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    cannot be a ground to receive any doctrine not conformable to reason . In the next place , let us see how far inspiration can enforce on the mind any opinion concerning God or his worship , when accompanied with a power to do a miracle ; and here , too , I say , the last determination must be that o / ¦

    reason . . " 1 st . Because reason must be the judge what is a miracle and what not ; which , not knowing how far the power of natural causes do extend themselves , and what strange effects they may produce , is very hard to determine . " 2 d . It will always be as great a miracle , that God should alter the course of natural things to overturn the principles of knowledge and understanding in a man , by setting up any thing to be received by him as a truth , which his

    reason cannot assent to , as the miracle itself ; and so at best it will be but one miracle against another , and the greater still on reason ' s side ; it being harder to believe that God should alter , and put out of its ordinary course some phenomenon of the great . world for once , and make things act contrary to their ordinary rule , purposely that the inind of man might 4 o so always afterwards , than that this is some fallacy or natural effect of which he knows not the cause , let it look never so strange . €€ 3 d . Because man does not &nojy whether there be not several sorts of creatures above him , and between him and the Supreme , amongst which there may be some that have the power to produce ua Nature jjuch

    extraordinary effects as we call miracles , and may have the will to do it , for other reasons than the confirmation of truth ; for the magicians of Egypt turned their rods . into serpents as well as Moses ; and since so great a miracle as that was done in opposition to the true God , and the revelation sent by him , what miracle can have certainty and assurance greater than that of a man ' s reason ? " And if inspiration have so much the disadvantage of reason in the man himself who is inspired , it has much more so in him who receives the revelation only by tradition from another , and that too very remote in time and

    piace " I . do not hereb y deny in the least that God can do , or hath done , miracles for the confirmation of truth ; but I only say that we cannot think he should do them to enforce doctrines or notions of himself , or any worship of him not conformable to reason , or that we can receive such for truth for the miracle '© sake : and even in those books which have the greatest proof of revelation from God , and the attestation of miracles to confirm their being so , the miracles are to be judged by the doctrine , and not the doctrine by the miracles , # . Deut . xiii . 1 ; Matt . xxiv . 24 . And St . Paul says , ' If an angel from heaven should teach any other doctrine /* ' &c . &c . ?—Pp . 123—126 .

    We cannot resist quoting the following directions , written ip 167 $ , as instructions to some Foreigner as to " the Lions" to be seen in Eqgland . They form an admirable picture of manners , &c , to contrast with spnie af aur modern thick octavo " Pictures of London , " &c . " Tftie sports of Eiigla ^ i dV W ^ ich , perhaps ^ a curious stranger would ^ ie glad to s ^ e , are liprse ^ racin ^* hacking , and hunting . Bawl ^ gfc ™^ t Mare |) 9 ne and Putney he , may see * e # eralpesFS 0 iJ 8 of quality bowling two , ortliree tunes ji week all the summer ; wrestling , in Lincoln ' s Inne Tield every evening all

    the summer ; bear and bullTbaitingv and J sometime W ^^ , atthc < Bew ^ J V W ^ r den i shooting in the Jong-bow an , d 8 tob- > aJl , j ^ % >^ i # 4 g ; * uJg 4- »! - ing ? ija eeversd places in the cpuntry ; aud hvrliijff , ^^ QrnwaA ^ _ , " toNDON ;—See tfce East-India House , and their magazmea ; theiJuatoni House ; the Thames , by water , irom London Bridge to Deptford ; and the King ' s Yard at Daptford ; the sawing-windmill ^ Tradeseant ' s garden And closet ; Sir James Marland ' sclo ^ t and wate ^ r ^ wqnJcB ; the kon milla mi WanOe worth , four mil ^ s above l « ondon , upooi the Tljtamefi ^ or rather those in Sussex ; Paradise by Hatton Garden \ the glass-house «* t the Savoy , and at

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    life of John Locke . 64 B

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1829, page 643, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2576/page/43/