TRACTS. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE UNITARIAN SOCIETY FOR PROMÓTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE AND THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE. SECOND SERIES. VOL. IX. CONTAINING Mr. Hugh Farmer's Dissertation on Miracles; London: PRINTED BY C. STOWER, PATER NOSTER ROW. 1805. 1 DISSERTATION ON MIRACLES, DESIGNED TO SHEW THAT THEY ARE ARGUMENTS OF A DIVINE INTERPOSITION, AND ABSOLUTE PROOFS OF THE MISSION AND DOCTRINE OF A PROPHET. Believe me for the very works sake. JOHN xiv. 11. BY HUGH FARMER. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: Printed by J. Taylor, Black-Horse-Court, Fleet-Street: AND SOLD BY J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD ; AND W. VIDLER, 349, STRAND. ! 1804. Ir is intended shortly to publish, in one volume, and in the same form, The Essay on the Dæmoniacs of the New Testament, and that on the Temptation of Christ, by the Rev. HUGH FARMer. PREFACE. THE Christian revelation well deserves the esteem of mankind on account of its intrinsic excellence: nevertheless, the proper proof of its divine original is that miraculous testimony which was borne to those who first published it to the world. But, unhappily for the interests of the Gospel, its most learned advocates have greatly impaired, if not destroyed, the force of this testimony, by asserting the power of invisible beings, of different and opposite characters, to work miracles. This opinion (than which scarce any has been more generally inculcated) has occasioned much perplexity to many sincère Christians. When they survey the miracles of the Gospel, they can scarce help feeling the force of the argument. arising from them in favour of its divinity: but when they recur to their speculative opinions concerning the power of evil spirits, their minds are in the same situation with that of the most learned of all the Jews *, when he confessed a suspicion that all miracles may be wrought by the power of magic or incantation. * Maimonides, de Fund. Leg. c. viii. sect. 1. Compare the passage from Dr. Clarke, cited ch. ii. sect. vi. p. 82. |