Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

had been foreseen, from all eternity, by HIM who holds the chain in his hand, and he had co-ordained the causes of such or such a miracle with such or such prayers.

I

СНАР. Х.

EXTRAORDINARY DOUBT :-EXAMINATION OF IT.

HERE still remains a doubt unsatisfi

TH

ed, concerning testimony, which requires some consideration.

. I have admitted as very probable, at least that the witnesses, who attested these miraculous facts, were neither deceivers nor deceived. But, possibly, they were impostors of a singular nature, and of a very elevated kind.

I suppose a set of men, ardently zealous for the welfare of mankind, who, being thoroughly convinced of the beauty and usefulness of a doctrine which they passionately wished to promulge, saw clearly the absolute necessity of miracles to arrive at their end.

I suppose that these men invented false miracles, and thus exhibited themselves as messengers from the Most High.

Finally, I suppose that thus inspired, and supported by this new kind of heroism, they voluntarily devoted themselves to tortures and to death, in support of an imposture so conducive to the happiness of mankind..

I have already accumulated a number of very extraordinary suppositions. And now I must ask, whether such a species of heroism is consonant to the analogy of moral order? Let me, above all things, avoid every supposition repugnant to common

sense..

Can then simple illiterate men invent such a doctrine? Can they form such a plan? Will they carry it into execution? Will they bring it to a conclusion?

Men who profess in heart and soul to believe a future life, and a God, the avenger of imposture, will they hope to arrive at felicity by the means of imposture ?

Will men, who, far from being assured that God will approve their imposture, have, on the contrary, the strongest reasons to believe that he will utterly condemn it will those men expose themselves to the greatest calamities, the greatest perils, to death itself, to defend and propagate that imposture ?

Men who aim at the glorious title of benefactors to mankind, will they expose their fellow-creatures to the most cruel trials, without being at all certain of that compensation which they promise them?

Men who associate together to execute so strange a plan, so complicated, so dangerous-can they rely on each other? Can they flatter themselves that they will never be betrayed? And will they never be betrayed? Men who undertake, not only to con vince their contemporaries of the truth and usefulness of a certain doctrine, but who undertake to convince them also of the reality of facts incredible in their nature, public, numerous, various, circumstantial, recent facts; can they flatter themselves with

the hope of obtaining the smallest credit, if all these facts be pure invention? Can they flatter themselves with the hope of passing for ever undetected? And will they never be detected? Can men. -But I sink under the weight of objections, and I am obliged to abandon suppositions so contradictory to common sense.-It is scarcely possible to conceive, that so extraordinary a heroism could have entered into a single mind, much less into several, and that it could produce the same effects, the same force, constancy, and union in all. And what appears to me so improbable, with respect to such a kind of heroism, would appear to me no less so in regard to the love of glory and renown.

If, on the most solid grounds, I am convinced that there is a moral order; if the judgments I form of mankind are the necessary result of that moral order; I cannot admit suppositions which have no analogy with that moral order, and which even stand in direct opposition to it.

* Vide this Book, Chap...

« VorigeDoorgaan »