time observe to you, that the reality of miracles may be supported even upon the contrary hypothesis; for at the moment in which this world was produced, and the laws that govern it were immutably ordained, such causes may have been appointed as, in given circumstances, should work out the very effects which we call miracles. But the opposite opinion, which ascribes interposition to God, may plead long prescription in its favour, for it has prevailed in all ages, barbarous and civilized; it is supported by the united testimony of history, sacred and profane; it has been professed, as we trust, without hypocrisy, and defended, as we know, without absurdity, by persons most enlightened in their understandings, and most exemplary in their piety.

Reflect, I beseech you, on the nature of God, and that of men:-exertion in man is the cause of pain, because his sphere of action is limited, because he works on materials created independently of himself, and not always flexible to his strength or skill, and, above all, because human agency is conducted by a train of mixed operations-by the exercise of powers dissimilar, and often disproportionate, partly spiritual, and partly material. But exertion, as clogged with the idea of embarrassment, cannot be imputed to the Deity, since his sphere of action is unlimited-since he created the materials himselfand since his essence is of the purest and most excellent kind.

It may assist us yet further in extricating our minds from the difficulties, which interposition rashly confounded with exertion is apt to suggest,

if we distinguish between the works and the will of God. From the works succession is inseparable, whether we consider them as beings distinct from each other in time and place, or as the same individual beings, of which the preservation, for aught we know, is but a perpetuated creation. On the other hand, we can form no adequate or direct opinion of the order in which things are conceived by a divine intelligence, and, at all events, every perplexing and dishonourable consequence which arises from succession of thoughts in a finite being, to a being whose thoughts are wavering in the wide and dark regions of conjecture, cannot be ascribed to him, who is infinite without impropriety as well as presumption. Whatever was created might have existed earlier, and is it a dishonour that it did not? Would delay have furnished a just presumption that what did not exist would not? In whatsoever manner the Deity acts, he acts for the best; and why then should not this truth be extended to the disposal of things already made, as well as to the original appointment by which they were made?

But without the aid of these abstract considerations we may crush all distressing suspicions of toil and labour, by pursuing the obvious consequences of that omnipotence, which is reasonably and generally ascribed to God. The same arguments which convince us of his omnipotence inform us, that his agency is perpetual-that the power to act continues inexhaustible-that no distraction can belong to his counsels, however complex; and no weariness in the exertion of them, however vast. He speaks,

and all things are made. He commands, and they are created. Independently of the evidence supplied by testimony, philosophy cannot rise beyond presumptive proofs, and presumption, I am sure, will determine us in favour of interposition.

Let us pursue this inquiry, from which we may draw out some arguments for the credibility of miracles, on the ground of their expedience. To all events, be they common or uncommon, the presence, and surely the agency of God (it may be said in some sense) are essentially necessary; but if a moral sense of that agency be, as it unquestionably is, of supreme importance to the happiness of his creatures in a probationary state, the interruption as well as the preservation of that course in which things usu→ ally flow on, is calculated to make very useful impressions on a being situated and disposed as man is-on a being possessed of such faculties, and surrounded by such weaknesses. In order to perform the will, and to obtain the approbation of God, men must be first taught to acknowledge his existence; and to this knowledge, to the admiration of his wisdom, his goodness, his power, they are conducted through the numberless displays of those attributes that are spread in boundless profusion over the spacious and magnificent theatre of this visible world. But admiration soon exhausts itself, and in proportion to the intenseness with which it has been exerted, it is succeeded by lassitude and listlessness, by unwillingness to contemplate what astonished and confounded in the aggregate, and by conscious inability to eulogize all the constituent and con

nected parts. Hence the strongest emotions are frequently the most transient, and the most brilliant objects familiarized by repetition are seen with calm indifference or stupid insensibility. Nay, the very excellence of the work makes us lose sight of the author; or, affecting to elevate our minds above vulgar prejudice, we take a pride not only in withdrawing our wonder from the beauties, but in employing our reason upon the discovery of faults in the universe. This impious perverseness is indeed confined to the few whose principles are debauched by the insolence of false science; but with the generality of mankind, it is the conditions and the circumstances of things rather than their qualities and their use, by which our minds are most powerfully affected: whence it happens, that he who forgets a God, while he is enlightened and refreshed by the sun, is suddenly compelled to acknowledge and to adore him, if the splendour of that sun be unexpectedly darkened, or its warmth withdrawn. I am not concerned to vindicate this constitution of the human mind, though, on many accounts, it seems highly adapted to our state of moral discipline. I contend only for the fact itself, and that fact clearly points out the utility of occasional interpositions in rousing men from their lethargy, in confirming the doubtful, and in terrifying the presumptuous.

We do not then conceive unbecomingly of God in supposing that he employs such interposition when the most momentous ends of his government require it; and as the physical constitution of things seems upon the whole subordinate and instrumental

to the moral, we have a certain proof that the Deity may-we have no obscure presumption that he will -give such new and extraordinary directions to the former as are adapted to the new and extraordinary exigencies of the latter. Whether or no such exigencies have existed is a point of speculation, where we should be cautious of presumptuously deciding in the negative. Whether he has thus interposed is a question of fact, where no contemptible force of arguments may be produced on the positive side. But all I have hitherto maintained amounts to this, -that the frame of the human mind furnishes a very striking proof for the utility of interposition; and the course of human affairs is not such as to disprove the possibility of it. In respect to Christianity, the proofs may not be sufficient to shew it strictly necessary; but the ignorance and corruptions of men make such a dispensation desirable; its precepts and its promises, from the tendency they have to render us happy, authorize us to pronounce it very expedient, and perhaps we are not mistaken even in calling it necessary, if the moral designs of the Deity really be-and who shall demonstrate they are not?-such as the Scriptures represent them; I mean, if he be pleased to exact from us the duties there enjoined, in order to qualify us for the rewards there inculcated. They are duties most improving to us, as we are rational beings; they are rewards most encouraging to us, if we be immortal.

In the ordinary works of God there is an inexhaustible variety, from which we may infer that