III.

importance of religion to our happiness in every LETTER respect, the bare poffibility that it might prove true, were there nothing else to support it, would engage his afsent and compliance: or elfe he must be supposed to act differently in this respect to what he generally does in all the other concerns of his life.

This observation is not intirely new, but it is handfomely illuftrated by this gentleman, and feems very proper to fhew, that those who neglect and defpife religion, do in this, notwithftanding their boafted pretences, act contrary to the plain dictates of reafon and good fenfe. But we need not have recourfe to this fuppofition. The evidence on the fide of religion is vaftly fuperior. And if this be the cafe, no words can fufficiently express the folly and unreasonableness of their conduct, who take up with flight prejudices and prefumptions in oppofition to it; and by choosing darkness rather than light, and rejecting the great falvation offered in the Gofpel, run the utmost hazard of expofing themselves to a heavy condemnation and punishment.

Thus I have taken the liberty you allowed me of giving my thoughts upon the paper you fent me. I cannot but look upon the young gentleman's attempt to be a laudable and ingenious. one, though there are some things in his way managing the argument, which feem not to have been thoroughly confidered, and which, I am

H 4

of

fatisfied,

LETTER fatisfied, he would have altered, if he had lived 1II. to take an accurate review of the fubject,

7

This, with a few additions fince made to it, is the fubftance of the anfwer I returned to the worthy gentleman who had wrote to me, and which I have here inferted, becaufe there are fome things in it that may tend to the farther illuftration of what I had offered in my remarks on Mr. Hume's Effay on Miracles. My next will contain fome additional obfervations relating to the Abbè de Paris, and the miracles attributed to him; together with reflections on fome paflages in Mr. Hume's Enquiry concerning the principles of morals, which feem to be intended to expofe Christianity.

LETTER

LETTER IV.

Some reflections on the extraordinary fanctity afcribed to the Abbè de Paris. He carried Superftition to a strange excess, and by his extraordinary aufterities voluntarily baftened his own death. His character and course of life of a different kind from that rational and folid piety and virtue which is recommended in the Gospel. Obfervations on fome paffages in Mr. Hume's Enquiry concerning the principles of morals. He reckons felfdenial, mortification, and humility among the Monkish virtues, and reprefents them as not only useless, but as having a bad influence on the temper and conduct. The nature of felf-denial explained, and its great usefulness and excellency fhewn. What is to be understood by the mortification required in the Gospel. This also is a reasonable and necessary part of our duty. Virtue, according to Mr. Hume, hath nothing to do with jufferance. But by the acknowlegement of the wifeft moralifts one important office of it is to support and bear us up under adverfity. The nature of humility explained. It is an excellent and amiable

virtue.

LETTER
IV.

T

H E miracles of the Abbe de Paris have

made fo great a noife in the world, and fo much advantage hath been taken of them by the enemies of Chriftianity, and particularly by Mr. Hume, that I thought it neceffary to confider them pretty largely in the 4th Letter of the second volume of the View of the Deiftical Writers. Some things have occurred fince, which have fome relation to that matter, and which I fhall here take notice of.

In p. 120 of that volume lin. 1. mention is made of the high opinion the people had conceived of the Abbè's extraordinary fanctity, as what tended very much to raise their expectations of miracles to be wrought at his tomb, and by his interceffion. If we inquire whence this opinion of his extraordinary fanctity arofe, and upon what it was founded, we fhall find it to have been principally owing to the exceffive aufterities in which he exercifed himfelf for several years, of which therefore, and of fome remarkable things in his life and character, it may not be improper to give fome account. The particulars I fhall mention are fet forth at large by the learned Mr. Mofheim in a differtation on the miracles of the Abbe de Paris, and which I did not meet with till after the publication of the fecond volume of the View of the Deiftical Writers. It is intitled Inquifitio in veritatem miraculorum Francifci

de

1

IV.

de Paris fæculi nostri thaumeturgi*. What LETTER he there tells us concerning Monf. de Paris is faithfully taken from those who hold him in the highest admiration, the Janfeniftical writers. And from their accounts it fufficiently appears, that his whole life, and especially the latter part of it, was one continued scene of the most abfurd fuperftition, and which he carried to an excess that may be thought to border upon madnefs.

He was the eldest fon of an ancient, rich, and honourable family, and therefore born to an opulent fortune: though his father, when he faw his turn of mind, very prudently left him but a part of it, and that in the hands, and under the care of his younger brother. But though he still had an ample provifion made for him, he voluntarily deprived himself of all the conveniencies, and even the neceffaries of life. He chofe one obfcure hole or cottage after another to live in, and often mixed with beggars, whom he refembled fo much in his cuftoms, fordid and tattered garb, and whole manner of his life, that he was fometimes taken for one, and was never better pleased, than when this expofed him in the streets and ways to derifion and contempt. Poverty was what he so much affected, that though he applied to his brother for what his father had left him, yet that he might not

* Vide Jo. Laur. Mofhemii Differtationum ad Hiftoriam Ecclefiafticam pertinentium Volumen fecundum.