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 fallity of many of these prodigies was demonftrated; that many witneffes abfconded to escape examination; that others depofed that their certificates had been falfified, by the addition of circumstances which were not true; that many of the fick perfons protested against the account which had been published of their cures; that many of those who had been fubject to convulfions, confeffed to M. De Heraut, the lieutenant of the police, that their convulfions were artificial; that the cures, true or falfe, 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; fo that the cures might very poffibly 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 affiftance of the divine being should not have been obtained but by means of convulfions, fwoonings, violent, and fome times very indecent geftures, which thofe who applied for a cure made ufe of; and laftly, that these miracles entirely ceafed when no credit

was given to them; and instead of drawing the Janfenifts out of the low reputation into whey they were fallen, they only ferved to make the whole party more ridiculous and contemptible *.

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

The laft inftance I shall mention is one on which Mr. Chubb lays great stress, viz. a miracle said to have been wrought among the Camifards, or the proteftants in the South of France, and which he fays cannot be diftinguished from a real miracle. The principal thing that was exhibited upon this. occafion was one Clary, feeming to ftand or dance about in the flames 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 Camifards, but a perfon of an infamous character, who afterwards turned papist, and enlifted 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 teftimony of the most unexcep

* Lettres de Roustan, p. 85, &c.

tionable

tionable witneffes, especially of one Serres,

who had been a member of the privy council of the Camifards, that the whole business was a trick, contrived by themfelves, in order to encourage their troops. This perfon, when near his death, gave a circumftantial account of the manner in which the artifice had been conducted; and the particulars, together with the proofs of the whole discovery, may be feen in M. Le Moine's treatise on miracles, p. 420, &c.

CHAPTER VII.

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

N the preceding fections I have given a general

IN

view of the evidence for the truth of the Jewish and christian revelations, or the reafons which induce me to believe that the divine being has interpofed in the affairs of this world, giving mankind Jaws and admonitions, with fuch fanctions refpecting our future expectations, and especially our expectations after death, as we find an account of in the fcriptures; and. I prefume that fuch facts have been produced, as cannot be accounted for without fuppofing that these books contain a true and authentic history.

That teftimony fo copious, and fo particularly circumstanced, given by fuch numbers of perfons, who had the beft opportunity of being informed, and who were so far from having any motive to impose upon the world, fhould, notwithstanding, be given to a fafhood, cannot be admitted, without fuppofing all thofe perfons to have been conftituted in a manner quite different from other men. And by whatever method of reafoning we difpute the authenticity

authenticity of the books of fcripture, we may queftion the genuineness of all antient writings, and invalidate the evidence of all history.

Such known facts of other kinds have also been produced, especially refpecting the reception which the pretenfions to divine communications by Mofes, by Chrift, and his apoftles have met with, from perfons who could have had no motive to admit them, except the fulleft conviction of their truth, and also respecting the degrees of religious knowledge poffeffed by the Jews and chriftians, who were far from having any peculiar natural advantage for the attainment of it, as cannot be accounted for without the fuppofition of their having had fuch divine communications as they pretended to.

Laftly, not only have many remarkable events come to pass agreeable to predictions published in those books, but the present state of several confiderable cities, of whole nations, and of the world in general, is fuch as was exactly described in them feveral hundred years ago; fo that we cannot but have the greatest reafon to expect the full accomplishment of all the other predictions, for which we have the fame evidence that they came from God, and especially that which is the great object of the whole scheme of revelation, and to which, if we believe it, it behoves us to have conftant refpect, viz. that Christ will come again to raise the dead,

to