a

to the greater; and though all affirmations on superhuman authority must, doubtless, be considered as being, cæteris paribus, equal; yet still there may be circumstances attached to each case, which may show clearly which is the cause of God. Thus in the case of Moses, we read that he performed before Pharaoh certain miracles. "And the magicians did so", it is added, “with their enchantments." Now though we should grant that these magicians performed real miracles, and though we should grant, also, as we then consequently must, that in the acts performed there was nothing to indicate clearly that the authority of Moses was at all superior to theirs, yet still the circumstances and issue of the contest were, notwithstanding all these suppositions, a sufficient evidence of his superior authority. Bishop Sherlock, an exceedingly acute judge of evidence, is one of many writers who do actually make those circumstances and that

a Exod. vii. 11, 22. viii. 7.

b Thus that the rods of the magicians should be turned into serpents, cannot in itself be regarded as a less exertion of power, than that the rod of Aaron should swallow up their

rods. Exod. vii. 12.

D

issue their ground for affirming the divine mission of Moses".

III. But still it is contended that all these various arguments are merely arguments ad hominem, or ex concessis; that though doubtless our Saviour had good reason for arguing on those principles which he found established among the Jews, and for showing that, even on those principles, even on the supposition that miracles might be performed by evil spirits, his own miracles stood clear of the charge; yet we may be entitled to sweep away that supposition; we still may free ourselves from all such delusions, and be entitled to take the stronger ground of asserting that all real miracles come solely from God, and that every miracle is therefore an incontestible proof of an absolutely divine authority. It is, in the same manner, denied that there was ever any thing superhuman in any of the responses of the heathen oracles, or in the acts performed by the Egyptian magicians. And it is alleged, accordingly, that all those passages of Scripture which appear at

a Disc. X. Vol. I. pp. 285, 286. edit. 1754.

first sight to recognise the possession of any mi raculous or superhuman power, by magicians, or witches, or by false prophets of any kind, are intended only to intimate that they pretended, to miracles, not that they really possessed the power of working them.

In answer to this, I have to observe, in the first place, that it is not by any means my business to assert either the certain possession, or the actual exertion, of any miraculous powers, except those which are related in Scripture to have been performed under the special or immediate direction of God. I waive all argument for the opinions commonly received respecting the powers possessed by evil spirits, notwithstanding the great strength of those Scriptural grounds, on which the doctrine of their real power is rested. I do apprehend that the Egyptian magicians wrought nothing but mere delusion or chicanery. I can trace no evidence of more than human sagacity in any thing that can be proved concerning the heathen oracles. Where Moses, in Deuteronomy, warns the Jews against false prophets, I am far from supposing that he means to speak of their prophecies as being any thing more than mere impostures, or

that there was any thing miraculous in the coming to pass of the signs and wonders predicted by them. It is, I am persuaded, the same also with regard to those false Christs and false prophets whom our Saviour speaks of in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew. Nor do I suppose it St. Paul's meaning to state positively to the Galatians, that they would ever be tempted by having" any other gospel" preached actually to them by an angel from heaven".

But though all this be granted, yet it is wholly irrational to put the authority of all miracles on the footing of our being right in this view of the case. It has been, beyond all question, in most ages the common, and in some the universal belief, that evil spirits have power to work real miracles in behalf of delusion, but that we have always the power to avoid that delusion by examining the consistency of any doctrine so taught with the established autho

a

"Then the Lord said unto me: The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart." Jer. xiv. 14.

b Gal. i. 8. See also note C at the end of the volume.

rities of reason and faith, or by trying, as it is said, "what spirit it is of". That any beings do really possess this power of working miracles

in behalf of delusion, or that there is good evidence of its having been ever actually exerted, we may, I think, be reasonably disinclined to believe, but I see not that we can dare absolutely to deny. That it cannot exist, or cannot be exerted, without invalidating the proof of credible doctrines, or doctrines consistent with the attributes of God, and also with the doctrines of any revelation, of which we either suppose, or prove him the author, is, beyond all doubt, a most unfounded assumption. Surely all those persons who have thought that evil spirits may really possess miraculous powers, cannot have been the dupes of so erroneous a logic as to believe revelation on the evidence of miracles, even while they held opinions which, if pressed to their consequences, would prove of miracles that they are no evidence at all.

The true state of the case is, that both reason and revelation teach us that error, especially error of the intellect, is exceedingly seductive,