CXXIV. PROLEGOMENA. 



religion, have never ceased ; nor can any pro- 

 testant find authority for their cessation : they 

 take place continually, and for the same important 

 ohject as ever — the attestation of the truth of the 

 church of Christ. We believe them not only 

 because we cannot deny them vvitliout impeaching 

 the validity of human testimony in general, but 

 because the miracles which continue to be verought 

 from time to time, in attestation of the sanctity 

 of the catholic church alone, are established on 

 evidence equally strong with that on which pro- 

 testants, in common with catholics, believe the 

 miracles recorded in the Holy Scriptures. For 

 these modern miracles have, in some instances, 

 been proved by a series of corresponding testi- 

 mony, from witnesses of the facts, of such a 

 consistent and positive nature as could not be 

 rejected on any ordinary subject in a court of 

 law ; and, indeed, there has been a succession 

 of such miracles wrought in favour of Catholicism, 

 from the time of Jesus Christ to the present day, 

 many of which have possessed all the requisite 

 characters of truth laid down by the most scru- 

 pulous critics : lastly, the once doubting of 

 the more modern miracles would tend to in- 

 validate those of holy writ, whose greater relative 

 distance of both time and place lessens, cceteris 

 paribus, their comparative probability. 



Objection 3. That Catholics have been 

 persecutors. 



