+ Also, Psalm xvi. + Principle of the Rabbis. Two Messiahs. XXXII. + Chronology of Rabinism. + The quotations of the pages are from Pugio. + Bereschit Rabah, by R. Osaiah Rabah: commentary of Mischna. + Bereschit Rabah, by Ranconi; are ingenious and pleasant discourses, historical and theological. The same author has published some works, entitled "Rabot." + A century after the Talmud Hierosol., appeared the Babylonish Talmud, by R. Ase, with the unanimous approbation of all the Jews, who are compelled to observe the whole of its contents. + The addition of R. Ase is entitled "Gemara," that is, "The commentary of Mischna." And the Talmud comprises both the Mischna and the Gemara. EDITORIAL NOTICE. THE occasion is well known on which Pascal composed his views upon the Miracles. While he was composing his "Provincials," his niece, Marguerite Perier, an inmate of PortRoyal, was almost instantaneously cured of a complaint in her eyes which was thought to endanger her life. This cure, certainly of an extraordinary nature, and attested by some very able physicians, took place after the patient had been touched by a relic of the Holy Thorn, and was regarded by the Port-Royal as miraculous. Pascal, whose faith seems to have been more than ordinarily exalted by the contest in which he was engaged, firmly believed in the alleged miracle, and was much affected by it: he saw in it a fresh weapon which God was furnishing to aid his own cause. The Jesuits, on their part, were not backward in their attacks upon its authenticity. Pascal took up its defence; and, for the more effectual refutation of his opponents, he applied himself to an investigation of the doctrine of the Church on the subject of Miracles. It cannot be doubted, that the greater part of the reflections which he thus prepared would have been duly revised by him, and found their place in his "Apology for Religion." The other portions, on the contrary, would have been excluded, on account of their purely polemical character. On this account they might have been, not unsuitably, placed in the first volume of this edition, at the end of the " Thoughts and Notes on the Jesuits, the Jansenists, and the Provincials ;” but as, substantially, the objects of both the one portion and the other are the same, it has been thought better not to separate them; and they are therefore here collected under one chapter. (French Editor.) ON MIRACLES. + Commencement. I. MIRACLES test doctrine, and doctrine tests miracles. There are false and true miracles. They need some marks of authenticity, or they would be useless. They are not, however, useless, but fundamentally important. Then, the rule by which they are judged should be such as should not impair the attestation which real miracles furnish to truth, and which is the principal end they are designed to serve. Moses lays down two such rules: that the prediction should not be fulfilled, (Deut. xviii. 22,) and that they should not lead to idolatry (Deut. xiii. 23). Jesus Christ gives one. + If the doctrine regulate the miracles, the miracles are useless to the doctrine. + If the miracles regulate + Objection to the rule. * + The difference in times: one rule in those of Moses, another in our own. * Unfinished in the MS |