gerous Friends or disguis'd Enemies to the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the Principles of human Reason. Our most holy Religion is founded on Faith, not on Reason; and 'tis a sure Method of exposing it to put it to such a Trial as it is, by no Means, fitted to endure. To make this more evident, let us examine those Miracles, related in Scripture; and not to lose ourselves in too wide a Field, let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch, which we shall examine, as these pretended Christians would have us, not as the Word or Testimony of God himself, but as the Production of a mere human Writer and Historian. Here then we are first to consider a Book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant People, wrote in an Age when they werestill
farther Examination. Tho' the Being, to whom the Miracle is ascrib'd, be, in this Case, Almighty, it does not, upon that Account, become a whit more probable; since 'tis impossible for us to know the Attributes or Actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the Experience, which we have, of his Productions, in the usual Course of Nature. This still reduces us to past Observation, and obliges us to compare the Instances of the Violations of Truth in the Testimony of Men with those of the Violation of the Laws of Nature by Miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the Violations of Truth are more common in the Testimony concerning religious Miracles than in that concerning any other Matter of Fact; this must diminish very much the Authority of the former Testimony, and make us form a general Resolution never to lend any Attention to it, with whatever specious Pretext it may be cover'd.
