greatest Zeal for Religion should not justly render it suspected to Vnbelievers p. 131. Chap. 3. That the Incredulous are in the wrong for rejecting the Christian Religion because Interest seems to be the main Cause of many Peoples Devotion p. 143. Chap. 4. That the Divisions which reign among Christians is no good Reason why the Christian Religion should not be true p. 165. Chap. 5. That the Incredulous object in vain that Christianity being so little known and so ill observ'd in the World as it is can't be so useful to Mankind as a Religion reveal'd from Heaven for the Good of all Men should be p. 180. Chap. 6. That Vnbelievers can't conclude the Christian Religion to be false because the Divines of their Acquaintance make bad Answers to their Objections against it or because they maintain some false Tenets as true and as the Doctrine of Christ p. 199. Chap. 7. That the Difficulties which may occur in the Christian Religion ought not to bring the Truth of it into doubt p. 234. The Conclusion of the second Part. p. 277. Of the Truth of the Christian Religion p. 282. Letter 1. Wherein is prov'd the Sincerity of the Apostles concerning the Testimony they render'd to Christ's Resurrection p. 283. Letter 2. Shewing what a Miracle is and proving that from the Miracles of Jesus Christ and his Apostles we ought to look upon them as Persons truly sent of God p. 307. ERRATA Page 18. line 23. read angusta P. 23. l. 8. dele and. OF INCREDULITY The PREFACE Containing the Design of the Author in this Work I Cannot determine whether during the first Ages of Christianity more Books were written by the Christians to evince the Truth of their Religion than there may have been for these two hundred Years past But that we have fewer remaining of the precedent Ages than of the last two is most certain The Teachers of the Primitive Church and their Followers whilst Paganism was still considerable in the World labour'd more in confuting the Religion of the Heathens than to prove the Truth of that of Jesus Christ and his Apostles They thought if they could once convince the Heathens of the Falsity of their own Opinions that it would be no hard Matter then to make 'em Christians And this I could most easily shew were it at all useful to my Design On the contrary when Paganism was abolish'd in Europe and Christianity become the governing Religion the Teachers of it then left Paganism to attack the Religion of the Jews and that of the Mahumetans both which are yet in being amongst us But beside these two sorts of Vnbelievers there is yet a third who acknowledging the Falsity of the Mahumetan and Rabbinic Doctrines doubt notwithstanding of the Christian Religion or peremptorily judg it not true without setting up any other Religion in its Place Now to reduce these a new Method was absolutely necessary It was agreed therefore to prove directly the Truth of Christianity without insisting upon the Confutation of other Perswasions And it may truly be said to the Honour of the present Age and of that immediately preceding it that this Matter was never manag'd with better Success The Heathens the Jews and the Mahumetans were not ill confuted before but the Truth of the Christian Religion was far from being ever so well prov'd I am of Opinion nevertheless that there is still one thing behind which the most part of the Writers upon this Subject have either not touch'd at all or but very slightly I mean the secret Motives and general Reasons which the Incredulous have of not believing Christianity to be divinely reveal'd Their internal Disposition or Inclinations do so strongly incline them to reject all the Reasons offer'd them tho they are not aware themselves of the Motives by which they do this that all speaking to 'em is in vain before the Vnreasonableness of this Disposition be made evident Just as if any should plead a good Cause before prepossess'd Judges without endeavouring to cure them first of their Prejudices which must needs make them look upon that thing as false whereupon all the Reasons alledg'd are grounded 'T is certain that the Pleaders of such a Cause tho never so just would expose themselves to be cast or condemn'd This has been notwithstanding the Conduct of a great Part of the Champions of Christianity They have prov'd the Truth of it well enough but their Reasons appear weak to the Incredulous considering the Disposition wherein they are and whereof they know nothing themselves What is unreasonable therefore in this Disposition must be discover'd and laid so clearly before them that they may perceive how it imposes upon the Light of their Vnderstandings This is what the Author of the Christian Religion has taught us when he said that every one that doth Evil hateth the Light Joh. 3.20 neither cometh to the Light lest his Deeds should be reproved which signifies that Vnbelievers cannot look upon that as true which is contrary to the Maxims by which they have long govern'd themselves and to the Habits they have been contracting for many Years On the contrary he says that he that doth Truth cometh to the Light Ver. 21. that his Deeds may be made manifest that is to say that such as are dispos'd to live according to the Prescriptions of the Gospel are easily perswaded of the Truth of it In the same Sense he says elsewhere that if any will do his Will Joh. 7.17 he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether of himself Beside the Disposition wherein those may be who disbelieve the Gospel and which deceives them without their perceiving of it there are likewise certain general Reasons drawn from without that help to lead them into Error These Reasons must by all means be exploded because they are to them so many Prejudices whereby they determine the Truth and Falsehood of all that is said to them Whilst they think 'em good all the Proofs imaginable can make no Impression upon them because they never fail of opposing to them these Reasons which concluding to be solid they cannot at the same time embrace Christianity There are a world of People for example who discovering several of those Doctrines that go under the Name of Christ to be false judg of the rest by these and reject the good with the bad They are told of a thousand lying Miracles to whom those of Jesus Christ and his Apostles are join'd but finding the modern Miracles to be Impostures they give no greater Credit to those upon which the Christian Religion is grounded As long as they are of the mind that these Miracles are not more certain one than another all the Consequences drawn from those of Christ appear to them as built upon a rotten Foundation and the Christian Religion therefore but as a tottering Fabrick It must be shewn the Incredulous then that those Reasons drawn from without which
their own Opinions and not upon those who design only to defend the Christian Religion None can without Injustice impute to its Founders all that has been since built upon the Foundations they first laid as it shall be made appear more at large in the second Part of this Work The third Proposition concerning the Evidence of the Proofs of Revelation its perpetual Subsistence and the Perspicuity of its Expressions does suppose that the Design of God was to teach Men his Will mathematically which is a Supposition contrary to the present State of Mankind a State of Liberty wherein Laws and not Demonstrations are propos'd to them Supposing that God would appoint Rewards and Punishments he could not lead Men to Vertue nor avert them from Vice otherwise than by Laws whereof the Sense could not be more clear and yet the Justice and Authority of them be never mathematically demonstrated If all Mankind were convinc'd of the Truth of Revelation and of the Sense of it by mathematical Proofs no body then could resist it There could be consequently no Punishments for the guilty because none would be guilty nor could there be any more Reward for what Recompence can a Man expect for assenting to a mathematical Demonstration It will be demanded perhaps why God should govern Man after this manner and not mathematically as some Unbelievers would have him But I 'm not bound to account for God's Bounty which he diversifies as he pleases for Reasons unknown to us 'T is enough that I prove he cannot be accus'd of Injustice and this I 'm perswaded I can perfectly demonstrate To be short the Divine Laws are proportionated to the Nature of Man whatever they may say who have not study'd them as they ought 'T is an undoubted Truth agreed upon by all Christian Divines That God does not damn any Person barely for violating his Laws but for not leaving his ill Habits that being the Man 's own Fault I shall insist no longer upon this lest I digress too far from the Subject I treat of in this Chapter What I conclude from all I have said is That Unbelievers do frequently take ill-grounded Prejudices for clear Principles from which they hastily judg of the whole Christian Religion I have alledg'd plain Examples of it and could have brought several more but those cited by me may suffice to make a reasonable Man take care of passing such precipitant Conclusions This is all that I require in this place and which the most incredulous Man living cannot without extreme Folly refuse me Now I 'm perswaded if Unbelievers would take the pains to look back upon the first Propositions which they build upon that they should perceive a great part of them could by no means pass for Axioms and then they would quickly acknowledg how little Solidity was to be found in their other Principles CHAP. IV. That many are Vnbelievers because they know not how to reason rightly IN the preceding Chapters I suppos'd that Unbelievers did not reason well and that without perceiving it they suffer'd themselves to be seduc'd by their Passions or Prejudices but I did at the same time suppose that they might be reclaim'd by Arguments when they were shew'd that they follow'd not the Rules of good Sense But there are more than one kind of Unbelievers and some of them those I mean who are to be the Subject of this Chapter are Unbelievers upon no other Account but because they cannot reason well as I shall presently demonstrate But we must remark before that the Christian Religion consisting in Doctrines and Matters of Fact to prove both these we must make long Reasonings and alledg many Proofs depending upon one another Thus to perceive the Force of those Reasons brought to prove the Divinity of the Christian Religion we must be capable not only of understanding every Proposition or every Argument by it self but likewise to enter into the Discussion of all that is said by examining the Connection of the Reasonings and the Relations which a great number of Idea have towards one another But there are a world of People who entertain a good Opinion of themselves and are not capable nevertheless of this Examination nor to consider distinctly so great a Collection of such compounded and perplex'd Ideas I shall be immediately told no doubt That if this be so I do but lose my time in reasoning with them since I suppose that they are not capable to know the Solidity of an Argument Yet two things oblige me to do it whereof the first and principal is that what I have to say upon this Subject may contribute to keep those who are perswaded of the Truth of Christianity from being seduc'd by the Example of this sort of Unbelievers An infinite number of People who believe the Christian Religion true know not the Proofs of it so perfectly and are not so much confirm'd in their Belief but that they may be tempted by the Example of those Unbelievers who reason little They are of all Qualities and Conditions and the haughty Air whereby they reject Revelation is not sometimes less dangerous that the most specious Sophistry In the second place It may happen that such as are not Masters of the true Method of Reasoning may notwithstanding be in a Condition of leaving their Ignorance and of making a better Use of their Understandings It is very fit to convince this sort of People that they are only Unbelievers because they know not how to govern their Thoughts But I grant that those who are grown old in this kind of Ignorance and whose Presumption is encreas'd by their Age are in a manner incurable go to work with them how you will especially if any Immorality be join'd to this want of Judgment which never fails scarcely to happen Nor is it for such that we write as Books of Physick are not written about incurable Diseases To be perswaded our selves that there are in effect some People who for want of knowing how to reason refuse their Assent to the Gospel we need only reflect a little upon the present State of the Heathens and upon what we know of many Unbelievers which live among Christians Such as undertake to convert the Indians and the other Idolaters of Asia America and Africa after taking a great deal of pains to learn their Language are forc'd to take much more when they would by reasoning perswade them of the Falsity of their Religions and of the Truth of that of Jesus Christ The Monks may long enough make all imaginable Efforts to become intelligible to those ignorant People and to convince them of the Absurdity of their Idolatry and the Opinions whereupon it is built but although this thing be so plain yet there are but few of them who can be made to understand it and fewer that conceive the Reasons upon which Christianity is grounded 'T is not necessary that I speak here of the Means which the Missionaries have chosen
how he did it This being undeniable I conclude from it that tho I have no distinct Idea of the Manner after which God may have produc'd Bodies out of nothing yet I can't deny it especially if we observe in Matter no Character of Eternity 't is an absurd thing even to suspect that it is Eternal and much more absurd still to find fault with Christian Divines who say that it was created out of Nothing Tho nothing can hinder us from grounding the Creation of the World upon that Foundation yet it must be confest that the Christian Religion which was instituted for illiterate Men as well as for Scholars do's not necessarily suppose these sorts of things which require a greater Meditation than the Vulgar is capable of It 's enough to apprehend that God imparted to Matter the Form it now has to pay to him all the Duties which he requires from us in the Gospel So that without supposing what I have prov'd concerning the Creation of the Matter of Bodies we must inquire whether there is any Reason to believe that the Form they have is Eternal There is nothing in the Form no more than in Matter which can make us suspect that the World as it is now never had a Beginning Tho we have not seen the Formation of the great Bodies that surround us and not one Eye-witness has left a Relation of it tho it seems that little or no sensible Alteration happens in the World in general yet no Body can say for all that that it has been the same from all Eternity because the World might have been fram'd before there was any Man upon the Earth But besides we cannot say that the Form of the World is Eternal and consequently that Men and other Animals which make a part of it have always been upon Earth the perpetual Succession which we see in their Kinds do's plainly teach us that they had a Beginning It can't be said that the Animals who live at present are born of their Fathers and Mothers and These after the same manner and so in infinitum so as never to come to the first The Reason of it is because Beings that have a limited Duration as that of every Generation is cannot equal Eternity by such a Duration as a number of limited Measures tho never so great cannot be equal to an infinite Extension Every Generation singly taken having had a Beginning we must necessarily come to the Beginning of those Generations 'T is therefore manifest that Men and Beasts began to exist upon Earth and consequently that they were form'd by some Cause Epicurus who said that they were form'd by a fortuitous Concourse of Atoms made more ridiculous Suppositions and more absurd Conjectures than what we find in the antient Fables Hence it is that no body maintains his Hypothesis now But others say that whatever exists is properly but one Being that modifi'd it self by a necessary Consequence from its Nature If any body knew what they mean or if they knew it themselves they might be confuted but an Opinion that is so absurd and nonsensical tho it has the outward Appearance of a Geometrical Order can deceive no body but those who will be deceiv'd and are inclin'd to it from some other Reasons Wherefore seeing nothing can give a Beginning to it self it must be confess'd that there is a Being more excellent than all Animals who form'd them upon this Earth and this is that Being which Christians call GOD Thus they must of necessity acknowledg a God who has created us 'T is an easy thing to prove that he created the Sun and the Planets because limited Periods as those of the Planets are can never exhaust Eternity tho they be never so much multipli'd So that we may very well say that there is a Maker of Heaven and Earth and no Objection can force us to renounce that Proposition seeing we directly prove it by undeniable Arguments and the Objections that may be oppos'd to them do not destroy them and are but the natural Effects of our Ignorance They object for example That they cannot apprehend how God who is suppos'd to be immaterial could create Bodies out of nothing None can give what he has not say they so that God being incorporeal could not give to Bodies the Proprieties which they have But it ought to be observ'd that this very Argument will prove that there is no Motion in Nature for one may say Matter has no Motion of it self and that which is immaterial has less still None can give what he has not wherefore Matter has no Motion Let them try to answer this Argument and the Answer if it be good will resolve the propos'd Objection against the Creation of Matter It may be said that God contains the real Proprieties of all Beings but without having the Imperfections and Defects of them seeing 't is certain he has created them and he is infinitely more perfect than all the Things to which he gave a Beginning By this Argument we ascend from the Effects to the Cause but we don't learn by it nor by any other Argument how the real Proprieties of Creatures are in God nor how he made them to exist The Fact is as certain as the Manner of it is above human Understanding as well as the Origin of Motion tho no body can doubt of its Existence There is another thing which the Incredulous will not believe viz. the Revelation which we say is contain'd in the Old and New Testament Whatever they say concerning Revelation in general is grounded upon this Prejudice viz. that they themselves having no Experience of a Revelation they can't be perswaded that there has been any But nothing can be weaker than Arguments grounded only upon our Ignorance and which suppose that what we know not is not true as I have already observ'd Those who deny Revelation should either manifestly prove that God cannot reveal himself to his Creatures after an extraordinary manner which no body will ever be able to prove or find out in that Revelation some manifest Characters of Falsity which no body can shew in the Revelation of Holy Scripture This might be sufficient to stop the Mouths of Unbelievers but their Repugnancy to believe the Christian Religion arising partly from their being ignorant of the History thereof and not perceiving how the Wisdom of God appears in it I shall set down that History in a few Words Men knowing nothing but by Experience and Reflection and Experience being slow and Reflection often-times difficult God shew'd them by some Revelations from the Beginning of the World what they ought to know concerning his Nature and the Worship he requir'd from them Tho Moses has given us but a short Abridgment of the History of what past during above two thousand Years before he receiv'd the Law of God yet he mentions †Gen. 3.3.9 c. 6.13 7.1 8.15 9.1 12.1 c.
Christ viz. that there is no great likelihood that God would disturb the Order of Nature for so inconsiderable Matters as those are for which he is said to disturb it every day The Unbelievers who liv'd in the Apostles time and had not attentively consider'd the Circumstances which attend the preaching of the Gospel might perhaps have said then that they apprehended not how Providence was so much concern'd in the Establishment of Christianity as to work an infinite number of Miracles in its behalf seeing it made so little a Progress in the World But those who live now can't raise the like Objections against us having seen the Duration and Progress of the Christian Religion If it has not produc'd yet among Men all the Effects it should have produc'd if they had known their true Interest it can't be said that such a thing will never happen hereafter Those who would have conjectur'd at the beginning of Christianity that it should always be a contemptible Sect because it was then despis'd would have been grosly mistaken as we see at present and the Knowledg we have of the Time past ought to make us reserv'd with respect to the future 8. Let us see now what is the efficient and immediate Cause of Miracles We have seen already that they are neither Men nor other Bodies which act according to the Order of Nature It must be therefore some invisible Power that is either some intelligent Beings more excellent than we tho they are created or else God himself Some believe as I said already that Miracles are the Effects of an infinite Power and there is no doubt but God himself wrought several Miracles but the Question is whether they are all above the Strength of all other Creatures so that they have no other efficient and immediate Cause but God himself To deny that intelligent Beings more perfect than we are can work Miracles we should exactly know what is the Extent of their Power and distinctly see that Miracles are above it 'T is true we know they are above the Laws of Nature which God establish'd from the beginning but we know not whether he gives not to Angels the Power of altering sometimes that Order Tho it be originally the Effect of an infinite Power it follows not that none but an infinite Power can make some Alteration in it if the Power which establish'd it will permit it We can't therefore say that Angels work no Miracles in effect it appears from sacred History that God often made use of them when Miracles were wrought But I will not insist upon it because it belongs not to my Subject 9. It will perhaps be ask'd supposing Angels work Miracles First how one may know whether 't is God or an Angel that wrought a certain Miracle And Secondly how one may know that a Miracle was done by a good or bad Angel A Miracle being not of a Nature which necessarily requires a Cause whereof the Power is infinite I confess we see no Character in it if it be consider'd in it self whereby we may know whether it was wrought by God or an Angel But the more we see a thing above our Power the more it seems difficult to us and the more we perswade our selves that 't is the Effect of an infinite Power For example to foretel a contingent Event or depending upon Mens Will and which is to happen many Ages after seems to us to be a thing above the Knowledg of created intelligent Beings tho it be never so great But the raising of a Storm tho the Air is not dispos'd for it seems not to be a very difficult thing tho it be above our Power and we easily believe that Angels either good or bad can do it However it matters little to know whether God immediately wrought a Miracle or a good Angel seeing 't is certain good Angels do nothing but what is agreeable to the Will of God or is an execution of his Orders Whether God himself acts or an Angel 't is the same thing with respect to us seeing we neither see the Cause that works nor the manner of its Operation As for the other Question concerning the manner of knowing whether a Miracle was wrought by a good or a bad Angel one may say something more positive Truth being always the same contradicts not it self 't is a manifest Principle to all those who are not Pyrrhonians Wherefore the Miracles of God and good Anglels ought always to tend to the confirming or establishing some Doctrines agreeable to Truths that are known either by Revelation or Reason seeing 't is certain that God and good Angels always love the Truth If we see therefore that a Miracle confirms or establishes something contrary to a certain Truth we may be sure that Miracle is an Effect of a Power contrary to that of God and good Angels Thus the Design of a Miracle discovers its Author If we can't apprehend what 's the end of a Miracle we can give no certain Judgment about it nor draw from it any Consequence for or against Truth A bad Angel being not able to work Miracles which favour Truth and Vertue all those which contribute to it ought to be look'd upon as coming from a good Principle On the contrary a good Angel being not able to act for Lies and Vices all the Miracles which should favour either of them ought to be look'd upon as Miracles of bad Angels This is an infallible Rule to know by what sort of Angels a Miracles was wrought supposing it were known that an Angel was the Author of it 10. If the Miracles of the Gospel are examin'd according to those Principles it cannot be deni'd that they were wrought either by God himself or good Angels because their only Aim is to establish or settle Truth and lead Men to Vertue Now this is altogether inconsistent with the Notion one may form of a Power which delights in doing ill and deceiving Men. This Christ shew'd to the Pharisees who accus'd him of casting out Devils by virtue of a Power he had receiv'd from the Prince of Demons * Mat. 12.25 26. Every Kingdom says he divided against it self is brought to Desolation and every City or House divided against it self shall not stand and if Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself how shall then his Kingdom stand That 's a convincing Proof of the Divinity of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles against the Jews who were so extravagant as to ascribe them to an ill Power that was an Enemy to Vertue But because I write not against them I shall not longer insist upon it The Unbelievers who live among Christians are not more perswaded of the Power of the Devil than of God and deny all sorts of Miracles alike But I have shew'd from the Sincerity of the Apostles and the thing it self that they have no reason to deny those of Christ 11. Lastly If it be consider'd that Miracles
are the Effects of the Power of God or Angels one may easily apprehend that they are not contradictory things That which is contradictory is the Object of no Power 't is a mere Nothing as all those who know the Meaning of that word will grant it No positive Idea can be form'd of it and every contradictory Proposition is unintelligible in it self If the Miracles mention'd in Holy Scripture are examin'd not one of that Nature will be found among them There is none but what may be express'd in intelligible Propositions For example God can make a Man who liv'd to live no longer that is his Blood shall no more circulate and all his Members shall cease to perform their Functions On the Contrary he can make a Man whose Blood was settl'd and whose Members perform'd none of their Functions to begin to live again as it did before Those Propositions are easily apprehended But to make a Man to live and not to live at the same time taking the word to live in one and the same Sense is a contradictory thing which is not the Object of the Divine Power God never wrought any such Miracles Those who rank among the Miracles of Christianity that whereby they pretend that God makes a humane Body to be extended and not extended at the same time and to be in many Places at one time those Men I say feign a Miracle of which they have no Idea and rest contented with Words they understand not They ascribe to the Christian Religion a Mystery absurd and contrary to the clearest Light to Reason and Revelation What I said concerning Miracles has no relation with that and I pretend not to defend any such thing My Design was to shew wherein Miracles consist to make Unbelievers apprehend that they are very possible that they can't be assaulted but by shewing that there is an Impossibility in the miraculous Facts on which the Christian Religion is grounded There is besides another sort of Miracles which tho perhaps they happen every day can't be of any use to prove the Truth of the Christian Religion because they are not sensible God can very often do either by himself or the Ministry of Angels an infinite Number of things without the intervention of natural Causes when he thinks fit or good Men pray him to do it But because one can't perceive whether a supernatural Cause acts or not on those occasions because what happens is not in it self above the Strength of natural Causes and 't is not known whether they interven'd it can't be affirm'd that a Miracle was wrought For example a sick Man whom Remedies could not naturally cure is restor'd by the Prayers of his Relations because God or Angels supply what is wanting in the natural Virtue of Remedies But this can't be affirm'd without a Revelation Hereupon 't is ask'd How we come to suppose that God who works no more sensible Miracles according to us performs every day some invisible ones such as that which I have describ'd and why he should be desir'd to work this kind of Miracles not those which strike our Senses In answer to that I say that we can know nothing of God's Conduct but by sensible Effects or a Revelation Wherefore seeing we see no more such Miracles as strike our Senses we ought to say that God will work no more any such Miracles and if we can give some Reasons of it which are not unworthy of God's Wisdom nothing can hinder us from alledging them * Part II. ch 6. as I have done elsewhere On the other hand Revelation commanding us to offer Prayers to God in our Necessities and assuring us that if what we ask is truly advantageous to us if we ask it as we ought and it we obey the Precepts of the Gospel we shall obtain what we pray for we have reason to suppose that God will interpose after an extraordinary manner if it be necessary to hear our Prayers because he promis'd it But why will it be said did God make such Promises which suppose that he works still some Miracles of this latter sort seeing he will no more do sensible ones I have shew'd already why he works no more Miracles that fall under our Senses and there is no need I should repeat what I have said about it As for the other they are a necessary Consequence of God's Providence which consists not only in having given some Laws to Nature according to which it acts but in supplying the Defects of those Laws and making such Exceptions to them as God thinks fit Seeing therefore Providence exists not less now than it did formerly no body ought to wonder that God works Miracles of that kind There is nothing in it that 's unworthy of him and seeing he promis'd it it can't be doubted whether he does it and Men have reason to pray to him on that Supposition It can't be said that 't is an impossible thing and prov'd thereby that our Prayers are useless I think I have undeniably shew'd it by supposing that there is a God who made the World and is consequently the Author of the Laws of Nature and that there are some other intelligent Beings who can do what is above the Power of Men. I prov'd the first thing in the last Chapter of the 2d Part of my Discourse concerning Incredulity and the other can't be doubted of if we acknowledg the Authority of Christ and his Apostles confirm'd with undeniable Miracles Christ and his Apostles might have made their Doctrine to be admir'd with mere Reasonings as we do now but their Business was not only to shew that they said nothing but what was most agreeable to Reason they taught not their Doctrine as mere Philosophers or Divines but as Men authoriz'd by Heaven they were therefore to convince Men that they were sent from God To prove it undeniably there was no better way than to do some things above the Laws of Nature which were sensible Signs of God's approving their Doctrine and whereby they undeniably prov'd that they were his Messengers If they had done or said nothing but what other Men might have done of said they would have been look'd upon as Divines or Philosophers who vented their own Thoughts but when Men saw that after they had appeal'd to the Maker of the World for the Truth of what they said that there happen'd at their Prayers some things which are above the Power of all Men and all natural Causes they could not doubt but God declar'd himself in their behalf especially if they consider'd that the Doctrine they preach'd was most worthy of him So that the finest Doctrine that ever was attended with unheard-of Miracles ought to excite the Attention of all those who were not altogether blinded by their Vices and Prejudices and make them look upon them as the true Ministers of that God who created the World This is Sir what I had to say to you concerning Miracles not to exhaust the Matter but only to shew the Possibility and Truth of those of Christ and his Apostles I heartily pray God that it may contribute to reclaim those who out of Ignorance or otherwise doubt of the Truth of the Christian Religion I am c. FINIS Books lately printed for Awnsham and John Churchill A Short Discourse of the Knowledg of Christ Jesus to which are added some Passages in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. and its Vindication With some Animadversions on Mr. Edwards's Reflections on the Reasonableness of Christianity and on his Book entituled Socinianism Vnmasqued By Samuel Bold Rector of Steeple Dorset 8o. Prince Arthur an Heroick Poem in 10 Books By Richard Blackmore M. D. And Fellow of the College of Physicians in London Several Papers relating to Money Interest and Trade c. Writ upon several Occasions and published at different Times By John Locke Esq 8o. Mr. Talent's Chronological Tables or a View of Universal History from the Creation to the Year of Christ 1695. Wherein the most memorable Persons and Things in the known Kingdoms and Countries of the World are set down in several Columns by way of Synchronism according to their proper Centuries and Years In 16 Copper Plates Notitia Monastica Or a short View of the Religious Houses in England and Wales c. By Thomas Tanner A. B. 8o. The Resurrection of the same Body asserted c. By Hump. Hody D. D. The Gentleman's Religion with the Grounds and Reasons of it 12o. The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures c. With a Vindication against Mr. Edwards's Exceptions by the same Hand 8o. An Abridgment of Mr. Lock 's Essay of Human Understanding By Mr. John Wynne of Jesus College Oxford 8o.