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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
if' they were not , to no purpose would they have beep performed : those recorded in the Christian scriptures have a peculiar efficacy in this view ; since they do not
depend upon a priori arguments and recondite speculations for jroof , but uniformly referring to plain facts and addressed to the common sense of mankind , the most illiterate as well as the most
learned can equally judge of their truth . Like other facts therefore , which are not miraculous , they may be established by testimony : the persons recording them , affirming only , that certain effects
were REPEATEDLf produced in the presence of considerable numbers , and of which too , they themselves had a personal k ? wwledge . The want of a more than reiterated experience , which Mr .
H . deems so necessary in the case , if it even existed , so far from availing any thing , would defeat the purpose : if all occurrences , and ajljl must be comprehended tinder the idea of an uniform
JEXPERIJ 5 NCE , were to be brought -about by means of particular interpositions ( which is the notion of a miracle ) every practical benefit to result from them
would be lost , and to v » they would no Vmger be miracles : an unceasing SERi » 8 of miraculous interventions , would in effect be the same as a / t established law .
The efficacy of a reasonable experience in judging of « them is not denied , but the futility and unreasonableness of an uniform ex ~
pcvirnce , is . manifest : moreover , our competency to judge of the existence of any fact , whether of -an ordinary , or of aft extraordinary tiaturc , does pot depend upon its constant recurrence ,
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nor is it altered by our ignorance of what produced it ; since the inode in which the operation of the usual course of the laws of
nature is effected , equally with the ; supposed deviation from , or transgression of them ( the case of miracles ) is unknown to us . Mr . Hume in his Essay , note K . also assumes u that a miracle
may be discoverable by man or not , this alters not its nature and essence " . If it is in any case discoverable by man * its existence may be proved , and the only possible means of establishing the proof to others , is by testimony r when however , it is not
cliscoverable any argument from the supposed incompetency of testimony does rjpt apply ,. Men need be able to work miracles themselves to become competent evidences to facts , even of the existence of which they had never known .
I hat a miracle is in itself possible , and capable of being proved by the senses , Mr . Hume acknowledges , since , t ( it may be discoverable by man ; " and further , that it is capable of being satisfactorily proved to others , by testimony , he also admits , when he remarks that our observation of the
veracity of human testimony , constrains our assent to the belief of ordinary facts , even , though they have never immediately fallen under the cognizance of our own senses : wh ^ en a mira cl e is performed , nothing more is done ; since equally in both cases the fact in the first instance must hav&
beert proved b y the senses of others ; to the possibility ' of which he ha * already iinded < 5 tl . To assert that a fact cannot be proved , which is alreadyad wilted to Have been fully proved , is * in absolute
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14 | 6 Jlfr . Hum * * Objection ta < Mirucles * coiisidertd .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1809, page 146, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1734/page/26/
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