and to every circumstance in life; and this, I apprehend, was the case with Moses; he wrote every thing antecedent to his life, together with the law, and on this basis was the Jewish theocracy established, and Moses justly reputed the author of the Pentateuch. A remarkable instance occurs in Deuteronomy xxxii. 44"Moses came, and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people." IIere the whole performance is ascribed to Moses, and yet the writer goes on to say "he and Hoshea the son of Nun." Shall I say then the song was without authority, because Hoshea took an active part in its delivery? certainly not-Moses was the head, and not the hand. From this, and many other circumstances which might be adduced, it appears to me, that Moses, perceiving Joshua (as well as Caleb) to be after his own heart, he committed to them this important trust; and they, acting in every iota consistent with the confidence he had reposed in them, affixed his name to the performance. By this means it is we have the exit and obsequies of Moses recorded in his work, which could not possibly have been done had he wrote them all, 1 presume. I think so far from Moses deserving the obloquy of coxcomb, (which indeed is not worth noticing), his successor has fully proved, that his illustrious example (with one exception) is worthy the imitation of the most exalted mind; and if your correspondent D. T. would view the Pentateuch in this light, his embarrassments would vanish, and he would then see one grand uniform display of the divine interposition on the behalf of man. Your's, &c. April 11, 1812. ON THE STABILITY OF THE LAWS OF NATURE. J. K. To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine. SIR, THIS letter, Mr. Editor, though not designed to be a very long one, shall contain all I purpose to say on the subject of miracles. In every discussion, where an appeal is made directly to the understanding; where the writer has no views on the prejudices or passions of his reader; all that is valuable and important in it, may be usually drawn within very narrow limits redundant matter, frivolous observation, or dress and embellishment, taking up, generally speaking, the bulk of every performance. Besides, nothing is more common, when debate is carried to undue lengths, than to see the accent of the gentleman giving place to the rudeness of invective; and the coolness of argument, to the bitterness of altercation. * Deuteronomy xxxi. 24, 25, 26. 1 am not solicitous to convert if my sentiments are not founded on truth, let them perish. Nor have I personally any object to secure, beyond the gratification which every one feels when his own opinions become prevalent. That these opinions will gradually advance, in proportion as mankind become better informed, it is natural perhaps for me to expect: and this gradual advancement is all which I desire. Sudden and extensive changes are always problematical; often, mischievous. The progress of truth, however, is irresistible; checked indeed, at intervals; but sure, in the end, of lasting triumph. Futurity, in this respect, offers to the contemplative philosopher, the most cheering prospect. The moral world shaken, it is true; but systems of superstition tumbling into ruins; the reign of bigotry closed for ever; and forms of civil policy, contrived by wisdom and improved by experience, diffusing, through all classes of the community, the blessings of equal government! justice, truth, and liberty, filling the earth: despotism, oppression, and error, banished from the world!But first, ages must roll away; empires be overturned; and generations, yet to come, swept into perpetual oblivion. I now hasten to meet the animadversions of W. C. 1 endeavour, on all occasions, to state my sentiments perspicuously I wish to be fully and clearly understood: I do not, however, it seems, always succeed. Perhaps indeed, to be able so to express every thought, as to exclude the possibility of misapprehension, is a felicity not to be attained. Your correspondent, W. C. is not quite sure, notwithstanding all I have said, that I myself do not admit, that cases have occurred, the explanation of which necessarily requires and involves a departure from physical laws, or the ordinary succession of events. So far, however, am I from making any concession of this sort, that I am prepared to deny positively and unequivocally, every fact, whether supplied by history or tradition, the explanation of which necessarily includes a miracle. This is the ground which I take; and if any expression has dropped from me, capable of being tortured into any other meaning, I can only say, that I wish I had employed, in the room of it, words more explicit. As to the incident respecting General Washington, 1 never meant, when I framed that little story, to oppose it, in all its circumstances, to the resurrection of our Lord. I meant only to state a simple case; involving a miracle certainly, and well attested; but for which miracle, no extraordinary reason could be assigned and I gave it as my opinion, that such a reported miracle, would not, at present, be received. 1 still think so; 1 still think that it would not be received, by any intelligent man; and that it ought not to be received. $ I had said, that certain facts, referred to by a writer in your Magazine (Christophilus), were, "either such as might be accounted for on principles common to our nature; or, such as lost themselves in some of those rare and extraordinary combinations of events and circumstances, which the revolution of ages can hardly he expected to repeat.' Your correspondent, like the lynx in the fable, whetting his teeth and waiting for his prey, eagerly catches at this supposed concession; and after expressing much concern lest I should lose myself in a dilemma, asks, with no small triumph, "what becomes of my argu ment against revelation, drawn from the usual course of nature' and the settled order of events!"--Mr. W. C. has had the good nature to speak of my acuteness and discernment. Really it would give me infinite pleasure, to speak of my opponent in terms equally obliging. But the present, truly, is a most unfortunate occasion. How W. C. in general employs his acuteness and discernment, I certainly have no right to know it is quite clear that, at the moment he read this unlucky paragraph of mine, his intellectual faculties were not, at least, in violent exercise. By what rules of interpretation, pray, has your correspondent discovered, that "a rare and extraordinary combination of circumstances," involves an infraction of the laws of nature, or miraculous agency? Are there not many incidents recorded in history, a repetition of which it would be in vain to look for? The capital of the Roman empire was saved by the instrumentality of a goose; Caligula appointed his horse to the consulship, and fed him with gilded oats; Alexander set fire to a city of great extent and population, only to gratify a courtezan:-does the world ever expect to behold again spectacles such as these? And yet they imply nothing supernatural: they are extraordinary indeed, but not miraculous. : It would be a most invidious undertaking, even supposing it could be accomplished, to show by what management and contrivance the popular system of belief in this country at first gained admission into the world. He knows nothing of mankind, who is not prepared to look for inconsistencies and contradic tions in their sentiments and life. We have a remarkable instance, in our own time, to what extravagant lengths the religious passion may carry people. 1 allude at present to Carpenter, a disciple of Joanna Southcot, and preacher at the House of God, near the Elephant and Castle. This man has received numberless communications from heaven; and hears strange voices. Crowds flock to hear him every Sunday; and I myself have conversed with many individuals who verily believe in the inspirations of this poor fanatic. To those who are fond of speculating on human nature, this man will be found an object of singular curiosity. 1 have often gazed at him in the pulpit for an hour together, and listened to him with the greatest attention: I have watched, with unremitted vigilance, the train of his ideas, the workings of his mind, the turns of his imagination. Sometimes he speaks rationally, for five minutes; he then raves. Now, open and sincere ; and now, cunning and artful. This man, I am persuaded, rather than confess himself an impostor, would burn at the stake with all the pleasure in the world; aye, and glory in it too. A genuine enthusiast is one of the most unaccountable phenomena in nature. There is no saying what he will do, or what he will not do. A note, at the foot of page 162, in your last number, complains that I have misquoted the words of your correspondent W. C.; that I have put the singular for the plural. Well; I will put it the other way: the alteration will not, I believe, affect my argument; though W. C. entertains a different opinion. The corrected passage will stand thus: "The gentleman begs to know, what is meant by the laws of nature;'. and even solicits a catalogue of such laws."-What the advantage is, which your correspondent hopes to secure, from this alteration, my sagacity, I confess, though very acute and discerning, does not enable me to discover. A law of nature, " is that order, according to which the Deity conducts any natural operation." The laws of nature, then, " are those methods, according to which the Deity conducts all natural operations; and from which he never deviates." The point of W. C.'s objection, if his objection has any point, seems to consist in the difficulty of giving a compleat enumeration of these methods, or laws of nature. But surely it requires no very uncommon degree of acuteness and discernment, to perceive, that our ig norance of some laws, can no way affect our knowledge of others. I do not know, it is true, what methods the Lord of the universe has thought proper to adopt for managing the af fairs of Jupiter, the Moon, or the Georgium Sidus; but I do know perfectly what methods he has adopted for carrying on an infinite variety of operations on the surface of our own globe. I do know perfectly that it is not a law of nature for the sun or the earth occasionally to stand still I do know perfectly that it is not a law nature for iron to swim in water and I do know perfectly that it is not a law of nature for men or women, after they are literally dead, to start from their graves and mix again with human society. Nor let your correspondent feel himself at liberty to treat these declarations with sneering, or to call them the overflowings of an arrogant presumption. It is no compliment to the Deity indirectly to assert, that he has made us incapable of arriving at certainty in any thing. To : assert this, is an outrage to common sense-is an absurdity, too gross to be endured. Mr. W. C. refers me to Shakspeare for information to Shakspeare!-I beg to acquaint this gentleman, that Shakspeare is better known as a poet than as a philosopher. And if the lines which W. C. has given us, be a fair specimen of our bard's philosophical acquisitions, his fame, I acknowledge, appears to rest on its proper foundation. What! to admit, on the authority of Shakspeare, a manifest and glaring falsehood, because there may be things in heaven or earth of which we have never heard! This is rather too much. "Are not the moral laws of nature (inquires W.C.) as immutable and constant as the physical?" Certainly. The only dif ference seems to be, that the moral laws are more complicated. Men will sometimes tell truth; and sometimes lie. They are, therefore, in this respect, not so much to be depended on, as the rising of the sun or moon at its appointed hour. Not because the sun or moon is more under the direction and controul of absolute laws, than the creature man; but because that these directing and controuling laws, are, in the case of man, more multifarious, or less exposed to observation. These are all the remarks, which I think it necessary to make, on the subject of miracles. I shall close them with a recapitulation of the principal arguments; and then bow respectfully; reserving to myself, however, the liberty of restating any point, which may not have been expressed with sufficient clearness and precision. 1st. Whatever may be the true character of the Deity, that character must be taken from his conduct towards mankind at large; and not from his supposed partiality to a few favourites. 2nd. Nothing can be more fallacious than, first, to clothe the Deity with certain attributes, which are not fairly deducible from the works of nature; and then, to argue and reason from such attributes, as if they had a real existence and operation. 3rd. It is a fact, beyond the reach of dispute or controversy, that the Maker of the world has, in every age, conducted the administration of his affairs, on principles BROAD, AND FIX ED, AND UNIFORM. 4th. That when a missionary urges a belief in revelation on a native of China or Hindostan, by reminding him that there are many appearances in nature calculated to create an expection that the Deity always intended to lay open, in due time, a variety of important articles for the benefit of mankind, the Hindoo or the Chinese would be perfectly justified in refusing his assent to such a proposition. 5th. That all history abounds with instances of fraud and |