s first reported to the apostles, they did not
believe, we are told, for joy. This was natural, and is agreeable to
experience.

VII. We have laid out of the case those accounts which require no more
than a simple assent; and we now also lay out of the case those which
come merely in affirmance of opinions already formed. This last
circumstance is of the utmost importance to notice well. It has long
been observed, that Popish miracles happen in Popish countries; that
they make no converts; which proves that stories are accepted when they
fall in with principles already fixed, with the public sentiments, or
with the sentiments of a party already engaged on the side the miracle
supports, which would not be attempted to be produced in the face of
enemies, in opposition to reigning tenets or favourite prejudices, or
when, if they be believed, the belief must draw men away from their
preconceived and habitual opinions, from their modes of life and rules
of action. In the former case, men may not only receive a miraculous
account, but may both act and suffer on the side, and, in the cause,
which the miracle supports, yet not act or suffer for the miracle, but
in pursuance of a prior persuasion. The miracle, like any other argument
which only confirms what was before believed, is admitted with little
examination. In the moral, as in the natural world, it is change which
requires a cause. Men are easily fortified in their old opinions, driven
from them with great difficulty. Now how does this apply to the
Christian history? The miracles there recorded were wrought in the midst
of enemies, under a government, a priesthood, and a magistracy decidedly
and vehemently adverse to them, and to the pretensions which they
supported. They were Protestant miracles in a Popish country; they were
Popish miracles in the midst of Protestants. They produced a change;
they established a society upon the spot, adhering to the belief of
them; they made converts; and those who were converted gave up to the
testimony their most fixed opinions and most favourite prejudices. They
who acted and suffered in the cause acted and suffered for the miracles:
for there was no anterior persuasion to induce them, no prior reverence,
prejudice, or partiality to take hold of Jesus had not one follower when
he set up his claim. His miracles gave birth to his sect. No part of
this description belongs to the ordinary evidence of Heathen or Popish
miracles. Even mos