our philofopher seems to have overlooked, when he gave his judgment in this cafe.

At the time when these miracles were faid to have been performed, there was a strong and numerous party in France, under the conduct of very able and learned men, who were strongly prepofsessed in favour of that cause which those miracles were calculated to support; and on the first rumour of them, they were eagerly cried up, and confidered as the clear decifion of heaven in favour of the Janfenists.

The character of this Abbé was such, as makes it highly improbable that any miracle should have been wrought by him, or in his favour. His whole life was a course of the most absurd and painful superstitions. He abridged himself even of the neceffaries of life, and was, in fact, accessary to his own death, by refusing proper assistance, and even better nourishment, when he was manifeftly drawing near his end, in consequence of his extreme austerities.

By the manner in which Mr. Hume writes upon this subject, one would imagine that these miracles had never been contradicted, and that the evidence for them had never been disputed; and yet the fact is, that they were always suspected by most persons who heard of them; that the archbishop of Sens confidered twenty-two of them as impoftures; that the counsellor Montgeron, who undertook dertook to confute him, gave up feventeen of these pretended cures, and defended only five; that M. Des Voux proved to him that he defended them very ill; that in the judicial proceedings upon the occafion, the falsity of many of these prodigies was demonstrated; that many witnesses abfconded to escape examination; that others deposed that their certificates had been falfified, by the addition of circumstances which were not true; that many of the fick persons protested against the account which had been published of their cures; that many of those who had been subject to convulfions, confefsed to M. De Heraut, the lieutenant of the police, that their convulfions were artificial; that the cures, true or false, were but gradual, and accomplished by several steps; that they were obliged to go nine times at least, and often more, to the tomb of the Abbé; so that the cures might very possibly be either the work of time, of a lively imagination, or of the medicines which they continued to take; that by far the greatest number of those who applied for a cure were disappointed; that it was very unlikely that the affistance of the divine being should not have been obtained but by means of convulfions, swoonings, violent, and some times very indecent gestures, which those who applied for a cure made use of; and lastly, that these miracles entirely ceased when no credit was given to them; and instead of drawing the Jansenifts out of the low reputation into whey they were fallen, they only ferved to make the whole party more ridiculous and contemptible *.

Mr. Hume also mentions after the cardinal De Retz, a miracle which was said to have been wrought in Saragoffa; but, by Mr. Hume's own account, the cardinal himself did not believe it.

The last instance I shall mention is one on which Mr. Chubb lays great stress, viz. a miracle faid to have been wrought among the Camifards, or the proteftants in the South of France, and which he fays cannot be distinguished from a real miracle. The principal thing that was exhibited upon this occafion was one Clary, seeming to ftand or dance about in the fames unhurt. The account was published by Mr. Lacy, an English gentleman, who joined the French proteftants when they took refuge in England, from the depofitions of John Cavalier, a brother of the principal leader of the Camisards, but a perfon of an infamous character, who afterwards turned papist, and enlisted in the French king's guards.

But M. Le Moine, who answered Mr Chubb's treatise on miracles, in which this fact was mentioned, having taken fome pains to enquire into it, found, upon the testimony of the most unexcep

tionable witnesses, especially that of one Serres, who had been a member of the privy council of the Camisards, that the whole business was a trick, contrived by themselves, in order to encourage their troops. This person, when near his death, gave a circumstantial account of the manner in which the artifice had been conducted; and the particulars, together with the proofs of the whole discovery, may be seen in M. Le Moine's treatife on miracles, p. 4-0, &c.

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CHAPTER VII.

A VIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTIONS TO THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REVELATIONS.

IN

N the preceding sections I have given a general view of the evidence for the truth of the Jewish and christian revelations, or the reasons which induce me to believe that the divine being has interposed in the affairs of this world, giving mankind Jaws and admonitions, with such sanctions respecting our future expectations, and especially our expectations after death, as we find an account of in the scriptures; and I presume that such facts have been produced, as cannot be accounted for without fuppofing that these books contain a true and authentic history.

That teftimony so copious, and so particularly circumstanced, given by such numbers of perfons, who had the best opportunity of being informed, and who were so far from having any motive to im-_ pose upon the world, should, notwithstanding, be given to a fafhood, cannot be admitted, without fuppofing all those persons to have been conftituted in a manner quite different from other men. And

by whatever method of reasoning we dispute the authenticity