APPENDIX:

NOTE A. p. 5.

Ir is a curious piece of literary history, that this argument tative tract, precisely the same in substance, and very similar in form, is to be found in English as Leslie's, and in French, printed as an original work among the collection of the complete works of the Abbé St. Réal, the author of the half historical, half romantic narrative of the conspiracy of Venice. It is ascribed to St. Réal by Priestley, and other English writers. Leslie and St. Réal were cotemporaries, and it increases the uncertainty of the question, that the Frenchman spent some time in England, and the Englishman many years in France. But the internal evidence is strongly in favour of Leslie. The illustration drawn from Stonehenge, and the allusions to some of the popular sceptical writers of the day are much more English than French. The course of argument, and the points insisted upon, are more in the manner of a Protestant than of a Catholic writer, though not so decidedly so as to settle the question. The vigorous and close logic, and homely clearness, are more certain marks of Leslie's hand, being much in the style of his other multifarious polemical and political writings, and altogether unlike that of St. Réal, whose few theological writings, though favourites of his own, are considered as failures in point of ability, while his reputation rests chiefly upon the grace and facility of his style, and that exuberant and flowery imagination which so often tempt ed him (in the gentle phrase of his eulogist) to use its fertility as a remedy for the barrenness of history; "chercher dans la fécondité de son imagination, des ressources contre la stérilité de l'histoire."

An additional presumption against the claim of St. Réal to this work, arises from the allowed fact, that the popularity of St. Réal's name occasioned various forgeries of the booksellers, who, after his death, published as his, several works of historic fiction, which are now known to have been written by obscure authors of that day. A list of these is given in the preface to a late edition of his works, and though the title of the Method with the Deists is not among them, there seems the highest probability that this was translated from the English, and ascribed to him in the same manner, either as a trick of the trade, or, it may be, as a sort of pious fraud, to give currency to a valuable work, by lending it the attraction of a popular name.

NOTE B. p. 15.

Whether or no the prophetic language can justly bear any other than one precise meaning; or whether it may not have been originally intended to apply primarily to temporal events, and afterwards, in a manner analogous to the whole system of the Jewish law and ritual, to bear a further and moral or Christian meaning?—Whether certain passages of the Old Testament quoted in the New, are there cited as predictions really fulfilled, or simply in illustration, as a modern divine may quote scripture history in allusion to the political events of his own times, while, in fact, he neither believes, nor means to have it understood that he believes, that there is any thing like the actual fulfilment of a prediction?-These are, it is well known, subjects upon which learned and judicious men have differed. They are, on many accounts, questions of great interest, but not, in my opinion, necessarily involving that of the validity of the prophetic evidence.

The principle which I have suggested in the preceding pages is of a more general application. It is in brief this. Allowing that there is nothing of a typical or secondary sense in the Psalms, the Prophecies, or the poetry of the Old Testament, is it not still very remarkable that so much of its contents should be singu

Jarly adapted to suggest ideas analogous to the events, the uses, and the blessings of the Christian dispensation, and should bear so often a beautiful and happy allusive application to so many of them? How happens it, that so much of these compositions, which are directly applicable only to past events and usages, should be capable of being employed with such slight and natu ral adaptations to animate the devotions of Christian assemblies, or to illustrate and enrich the eloquence or the instruction of Christian teachers?

If, in reading a poet or satirist, where we could see no mark of any continued allegory, we should yet be struck with a multitude of passages, bearing the happiest and clearest application to one set of events or characters within the probable knowledge of the author, we should naturally believe that such an application, if not immediately intended, was at least among the designs of the writer.

Now, on this same principle, supported by a much larger in duction of particular allusions and applications than any poet is like to furnish, we may deduce the strongest reasons for believ⚫ing that all this system was foreseen and intended, that the correspondence and application was not accidental, but designed.

If any one doubts this inference, and supposes that the obscurities of these ancient writers are such as to enable any one to make what he fancies from them, let him choose some obscure Greek or Latin author, one of those who have most exercised the patience and ingenuity of commentators, and try the same experiment upon them. Let him take Pindar or Persius, both confessedly among the most obscure of the remains of antient literature; both of them full of unexpected and rapid transitions, of allusions to manners and institutions which are now lost, and to opinions now to be hunted out only by labori ous study. Let him see if he can apply passage after passage of such a writer in a predictive or even in a probably allusive sense, to the doctrines and history of Mahomet, or of any modern sect, or to the public events of any connected portion of the history of modern Europe or America.

From this applicability, this fitness for other uses than were originally in view, arises an evidence, if not of prediction in the strict sense, yet of fore-knowledge, of intention, of preparation, of uniformity in the whole plan of revelation.

NOTE D. p. 79.

This anticipated testimony of Socrates or Plato (no matter which) to the future revelation of man's duties, and his relation to his Creator, is peculiarly valuable on several accounts. Whilst it strikingly shows the unsatisfactoriness of all the conclusions to which reason, alone, can ever attain upon these subjects, and affords the confessions of the wisest and best men of antiquity, to the need and worth of a revelation; it also seems to me to furnish an implied practical refutation of Hume's famous though unsubstantial and purely verbal argument against miracles. This argument, which, though it has puzzled many, has, I believe, never convinced any who were not anxious to be so convinced, denies (as is well known) the possibility of any sufficient proof of miracles, because they are against uniform past experience, on which alone our belief in testimony is founded. But a revelation, such as had never been made, and to which, as Plato and Socrates believed, nothing similar had ever taken place, is equally against the uniform course of nature, with any physical miracle. Yet, these philosophers were not only ready to receive it when it should be granted, but were even led by reason to expect it with some confidence-so little contradiction is there, in fact, in any sound mind, between our belief in the continuance and regularity of the laws of nature and the acknowledgment of the power of their author to suspend or change them.

ΣΩ. Αναγκαῖον οὖν ἐσι περιμένειν ἕως ἂν τις μάθη ὡς δεῖ πρὸς θεοὺς καὶ πρὸς εἶνα θρώπους διακεῖσθαι. ΑΛ. Πότε οὖν παρέσαι ὁ χρόνος οὗτος, ὦ Σώκρατες, καὶ τίς ὁ παιδεύσων: ἥδισα γὰρ ἂν μοι δοκῶ ἰδεῖν τοῦτον τὸν ἄνθρωπον τις ἐςιν. ΣΩ. Οὗτός ἐστιν ο μέλει περὶ σοῦ. ἀλλὰ δοκεῖ μοι, ὥσπερ τῷ Διομήδει φησὶ τὴν ̓Αθη

νἂν Ὅμηρος ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἀφελεῖν τὴν ἀχλὺν, Οφρ' εὖ γιγνώσκοι ἐμὲν θεὸν δὲ καὶ ἄνδρα, οὕτω καὶ σοῦ δεῖν ἀπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς πρῶτον αφελόντα τὴν ἀχλὺν, ἥ νῦν παροῦσα τυγχάνει, τοτηνικαῦτ ̓ ἤδη προσφέρειν δὲ ὧν μέλλεις γνώσεσθαι μὲν κακὸν ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσθλόν. νῦν μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἂν μοι δοκῆς δυνηθῆναι. ΑΛ. Αφαιρείτω, εἴτε βούλεται, τὴν ἀχλὺν, εἴτε ἀλλό τι. ὡς ἐγὼ παρεσκεύασμαι μηδὲν ἂν φεύγειν τῶν ὑπ' ἐκείνου προσταττοτένων, ὅστις ποτ' ἐςὶν ὁ ἄνθρωπος· εἴγε μέλλοιμι βελό τίων γενέσθαι. ΣΩ. ̓Αλλὰ μὴν κακεῖνος θαυμαςὴν ὅσην περί σε προθυμίαν ἔχει. ΑΛ. Εἰς τότε τοίνυν καὶ τὴν θυσίαν ἀναβαλλεσθαι κράτισον εἶναι μοὶ δοκεῖ. ΣΩ. Καὶ ὀρθῶς γε σοὶ δοκεῖ. ἀσφαλέσερον γὰς ἐσιν ἢ παρακινδυνεύειν τοςοῦτον κίν δυνον. ΑΛ. ̓Αλλὰ πῶς, ὦ Σώκρατες; καὶ μὴν ταυτονὶ τὸν σέφανον, ἐπειδή δοκεῖς καλῶς συμβεβουλευκέναι, σοὶ περιθήσω· τοῖς θεοῖς δὲ καὶ ςεφάνους καὶ τάλλα πάντα τάντα τὰ νομιζόμενα τότε δώσομεν, ὅταν ἐκείνην τήν ἡμέραν ἐλε θοῦσαν ἴδω. ἥξει δ ̓ οὐ διὰ μακροῦ, τούτων θελόντων.

"SOCRATES. You must therefore remain content until some one instruct you in your duties to Heaven and to men. ALCIBIADES. When will that day arrive, my Socrates, and who will that instructor be ? Right gladly would I welcome him. Soc. He it is, whose care ever watches over you. Yet it seems to me that, as Homer relates, the divinity of Wisdom dispelled the cloud which hung before the eyes of Diomed,

And purg'd his sight, so as to distinguish God
From mortals, clearly ;-

So you, too, stand in need that this power should disperse the mist from off your mind, and then place within your reach that which will enable you to distinguish good from evil; for now, indeed, you seem to me to be quite incapable of discerning them aright. ALCIB. Let it be as He wills. Let him take away

that cloud, or any thing else, for I am resolved to submit to all his injunctions, provided only I may become better. Soc. You may rely upon his care of you being wonderful indeed. ALCIB. It is best, then, to postpone this sacrifice. Soc. You say right. It is much safer to do so, than to expose yourself to peril by an unworthy offering. ALCIB. It is so. Let me, then, present this garland to you, my wise teacher. We will duly fulfil all the sacred rites, as soon as I perceive the approach of that promised day. Heaven grant that it may not be long first."