[88] Acts, C. viii. and xix.
[89] For as to the remaining chapters on the idolatry of the Heathens, the parallel betwixt the Heathen and Protestant rejection of miracles, and his Conclusion, they seem very little to concern either him, or me. For, 1. The influence of idolatry is urged to prove, that the religion, not miracles, of Jesus, was hard to be admitted (p. 352); which, though true, has nothing new in it, and is, besides, intirely foreign, if not contradictory, to his purpose. 2. The parallel betwixt the Heathen and Protestant rejection of miracles derives all its little illustrative force from this poor presumption, already confuted, that the Heathens had universally a contempt of miracles. I said the parallel drew its whole force from this fact, for unless it be true that the Heathens universally disbelieved all miracles said to be wrought amongst them, the case of their rejection of Christian miracles, the reader sees, is widely different from that of the Protestant rejection of the Popish. This one circumstance then, to mention no others, overturns the whole use of his parallel. But, 3. As to his conclusion, the design and business of that is, I allow, something extraordinary. It is to shew us, that his whole force was not spent in this wearisome Inquiry, but that, was he disposed for it, he could go on to answer other objections against miracles (p. 408-9) and our common Christianity, which had been already confuted to his hands. For, having shewn us what he could not do with an argument of his own, he was willing, it seems, to shew us what he could do with those of other writers. For which meritorious service he has my compliments and congratulations:
Labore alieno magno, partam Gloriam
Verbis sæpè in se transfert, qua sal habet,
Quod in TE est.
[90] Page 348, and in another place he says, it has been fairly shewn from their own accounts, and from THE NATURE OF THEIR PRINCIPLES, that the Heathens neither had, nor could have an high opinion of miracles. P. 383.
[91] Matth. xi. 20. Luke x. 13.
[92] Page 172.
[93] 1 Cor. i. Col. ii. 8.
[94] Rom. i. Eph. v. and elsewhere passim.
[95] Mr. Addison of the Christian Religion, S. 1.
[96] Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.