Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour, and Defences of His Discourses. Thomas Woolston
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pon no other View do I make a Dedication of this Discourse to your Lordship, then to submit it to your acute Judgment, expecting soon to hear of your Approbation or Dislike of it. If it so happen, that you highly approve of it, I beg of you to be sparing of your Commendations, least I should be puff'd up with them.
In my Moderator, some Expressions dropt from my Pen about the Miracles of our Saviour, which, for want of Illustration then, gave your Lordship some Offence, and brought upon me more Trouble: But, having now fully and clearly explain'd my self out of the Fathers, I hope you'll be reconciled to me; and as you are a Lover of Truth, will, against Interest and Prejudice, yield to the Force of it.
Whether your Prosecution of me, for the Moderator, was just and reasonable, I'll not dispute here, having already expostulated that Matter with you in several Letters, to which you would not condescend to give me any Answer. For what Reason you was silent, is best known to your self. But, in my own Vindication, I hope, I may publish without Offence, that your taking me for an Infidel, was such a Mistake as I thought no Scholar could have made; and the Injury done to my Reputation and low Fortunes, by the Prosecution, so considerable, that the least I expected from your Lordship, was a courteous Excuse, if not an ample Compensation, for it.
As to the Expediency of prosecuting Infidels for their Writings (in whose Cause I am the farthest of any Man from being engaged) I will here say nothing. The Argument, pro and con, has already, by one or other, been copiously handled. And I don't know but I might be, with your Lordship, on the persecuting side of the Question; but that it looks as if a Man was distrustful of the Truth of Christianity, and conscious of his own Inability to defend it; or he would leave that good Cause to God himself and the Sword of the Spirit, without calling upon the Civil Magistrate for his Aid and Assistance.
That scurvy Writer of the Scheme of literal Prophecy, &c. which your Lordship must have heard of, would insinuate, that they are only atheistical Priests, who, for fear of their Interests in the Church, set Persecutions on foot: But after your Lordship has publish'd a strenuous Defence of Christianity to the Purpose of our present Controversy, I'll have no such Suspicions of you.
Your Lordship's persecuting (or, if you will, prosecuting) Humour, is reputedly all pure Zeal for God's Glory; and, with all my Heart, let it be so accounted, whether it be according to Knowledge or not. Against Popery and Infidelity you are all Ardency! Who does not commend you? Who can question the Sincerity of the Zeal of a Protestant Bishop, and of a Protestant Clergy, when they persecute the Enemies of their Church, that considers their own Steadiness to Principles against Interest, under all Changes, since the Reformation; and their Abhorrence of Extortion upon the People, for the Duties of their Function, in and about this City. Such Honesty and Constancy in their Profession, is a Proof of the Integrity of their Hearts, or I know not where to find one.
But that your Lordship's Zeal for Religion is very remarkable and successful, I could prove by many Instances; one is, that of your routing a turbulent Sect of Peripateticks out of St. Paul's Cathedral; and if you could as effectually clear Christ's Church of Infidels, what a glorious Bishop would you be!
And what Pity is it, that Infidels likewise are not to be quell'd with your Threats and Terrors! which (without the Weapons of sharp Reasonings, and thumping Arguments, that others are for the Use of) would transmit your Fame to Posterity, for a notable Champion for Christianity, as certainly as, that your judicious Prosecution of the Moderator for Infidelity is here remember'd by,
London,
April 17, 1727.
My LORD, The Admirer of Your Zeal Wisdom and Conduct, Thomas Woolston.
A
DISCOURSE
ON THE
MIRACLES
OF OUR
SAVIOUR, &c.
f ever there was an useful Controversy started, or revived in this Age of the Church, it is this about the Messiahship of the holy Jesus, which the Discourse of the Grounds, &c. has of late rais'd. I believe this Controversy will end in the absolute Demonstration of Jesus's Messiahship from Prophecy, which is the only way to prove him to be the Messiah, that great Prophet expected by the Jews, and promised under the Old Testament. And tho' this way of Proof from Prophecy seems to labour under many Difficulties at present; and tho' some Writers against the Grounds, being distressed with those Difficulties, are for seeking Refuge in the Miracles of our Saviour; yet we must persist in it, till what I have no doubt of, his Messiahship shall be clearly made out by it.
And the way in Prophesy that I would take for the Proof of Jesus's Messiahship, should be by an allegorical Interpretation, and Application of the Law and the Prophets to him; the very same way, that all the Fathers of the Church have gone in; and the very same way, in which all the ancient Jews say their Messiah was to fulfil the Law and the Prophets: But this way does not please our ecclesiastical Writers in this Controversy, neither will they at present give any Ear to it.
The Way in Prophecy that they are for taking, is by a literal Interpretation and Application of some Prophecies of the Old Testament to our Jesus, but they are hitherto unsuccessful in this Way. The Authors of the Grounds and of the Scheme, grievously perplex them with their Objections against this way of Proof, so far as, being sensible, I say, of almost insuperable Difficulties in it, they are flying apace to the Miracles of our Saviour, as to their sole and grand Refuge.
But to show that there's no Sanctuary for them in the Miracles of our Saviour, I write this Discourse: And this I do, not for the Service of Infidelity, which has no Place in my Heart, but for the Honour of the Holy Jesus, and to reduce the Clergy to the good old way of interpreting Prophecies, which the Church has unhappily apostatis'd from, and which, upon the Testimony of the Fathers, will, one Day, be the Conversion of Jews and Gentiles.
For this Opinion, that there is no Sanctuary in the Miracles of our Saviour, I chanc'd to say in the Moderator,[1] That Jesus's Miracles, as they are now-a-days understood, make nothing for his Authority and Messiahship. And again,[2] That I believe, upon good Authority, some of the Miracles of Jesus, as recorded by the Evangelists, were never wrought, but are only related