never more appeared in the Christian world; and the whole tendency of his inquiry is to prove as a consequence of this opinion, "that the pretended miracles of the primitive Church were all mere fictions." Introd. Disc., p. lxxviii. edit. Lond. 1755.

The motives which induced the Doctor to adopt this opinion were chiefly these: he found that many of the doctrines and practices which Protestants condemn as corruptions of Popery, were clearly taught by the Christian writers of the primitive ages, and he enumerates several manifest and striking examples in different parts of his Introductory Discourse. He saw that if true miracles were admitted to have been wrought in a Church which taught and practised these things, the things themselves could not be condemned; and therefore he concluded it was absolutely necessary for the support of the Protestant religion that no such miracles should be admitted. Besides, he was aware that if miracles in the first ages were admitted upon the credit of human testimony notwithstanding these doctrines and practices, it would be ridiculous to deny them in after ages, if equally well attested, merely because they were done in favour of the same or similar doctrines. Consequently, to allow their existence in one age of the Church upon human testimony laid him under an inevitable necessity of admitting them on the same ground even to the present time; and therefore he again concludes it to be impossible that the Protestant religion can stand or be defended if the existence of miracles be allowed even for one single age after the death of the apostles. This is evident throughout his Preface and Introductory Discourse, particularly from the following passages.

In the Preface, page v., he says, the general approbation which the Introductory Discourse met with "from

those whose authority I chiefly value, has given me the utmost encouragement to persevere in the prosecution of my argument, as being of the greatest importance to the Protestant religion, and the sole expedient which can effectually secure it from being gradually undermined and finally subverted by the efforts of Rome. In his Introductory Discourse he begins by observing the advantage which the Roman Church takes of the belief of a continuation of miracles in her communion, and states that his system is the result of inquiry into the grounds of this belief. "This system," says he, "by the most impartial judgment that I am able to form, I take not only to be true, but useful also, and even necessary to the defence of Christianity, as it is generally received, and ought always to be defended, in Protestant Churches."

"I

IX. A few pages after he gives an account of the motives which induced him to undertake this work. found myself particularly excited to this task by what I had occasionally observed and heard of the late growth of Popery in this kingdom, and the great number of Popish books which have been printed and dispersed among us within these few years; in which their writers make much use of that prejudice in favour of primitive antiquity, which prevails even in this Protestant country, towards drawing weak people into their cause, and showing their worship to be the best, because it is the most conformable to that ancient pattern. But the most powerful of all their arguments, and what gains them the most proselytes, is, their confident attestation of miracles, as subsisting still in their Church, and the clear succession of them, which they deduce through all history, from the apostolic times down to our own. This their apologists never fail to display with all the force of their rhetoric, and with good reason; since it is a proof,

of all others the most striking to vulgar minds, and the most decisive indeed to all minds, as far as it is believed to be true." Introd. p. xxxvi.

This is very plain dealing; the continuation of miracles in the Church is the most decisive proof of the truth of her doctrine; but such continuation being incompatible with the existence of Protestantism, the only way to secure this is to adopt the Doctor's system, and absolutely to deny that any miracle ever was performed since. the times of the apostles!

X. On the connection between miracles and Popery he observes as follows: "After the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity, we shall find the greatest part of their boasted miracles to have been wrought either by monks, or relics, or the sign of the cross, or consecrated oil; wherefore, if we admit the miracles we must necessarily admit the rites for the sake of which they were wrought; they both rest on the same bottom, and mutually establish each other. For it is a maxim which must be allowed by all Christians, that whenever any sacred rite or religious institution becomes the instrument of miracles, we ought to consider that rite as confirmed by divine approbation," Introd. p. lvii. A little after, reflecting on the imprudence of Dr Chapman and other Protestant divines, who, satisfied of the authority by which the existence of miracles is proved, have acknowledged and defended them for several ages after the apostles, he says: "Thus we see to what a state of things the miracles of the fourth and fifth centuries would reduce us; they would call us back again to the old superstition of our ancestors, would fill us with monks, and relics, and masses, and all the other trinkets which the treasury of Rome can supply for this is the necessary effect of that zeal which would engage us in the defence of them," p. lxi.

XI. To show the great advantage which his system gives for gaining the end proposed of disarming Catholics and securing the Protestant religion, he says: "Should the Romanists pretend to urge us with their miracles, and to show the succession of them from the earliest ages, we have no reason to be moved at it, but may tell them without scruple that we admit no miracles but those of the Scripture; and that all the rest are either justly suspected or certainly forged. By putting the controversy on this issue, we shall either disarm them at once; or, if they persist in the dispute, may be sure to convict them of fraud and imposture," p. lxxxii.

XII. So far the Doctor displays the necessity which he saw of establishing his system, from the impossibility of defending the Protestant religion, if any miracles are admitted among Catholics. What follows will show the necessity he felt of advocating his system, even from the end of the apostolic age, on account of the invincible force of human testimony proving the existence of miracles in all succeeding ages, if admitted in any one age after the apostles.

XIII. Speaking of the nature of the evidence by which the precise time of the duration of miracles should be determined, he observes, that the generality of writers appeal to the testimony of the earliest fathers, but without agreeing to what age this character of earliest fathers comes down; and then adds: "But to whatever age he (the observator) may restrain it, the difficulty at last. will be, to assign a reason why we must needs stop there. In the mean time, by his appealing thus to the earliest fathers only, as unanimous on this article, a common reader will be apt to infer that the later fathers are more cold or diffident, or divided upon it; whereas the reverse of this is true; and the more we descend from those earliest

fathers, the more strong and explicit we find their successors in attesting the perpetual succession and daily exertion of the same miraculous powers in their several ages: So that if the cause must be determined by the unanimous consent of fathers, we shall find as much reason to believe those powers were continued even to the latest ages as to any other, how early and primitive soever, after the days of the apostles," Pref., p. xiv.

A little after he adds: "As far as church historians can illustrate or throw light upon anything, there is not a single point in all history so constantly, explicitly, and unanimously affirmed by them all, as the continual succession of those powers through all ages, from the earliest father that first mentions them down to the time of the Reformation: which same succession is still further deduced by persons of the most eminent character for their probity, learning, and dignity in the Roman Church to this very day. So that the only doubt that can remain with us is, whether the church historians are to be trusted or not? For if any credit be due to them in the present case, it must reach either to all or to none; because the reason of believing them in any one age will be found to be of equal force in all, so far as it depends on the characters of the persons attesting, or the nature of the things attested," Pref., p. xvii.

XIV. This uniformity in ecclesiastical history, in attesting miracles in every age, is still further acknowledged as follows: "It must be confessed that this claim of a miraculous power, which is now peculiar to the Church of Rome, was universally asserted and believed in all Christian countries, and in all ages of the Church, till the time of the Reformation. For ecclesiastical history makes no difference between one age and another, but