ceffarian, the difficulty has not been diminifhed by my conviction that the mind is fubject to laws as certain as the laws of gravitation, and that events take place as regularly in the intellectual and moral, as in the material world.

Indeed I am not quite fo averfe to admit fome grand interference for a very extraordinary purpose, as to receive the account of the many particular miracles recorded in the fcripture history.

The idea of God, in most men's minds, is a very different thing from that conceived by a philosopher habituated to contemplate the univerfe. What can fuch a contemplative man think, when he reads of perfonal vifits from the infinite and eternal Deity to the man Abraham, and the colloquial difcourfe which paffed on those occafions? Let any reflecting person read what is related, in the 20th chapter of Genefis,

Genefis, concerning Abraham, Sarah, and Abimelech the king of Gerar; and the account of what God is reprefented as speaking, in a vifion, to Abimelech; likewife the account of the miraculous punishment inflicted on the female part of Abimelech's family; and then let him declare foberly how he is impreffed by the narrative. I am no fcoffer: but I do not wonder at Mr. Voltaire's fcoffing. Independently, however, of the objection to this story and the morality of it, can it appear at all probable that fuch perfonal conferences fhould have taken place between the Author of the universe and Abraham or Mofes as thofe related? I inquire not how probable fuch things may be in the estimation of ordinary men, but in that of intelligent and reflecting perfons.

There is what, I think, will illuftrate the matter, in a volume of letters, addreffed to various perfons, by Dr. Priest

ley*. Among the reft, there are twelve

very excellent ones to the late Dr. Price; in one of which, on the antecedent probability of the Arian hypothefis, we meet with thefe following obfervations:

"That mere divines fhould talk fo lightly as they fometimes do, concerning crea"tion, and the poffibility of its falling with"in the province of an inferior being, I "I do not wonder; because they have no << proper idea of what creation is or implies. They have no conception of the magnitude of it, or of the wonderful ex"tent of the laws by which the mundane

fyftem is governed. But you, Sir, are "not a mere divine. You rank high in "the class of mathematicians and natural

philofophers, who are daily contemplating, and making farther inquiries into, "the laws of nature; who are filled with

*The title is, Letters to Dr. Horne, to the Young Men of Oxford and Cambridge, to Dr Price, and to Mr. Packhurft. Published by Johnson, 1787.

"aftonishment

"astonishment at what they do fee of them, " and who are at the fame time well fatif"fied that all they fee bears no fenfible proportion to that which is unknown.

"Now that a being poffeffing the pro"found wisdom, and astonishing power, "that must have been neceffary to the "conftruction of fuch a fyftem as this (even allowing the matter out of which it "was made to have been prepared for him), fhould become a child in the " womb of a woman, be born, be brought OC up from infancy to manhood, be fubject

to all the pains and infirmities of men,

"be delivered into the hands of his ene"mies, be crucified, and die, appears to "me to be in reality no lefs incredible "than it does to you that the creator of "all worlds fhould be thus degraded."

I do not fay, you will obferve, that the inftances which the fcripture hiftory affords

of colloquial difcourfe between the Author of nature and Abraham, and between the fame infinite and aftonishing Being and Mofes, are parallel inftances of degradation; they, nevertheless, appear fo degrading as to render the history antecedently improbable: and, indeed, I think that any accounts of miraculous interpofition must appear fo, even to perfons whofe minds are strongly impreffed with religion, provided it be a rational and not a fuperftitious religion; and provided the perfons in queftion be acquainted with the great laws of nature, and attentive to the events conftantly taking place according to the eftablished order. I have certainly no pretenfions to the character of a profound philofopher; but, beholding, every day, and feriously contemplating, as I do, the regular way in which the Author of nature brings his designs to pass, to me it appears an unnatural thing to fuppofe him deviating from his eternal course.

Yet