those most active principles of our nature, which we know from history did operate, which we know from our observation and experience of mankind must have operated, in ancient Judea, in the very same manner in which they would operate now, were any such assertions now made amongst us, and so made as to appear worthy attention.

So entirely certain is it that the evidence of the Christian miracles loses not any thing by the lapse of time since their performance : so certain is it that a religion which commands the obedience of every nation and of every age, to which God's providence imparts its salutary doctrines, which promulgates a law which is of perpetual obligation, carries its evidence as far as it carries its pretensions, and wherever it asserts its claim on the affections, appeals, with no diminution of its primitive force, to the considerate judgment of the understanding.

SECTION VI.

RECAPITULATION OF THE PRECEDING ARGUMENTS AND CONCLUSIONS; AND ALSO OF THE PROBABILITY OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OR DOCTRINE, IN BEHALF OF WHICH, PRINCIPALLY, THE SCRIPTURE MIRACLES ARE ALLEged.

It was shown at length in the dissertation prefixed to this treatise, that every exertion of superhuman power must, under certain conditions", be accounted wholly conclusive of a strictly divine authority. It was shown in Chapter I. that the Scripture miracles, if really performed, or performed in the manner related, were exertions of a power unequivocally superhuman. And it has since been proved, in the former sections of the present chapter, that these miracles were really so performed.

Hence it follows, necessarily, that under those same conditions which have been premised as in part constituting the proof of a strictly divine authority, the Scripture miracles do actually

p. 52.

Which were expressed also in the first paragraph of Ch. 1.

confer that authority on the holy religion for which we allege them. It will farther be shown also in the course of this section", that the Scripture miracles possess the requisite conditions, or at least that a writer on this particular subject, is justly entitled to assume their possession of them. And thus will be completed the entire proof of our case, a proof no less rigid as to its argumentative process than any mathematical demonstration or formula. Nor is there any doubt whatever as to the fundamental principle that superhuman power, under the conditions assigned, confers on the agent a divine authority. I cannot account this principle as being less certain than any the clearest axiom of geometry.

There are some of our positions, however, which cannot be asserted to rest on principles so evident as I trust this has been shown to be. Some, indeed, which rest on our knowledge of man, and of his moral nature and character, we have the power of affirming with the most absolute confidence. We are entitled to assume that that nature and character have been universally the same through all that series of ages, which has elapsed since the creation; the same in the a P. 210, et sqq.

ages ascribed to Moses and Christ, as in every other age of antiquity, or in the age in which we ourselves exist. Man, taken collectively, is subject at all times to the same passions, equally attracted by the hope of good, equally deterred by the fear of evil. Though it may require more skill therefore to lay down categorically those principles of human nature which we may assume, than to lay down the principles of number or quantity, I know not but that out of our abundant materials we might establish some of them with equal certainty.

Other of our positions, however, do not rest on man's nature, nor yet on the inferences which we are entitled to draw from the necessary faithfulness and good providence of God. We must rest them in some measure on our own application of those principles in cases made known to us only by remote testimony, and in circumstances which we have no means of appreciating but by the aid of learning, and of historical research. This may be called, in general, the moral part of our evidence; or, to speak more precisely, that portion of the moral part of it, in which alone there can be any apprehension of error. Moral evidence, in general, is often en

titled fallacious. This general maxim is, I believe, often the sole source of modern incredulity in the Scripture miracles.

But before we can be entitled to account it fallacious in this case, it is proper and necessary to trace out systematically those particular propositions, both of fact and of reasoning, on which alone the truth of this case depends; that we may so be able to fix distinctly that doubt, if any there be, which may still adhere to the moral part of the proof. Our conclusion is certain, if no such doubt can be found. If we do find any, we doubtless carry into our conclusion that degree of doubt, and that degree only, which may adhere to that particular point which is doubtful. But I may here observe that this doubt may not be greater, may, indeed, often not be so great, in a case of moral evidence, as in a case of what are commonly called the mixed sciences. Arcs of the meridian have been at various times measured with a very remarkable and diligent accuracy. Assuming the correctness of all the angles and bases, the conclusions inferred may be called demonstrated conclusions. Also, making allowance for those minute errors which may in fact have crept into the practical measurements, we