being full of Hail should make a whole Nation believe that the day was longer than it ought to be S. Suppâ—se the Earth did stand still does it therefore follow it must be a Miracle Might there not be a Concourse of grosser Particles of Matter in the Liquid Ether that might stop its Course for a Season without the interposition of a miraculous Power L. Since we have no infallible Knowledg of all the possible motions that may happen in the Celestial matter we cannot conclude that New alterations therein are the immediate effects of a supernatural Power But since we are sure that one body works upon another by contaction only we are sure that Joshua's Prayer could by no force of Nature cause the continuance of the Sun upon the Horizon beyond the usual time But alas we do not seek for Miracles in the Heavens above nor in the Seas beneath most Fruitful of amazing Prodigies We appeal to the most approved Axioms of Natural Philosophy as the Tests of the truth of those Miracles upon which our Religion is grounded He that admits the Historical part of Revealed Religion to be true as your Author does more than once can never pretend to solve all that is therein recorded by Natural causes without running into absurdities of the grossest Nature In complyance to his own Hypothesis he must believe that the Course of Nature is settled and yet in complyance to the Historical Account of the Scriptures he must believe that words can cure Diseases and raise the Dead c. And yet that the same words spoken by another Person cannot do it i. e. That the Course of Nature is settled and that it is not settled but moves at random He must admit that one inanimate Body Acts upon another only by contaction And he must admit that words have made alteration in inanimate Bodys which yet can cause no other contaction than what arises from the modulation of the Air. He must believe it to be a Law of Nature That the Dead cannot be raised up to Life because that is known to be above her usual Course and he must believe that the Dead have been restored to Life by Virtue of a Divine Command In short your Authors endeavour to solve Miracles by Natural causes is ridiculous to the highest Degree for he attacks reveal'd Religion in that place which is of all others most impregnable if the Sparks of your Principles did believe that Moses and the Prophets and our Saviour did really do all those mighty things recorded of them by a due application of Natural causes why do not they attempt to do the same Or why do they laugh at all others who do attempt it as Fools and Madmen And how does it happen that no such things were ever well attested to have been done by other Persons who have made Experimental Philosophy their study with good success And how comes it to pass that they are repugnant and irreconcilable to all the Axioms of Philosophy that hitherto have been Written that the more any Learned Man considers them the more he finds of a Natural impossibility in them And why can't your Author find out as easy and probable a solution of all the Signs and Wonders wrought by our Saviour as of the standing still of the Sun or the Passage of the Children of Israel over the Red Sea S. My Author is a wiser Man than to believe all the strange Stories to be literally true which you read in your Bibles He tells you that whatsoever is there reported to be done which cannot possibly be ascribed to Natural causes is to be presumed as thrust in by malicious designing men And that in telling Wonders the Scriptures speak to the Fancy but not to the Reason of mankind L. Nothing speaks less to the fancy than the Christian Religion which in its Doctrines and Precepts too is altogether perfective of humane reason But if your Author denies his assent to the Historical part of the Bible and only in some places pretends to give it to please the States of Holland why does he give no reason for his dissent For one substantial reason would be sufficient in this case to overthrow the whole bulk of reveal'd Religion Why does he not shew that no man can have any certainty of any matter of Fact unless he see it done with his own Eyes Why does he not prove that Number and probity of Witnesses are no sufficient motives to assent VVhy does he not produce some Testimonies of Witnesses that may invalidate the credit of these who have recorded the Miracles of our B. S. or of his Apostles There is certainly no more obvious way of ruining reveal'd Religion than the disproving those relations of Miracles upon which its rational Evidence is most strongly grounded Either therefore your Author could find nothing to say on this topick or else through inadvertency he has omitted those Arguments which are most conducive to support so bad a cause S. It is enough that he demonstrated before that the Power of God and Nature being the same there can be no such thing as a Miracle L. An Historical Account is to be refuted in an Historical manner not by Foreign Arguments which have no force to refute a matter of Fact We urge the Testimony of a sufficient Number of highly creditable Witnesses that Miracles have been done your Author denys all because according to his reason it is impossible any such thing should be This is just as if a blind man should endeavour to confute all those who testify there is such a thing as light by giving his reasons that oblige him to think that there can be no such thing VVhen a thing is well attested to have been done it is a vain attempt to make men Renounce their senses in complyance to his reason S. You think you have gained a great point when you have brought a man to acknowledge the reality of your boasted Miracles But alas you fight for that which can do you no good when you have gain'd it For Miracles can never make us understand either the Essence or Existence or Providence of God L. According to my Notion of a Miracle it is a work that is done by the immediate Finger of God and that a work we know to be done by God alone should not so much as render us certain of the Existence of a God is to me an unaccountable Riddle Again a Miracle is a work that we know cannot be done according to the Mechanical Laws of matter and motion but is therefore ascribed to a free Spiritual and Powerful Agent and yet that all this should be no demonstration of the Spirituality Freedom and Power of the Divine Nature is to me the 2d part of the same Riddle Again a miracle is a work that is wrought to give some men a Testimonial that they are sent on some errand by God to his Creature man and yet that this should be no Argument of
Dignity We do not deny that God condescends in the manifestations of his Will to accommodate himself to the weak capacities of his Creature Man but that does no ways incline us to believe that he ever reveals to Man any thing that is false or that he confirms him in his preconceived Errors or that whensoever he is pleased to reveal himself in a Supernatural manner he cannot or does not do it with the same degree of Perspicuity as one man can tell his Thoughts to another God indeed has declared more to one Prophet than to another but since he never speaks any thing but truth to any this is so sar from being an Argument against reading any of the Prophets for so I call all Inspired Authors that it is a strong inducement to peruse them all that so what we miss in one we may readily find in another If Revelation discovered nothing new to Mankind nor confirm'd truths of an eternal verity it would be altogether needless and if it by being adapted to Men's erroneous Prejudices confirm them in the same it would be pernicious and God himself would be the Author Abettor and Divulger of Falshood in the world which I would have all young Men seriously to consider who are addicted to these Deistical Notions Epicurus who removed the Deity from all thoughts of humane Affairs pays more honour to the Divine Nature than those who with your Author suppose him to meddle therein only to confound natural Light and to contradict himself and to send his Servants to plant and propagate Falshood in the World S. You seem now to be very hot but can you disprove the Author whom you rashly Condemn because he speaks truth more freely than is consistent with the Interest or Humour of the Clergy L. I desire to be believed no farther than as you find what I say is agreeable to the Testimony of Scriptures by which it will appear that God has Revealed nothing to Inspir'd Authors that any man can condemn of Error Secondly That he has declared to them such truths as were directly repugnant to their Preconceived Erroneous Opinions And Thirdly I will shew you that the places of Scripture used by your A are no ways Subservient to his present design and purpose If your Author would Argue fairly against the Authority of the Holy Scriptures he should have produced such places in them which he could easily and plainly convince of Error in matters that belong to the Happiness of Mankind But how much he fails in this will appear by a Discussion of these Instances which are alledged by him Moses taught the Jews that that very God who made the Heaven and the Earth was their God who was revealed to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and who then by Signs and Wonders had brought them out of the Land of Egypt which plainly shews that he had right Conceptions of the Vnity of the Divine Nature as the first and only cause of all things But at the same time he knew that the Heathens worshipped other created invisible Powers which they called Gods tho unlike unto the true God in all the Glorious Attributes of the Divine Nature and this is all that can be gathered from the 11th ver of the 15th Chap. of Exodus Who is like unto thee O Lord amongst the Gods Moses does not here assert that there are more Gods than one but only intimates that there were more Beings than one which were tho falsely and equivocally called Gods by the deluded Pagans But why do we wonder that invisible Powers in compliance to the common Dialect at that time in the World are stiled Gods when Magistrates themselves by no improper Figure are dignified with the same honourable Appellation Ps 6th and 7th I have said you are Gods and all of you the Children of the most High but ye shall dye like men and fall like one of the Princes Will any be so absurd to conclude from hence that the Psalmist thought that there was little or no difference between God and Man Nor does it at all appear from the 19th ver of the 32d Chap. of the Chron. That the Jews thought that God left other Nations to the Government of other Gods substituted by him the words are these And they spake against the God of Jerusalem as against the Gods of the People of the Earth which were the work of the hands of men It was not the Besieged Jews but the Besieging Pagans who called those inferior Beings by the name of Gods which were worshipped by the deluded Pagans the Jews acknowledged them only as the work of the hands of men In the 17 Chap. of the 2d of Kings gives only an Historical Account of the Sentiments of those Pagans who were translated into the Regions of Israel from remoter Nations they indeed had the same Apprehensions of the God of Jerusalem as others had of their Topical Deitys who were confined to the Government of certain Places Persons Arts or Sciences according to the Opinion of the Ancients and therefore mingled some Ceremonies of the true with all the Superstitions of a false Religion But the Author of this History is so far from approving that he utterly condemns as well their Notions as their Practices In the 23d ver They fear not the Lord neither do they after his Statutes or after their Ordinances or after the Law and Commandment which the Lord commanded the Children of Jacob whom he named Israel S. Why then does the Scriptures call them Gods L. Because an Historian relating what others have said or are wont to say must speak in the same Dialect if he will keep exactly to the truth nor is any Author obliged to speak always properly when he may be better understood by a Figure The Apostle speaks of some whose God was their Belly and tells us that Covetousness is Idolatry and yet I never read of the God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Venter that were worshipped by the Ancient Greeks or Romans Persius makes him at most but a Master of Arts. Magister Artium ingeniique Largitur Venter And Money it self was not Invested with Divine Honours in Juvenals time if you will believe the Poet. Nullas numorum ereximus aras I wonder your A should forget one place of Scripture more conduceing to his purpose than any he has hitherto Cited in the 4th ver of the 4th Chap. of the 2d to the Corinthians Satan is stiled the God of this World how plainly might he infer from thence that Satan was revealed to the Apostle as the God of this World S. But what say you to Moses's Opinion That God lived in Heaven is not that an Error unworthy of a Philosopher And altogether Pagan L. If Moses had taught that God was so confined to Heaven as to be excluded from the Earth or from any part of the Universe or from the Knowledge and Government of Humane Affairs it might have given this A some very specious pretence to
much less since we are guilty of known Breaches of the Divine Laws can we be sure of the Remission of Sins and the Donation of Eternal Happiness since it depends upon the free Goodness of God which is not determined by any necessary Rule of Action A Deist therefore expects Pardon from God just so as a Condemn'd Criminal hopes Forgiveness from a mild and gracious Prince He has some General Notion of the Good-Nature of his Soveraign and therefore has some hopes it may be extended to him as well as to others But a Christian has the same assurance of a conditional Forgiveness of Sins as a Malefactor has that Sees and Reads a Proclamation of Pardon under the broad Seal of his offended Prince Tho Miracles therefore are not necessary to support material Beings yet they are to assure mankind of its Happiness and which do you think is of greatest moment The Stateliness of the Habitation or the felicity of those Rational Creatures that inhabit in it S. If Miracles were necessary to promote the Happiness of all mankind why are not all men made Partakers of their Beneficial influence Why must Miracles be wrought only in some Ages of the World and in the sight too of only one Nation not very Famous for War or Learning Why must all the Gentiles Perish because they knew not a matter of Fact that never was made known unto them These are prejudices against your reveal'd Religion which I can never conquer and am therefore forc'd to fly from that confined Light to the more diffusive Light of Nature L. Whilst man kept that integrity wherein he was at first Created there was no absolute necessity of Miracles to make him happy who was happy enough before in the Enjoyment of his own Innocence Nor was there any great need of Miracles whilst a traditionary knowledge of the Decree of God to save mankind was kept alive in the World by the long Lives of the Ante-diluvian Patriarchs But when all Flesh had Corrupted their ways before God and the Knowledge of one supreme Deity which some will have to be a Connate Notion was almost totally eraced out of the minds of all mankind as is evident from humane as well as Divine Historians then it was very expedient that God should make a farther Revelation of himself confirmed by Miracles without which it could not have had the force of a rational Evidence To save mankind from utter perdition And therefore God first called upon the World by Noah the 8th Preacher of Righteousness and then called Abraham out of his Fathers Idolatrous House and made a Covenant with him that he and his Seed should serve him And when the State of the World required that a manner of adoring God should be settled in it tho not absolutely best in its own Nature yet most suitable to the Genius of the Jews and that posture of affairs which was then Predominant in the World the Wickedness and Folly of Man in abusing the Light of Nature render'd it necessary That Moses should be sent to the Israelites to bring them out of the Land of Egypt with Signs and Wonders and shew them after what manner God would then be Worshipped So that Miracles are necessary first when a new manner of Worship is to be planted in the World And therefore Moses was endued with the Power of Working Miracles to convince the Israelites that the Ceremonial Law was Divine tho additional to the Law of Nature Or Secondly When the true manner of worship is in danger of being lost And therefore Elijah and Elisha in the Time of Ahab when Idolatry made its greatest encroachment upon the true Religion by Divers Signs and Wonders from Heaven called back the Israelites to the true Worship of the only God Or Thirdly When a manner of worship that is of Divine institution is to be alter'd or disannull'd as was the Ceremonial Law by the coming of our Saviour S. But what must become of those who never saw nor heard of these Miraculous Revelations L. They have the Light of Nature Let them use that well and leave themselves to the Mercy of God The Scriptures no where say That all those who have not seen nor heard of a Miracle shall be Damn'd tho it teaches that if they be sav'd it must be by Virtue of the Name of Jesus And therefore the strength of your argument is quite lost unless you can prove that wild assertion Besides the knowledge of reveal'd Religion is not put up in so narrow a corner of the World as men of your perswasion do seem to imagine For there is no Nation but what may embrace the Gospel if they please to listen to its rational evidence and I would feign know what injustice it is in God to suffer them to Perish who either knowing nothing of the Miraculous Demonstration of the Gospel make an ill use of the Light of Nature or those who hearing its rational evidence abuse their reason in not consenting to it S. But still you do not clear the main difficulty objected by my Author that the Power of Nature is the very Power of God How then can a Miracle be done by Natural Power S. Your Author first begs his Question and then very boldly Triumphs in the Victory as if extorted by force of reason He presumes it granted as a first Principle That there is no other God but Nature and that this Nature is fixed and immutable not a free Agent but a perpetual slave to fatal necessity And thence strongly concludes That if there be no Power but that of Nature then there can be oh wonderful demonstration no supernatural Power But we on the other hand proceed by a more plain and intelligible way of reasoning We suppose That since Matter is a dull unactive Principle it could not make it self nor reduce it self into that decent and useful order in which now we see it 2d That it was created by a Superiour Being That that Superior Being must be endued with all manner of Perfections as being the first Cause of all Perfections in the Creature 3. That Wisdom Vnderstanding and Liberty are Perfections and therefore consequently must be in the highest degree in him who is the first Cause of them And Lastly That his Wisdom is seen in all the works of his hands If therefore your Author would argue fairly against us let him attack boldly any one of these Propositions concerning the Nature of God and if we cannot defend them we will become Worshippers of the great Goddess Nature But if God is an Understanding Being he must be a free Agent And if he be a powerful and free Agent what should hinder his stopping or disordering the regular course of Nature when the doing so is conducive to his own Glory and the general Benefit of all Mankind Unless you can prove by Scripture that he has sworn by himself he would never do it S. Does not my Author tell you That it
is a foolish thing to limit the power of Nature and to say her Laws extend to some things only and not to all L. Your Author speaks herein as little like a good Philosopher as a good Jew or a good Christian If the Laws of Nature are fix'd and immovable they may be observ'd and the Observation of them we call the study of Natural Philosophy To say therefore with your Author That the Course of Nature is fixed and immutable and yet that her power extends to all things Potentiam Naturae infinitam esse omnino credendum est is a contradiction in the very Terms for if she could do all things she could alter her setled Course and move in an Order quite contrary to what now she steers Nor does he mend the matter by asserting in the same page That the fixed Laws of Nature extend to all things that are comprehended in the Divine Vnderstanding For the Divine Understanding must needs comprehend as well what is impossible as what is possible to be done and the Mutability as well as the Fixation of the Rules of Motion in material Bodies into such notorious Absurdities does your Author run whilst he endeavours to destroy the credibility of Miracles by jumbling together the Names of God and Nature S. If there be a fixed Course of Nature how can there be a Miracle which is neither more nor less than an interruption of it L. Because it is fixed by a Superior Intelligent Being who can unfix the same when it is for his own Glory or the General Benefit of Mankind If Nature did not keep for the most part a setled Course we could have no distinct Notion of a Miracle but she is so steady that she gives us time to view her and from that view to frame such Axioms of Possibility and Impossibility as are as evident to our Reason as any of those principles which some tho I fear not truly do stile Innate Notions S. I am still of my Author's mind That we call those works Miracles whose natural Causes we do not understand L. No We rather call that work a Miracle which we know is done not by a Natural but by the immediate Energy of some Supernatural Power For the Course of Nature being steady nothing is more easie than to observe when her Course is broken i. e. when something is done that we are sure is repugnant to those fixed Rules which she is bound to observe in all other cases S. Prithee what are those Rules How do you know that they have ever been broken L. The first Rule Ex nihilo nihil fit Out of nothing there can come nothing is as clear by its own light as any One Proposition we can easily frame unto our selves Either therefore Matter made it self that is it was a Cause before it did exist which is a Wild Absurdity or it was made by a Superior Being and its very Production the beginning of Miracles We all know that mutations of bodies may be made by the regular Laws of motion but that Matter should make it self or be produced out of nothing by her own Laws of motion is repugnant to the common sense of mankind If Matter therefore was made there was a time when it did not exist and therefore its motion from non existence to existence could not be according to any fixed Rule of Nature which had then no being and consequently God did not always work by fixed and unalterable Rules to which the very Notion of Creation is directly repugnant S. You ramble too wide from our present purpose Can you prove that any thing yet was ever done since the Creation that was certainly repugnant to any One fixed Law of Nature which may be a sufficient Testimonial to a man that he is sent from God L. It is a Maxim in Reason That one body acts upon another by Contaction or Protrusion only If two bodies were placed never so near and no contiguous body between they might remain to all Eternity in that posture without affecting each other or producing any alteration in them If therefore any man can produce an alteration in bodies by the sole word of his mouth all men will conclude this man does act by virtue of a Supernatural Power When therefore the Children of Israel saw Moses turning water into blood or bringing Lice and Frogs c. upon the Land of Egypt by the lifting up his Rod or our Saviour curing diseases by the word of his mouth or raising men from the dead c. they must conclude that this was done by a spiritual and not by a material power which can cause no alteration on another body but by Contraction or Emission of minute Particles the secret Operations of which do constitute the whole body of Natural Magick Now if the moving of the Wand or speaking a few words did produce the wondrous Effects but now mentioned in the production or alteration of bodies by the sole force of Nature they would do it always when utter'd or apply'd after the same manner because the Laws of Nature are fixed and immovable But since we see they have done it but cannot do the same thing again we very rationally conclude that these alterations were made in Bodies by a Spiritual and a Superior Power Your Author therefore must not think to sham us off with a Wild Pretence That what we call Miracles were some strange works of Nature so called with respect to the ignorance of the Vulgar For we are willing the Miracles upon which our Religion is grounded should be tryed by the most known Axioms of Natural Philosophy and challenge the whole Race of Epicurean Atomists to shew how they could be done according to any Hypothesis that ever yet was framed of the Mechanical Laws of Motion S. Does not my Author clearly demonstrate That the Sun 's stopping his course of which we read in the Book of Joshua was nothing else but a refraction of Light the Sky being then full of Hail And the like may be said of the Dial of Ahaz L. Your Author boldly says much but he proves nothing The standing still of the Sun or the prolongation of Light by any other means whether Natural or Miracu lous would have been equally beneficial to the Israelites in affording them time to slay their Enemies But because it would be greater Encouragements to the Israelites to see God himself assisting them in a miraculous manner and the Scriptures do relate this as a Miracle and since no sufficient Reason can be given why the Sun should stop his Course or the Earth stand still which in the Effects is the same thing unless by the immediate Power of God we have more Reason to believe the Scripture-Narrative than the improbable Conjecture of your daring Author For why must we needs conclude That because it was possible the Children of Israel might be deceived that therefore they certainly were so Or how is it probable that the Air