ich, though it has met with the most favorable reception from the
public, appears to have excited a general scandal among the divines
of our own as well as of the other Protestant churches of Europe. Our
different sentiments on this subject will be much less influenced by any
particular arguments, than by our habits of study and reflection; and,
above all, by the degree of evidence which we have accustomed ourselves
to require for the proof of a miraculous event. The duty of an historian
does not call upon him to interpose his private judgment in this nice
and important controversy; but he ought not to dissemble the difficulty
of adopting such a theory as may reconcile the interest of religion with
that of reason, of making a proper application of that theory, and of
defining with precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from
error and from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift
of supernatural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of the
popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of miracles,
is continued without interruption; and the progress of superstition
was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we know not in what
particular link we should break the chain of tradition. Every age bears
testimony to the wonderful events by which it was distinguished, and
its testimony appears no less weighty and respectable than that of the
preceding generation, till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own
inconsistency, if in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the
venerable Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence
which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to Justin
or to Irenaeus. If the truth of any of those miracles is appreciated by
their apparent use and propriety, every age had unbelievers to convince,
heretics to confute, and idolatrous nations to convert; and sufficient
motives might always be produced to justify the interposition of Heaven.
And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality,
and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
powers, it is evident that there must have been some period in which
they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the Christian
church. Whatever aera is chosen for that purpose, the death of the
apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the extinction of the
Arian heresy, the insensibility of the Christians who lived at that