceding times, make no mention of the wonderful things which Christ is said to have done in the land of Judea; in short, the Evangelists are left alone in the account, and yet some things are related by them too general in their extent, and too wonderful in their nature, to have been passed over in silence by these authors, or in other words, not to have had a place in their collections: the elder Pliny and Seneca they tell us were living at the time of Christ's passion; the Evangelists relate, that there was darkness over the face of the earth when Christ gave up the ghost, and this darkness was miraculous, being out of the course of nature, and incidental to the divinity of the person, who was then offering up his life for the redemption of mankind. Against the veracity of the gospel account relative to this particular prodigy the attack is pointed; and they argue, that if it extended over the whole earth, elder Pliny and Seneca, with all others who were then living, must have noticed it: if it was local to the province of Judea, men of their information must have heard of it: each of these philosophers has recorded all