printed at Salisbury, except as to the quotations from other authors. These passages appear in many instances to have been very inaccurately transcribed. The Greek and Latin quotations particularly contain many errors: and a careful comparison of all these with the works from which they were taken, has made the present edition much more correct than any which preceded it. CONTENTS. The whole may be distributed into three heads : I. A refutation of Hume's objection to the credibility of miracles II. Shews the pretended miracles of the pagans of ancient times, and of the papists in more modern days, to be devoid of that evidence, which is essential for the establishment of Miracles, said to have been wrought by Apollonius of Tyana, tried by the first rule, and found deficient; as also those of ........ The miracles recorded by Livy and Tacitus, brought to the The same objection urged against the Romish miracles.. 60 Cures performed at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, shewn to have III. Miracles of Jesus Christ shewn not to be liable to the objec- tions urged against those of the Abbé Paris. The extraordinary works ascribed to him, such as required the THE CRITERION, &c. SIR, My surprise has not been greater than my concern, to observe that a person of your good sense, candour, and learning, should have reasoned himself, as you say you have done, into an unfavourable opinion of the evidences of Christianity. Ever since our last conversation, the objections you stated have engaged much of my attention; and the result of my reflections you shall have in the present sheets. Nor do I think that this address requires any apology. The importance of the subject, and my repeated promises that I would give you my thoughts concerning it, sufficiently plead my excuse. And happy should I esteem myself, if any thing I suggest, prove the means of bringing you back to that religion, which you seem to have forsaken, and of satisfying you that the reasons you assign for rejecting the miracles recorded in the New Testament, ought not to weigh with one of your discernment. Unskilled in controversy, it may seem presumption in me to offer my opinion on a subject, already so fully and frequently canvassed by the most eminent writers; and it may be thought that if their arguments have proved ineffectual to satisfy your doubts, it will be a vain attempt in me to aim at your conviction. But when I consider the nature of many of your objections, which are peculiar to B yourself, and not borrowed from books; when I reflect, farther, that the controversy, with regard to the credibility of the gospel miracles, has, of late, taken a turn somewhat new, it is obvious, that to refer you to the many excellent defences of Christianity, already in the hands of the public, would be entirely unsatisfactory; for these treatises having been adapted to the prevailing objections of unbelievers at the particular periods when they were written, it becomes necessary that the friends of our religion should change their method of defence, since the attack is not carried on in the old way. You may remember what points you have chiefly insisted upon in our debates on this subject. You granted (as every thinking person must grant) that a power of working miracles, vested in one assuming the character of a Teacher from God, would sufficiently establish the truth of his claim; "but you "urged, withal, that there was no solid foundation "to believe that any such person was ever vested "with such a power; for that the miracles of Jesus "and his apostles, related in the New Testament, were not supported by stronger evidence than were the prodigies that disgrace the pages of Livy, and the legendary tales that swell the lives "of the Romish saints. Now these latter accounts 66 66 66 66 being, on all hands, justly rejected as false, while "the former, it seems, are admitted as true; how "then, you say, can we fairly dispute the authen 66 66 ticity of the one, and insist so much on the cre dibility of the other? For, as the testimony in "both is equally strong, the miracles recorded in "both the accounts must be equally credible. That, "therefore, you had no way of extricating yourself |