boasted accounts of Pagan and Popish miracles are posterior to the age of the persons to whom they are ascribed; there áre, no doubt, many of these pretended miracles, the accounts of which are not liable to the above objection. I proceed, therefore, to my second rule, which will divest many of these pretensions of their credibility, which perhaps cannot be affected by the first.

The rule is this-Those accounts of miracles are to be suspected, which though they may be traced up to the age they lay claim to, have not been published in the places where it is pretended the facts have been wrought, but been reported only at a great distance from the supposed scene of action.

The grounds on which we suspect such accounts of miraculous facts to be false, are so obvious to require no formal explanation. It will be sufficient to observe, that when accounts of miracles are published at. a distance from the places where the scenes of them are laid, they are published to persons who, by their situation, are neces

sarily deprived of the proper means of examining what foundation there is for the pretensions; and consequently, in such cases, there is full scope for fraud and imposition to play their parts. With regard to reports of miracles, the very possibility of imposition, creates a suspicion of it; and to say that a miracle is suspected, is, in other words, to say it is incredible,

Take then the "Romish Breviary," or the Lives of their Saints into your hands, and you will perceive what strange havoc will be made amongst their most boasted pretensions to miracles when they are tried by this test.

For where did Xavier display his miraculous power?-In the extremities of the East, in India, in Japan. And where were the accounts of these facts made public; and by whom, if ever, believed? Not on the spot; but in Europe, at an immense distance, and consequently proposed to persons unavoidably deprived of opportunities of coming at the truth, supposing them inclined to come at it; and liable to be im

posed upon by those, whose private interests were connected with the propagation of an imposture. For as it appears, from Tursellinus, the original biographer of Xavier, that he composed the life of this Jesuit, by order of the superiors of the Jesuits, himself being of the same order; and as it is certain that the materials out of which he composed his work, were relations sent home by Jesuits, these circumstances would have thrown a veil of suspicion over this book, even although the author had confined himself to exalt his hero's character, without going beyond the limits of nature. How greatly, therefore, does our suspicion of fraud strengthen itself, when we find that the facts reported are so extraor dinary ?

There is less occasion to be very parti cular, under this head; because I readily grant that instances of Pagan and Popish miracles may be appealed to, the accounts of which will stand the test of both the above-mentioned rules; and for the rejec tion of which, we can have no grounds

to urge either that length of time, or that distance of place favoured the imposture.

What then are we to say with regard to such accounts, which we cannot deny to have been made public at the very times when, and at the very places where said to be performed? We reject them, it is true, equally with the rest: But what are our grounds for doing so, as those assigned for rejecting the accounts of the miracles already examined, are insufficient? These grounds, then, I now proceed to set forth by laying it down as a

Third rule, that supposing accounts of miracles to have both the foregoing qualifications we still may suspect them to be false, if in the time, and at the place they took their rise they might be suffered to pass

without examination.

I lay it down as a principle not to be controverted, that in order to our having an unexceptionable testimony for miracles, we must not only be able to trace the accounts of them up to the times when, and to the places where, they are said to

be performed; but, farther, we must have an assurance from the circumstances attending their publication, that their pretensions were really examined into before they met with any credit.

It cannot, surely, be necessary to illustrate the reasonableness of this assertion. When the truth of a common matter of fact is admitted blindly, without any previous examination into the testimony supporting it, a door is opened to endless impositions. Much more, is such a previous examination necessary, before we can be warranted to admit the truth of miraculous facts. For, if the circumstances, under which they have been published, give us an assurance that they escaped a detection not from strength of evidence, but from want of examination, in this case, the accounts of them are as suspicious as if length of time, or distance of place had rendered an examination impossible, by throwing a veil over the imposture. A miracle, the evidence of which was not inquired into by those to whom it was first proposed, ought to be re