OF MIRACLES 



CONVINCED that the efTentials of religion in 

 no wife reft on miracles, that truth mud have her own 

 peculiar characteriftics independent on human teftimo- 

 nies ; and, that miracles, which are related to us as 

 having happened in former times, were not properly- 

 wrought for us, J prefume to offer my reflections on 

 that lubjedh 



Philofophers, and even theologians, feem at prefent 

 to have relaxed much from that feverity, on which 

 they no long time ago infilled in regard to the efta- 

 blifhed idea of miracles: it is a confequence of this 

 axiom, that they cannot have been wrought by any 

 Unite things # . 



It has been feen that this idea could not poffibly be 

 realized : that, if every effect that appears to our 

 fenfes, mud necefTarily be fomewhat finite, we can 

 only conclude from them of a caufe proportionate to 

 them — therefore, finite; that, confequently, no event 

 that can ever be the object of our obfervation, can be 

 ftrictly regarded as a miracle. 



Jean Jaques Rouffeau has already entered the lifts 

 againft miracles, in this fenfe, as things not fully de- 



* Or, a confequence, that, in tKe powers of [finite] nature, it is 

 not fufficiently founded, 



monftrable ; 



