What crowds embrace the new belief, and hope!
It suits their taste - and saves them from the pope.
Others contend that wond'rous gifts survive
The first three centuries-or four or five.- 210
Then, sir, they close their jealous, partial view,
And grudge diviner influence its due:
Take diff'rent stations in the doctor's track,
Blaming, and backing his more close attack;
All miracles, beyond his earlier fence,
Are want of honesty, or want of sense:
All faith in bishops, confessors, and saints,
Who witness facts, a Christian priest recants:
They must-he says they must-be fables all,
That pass the bounds of his gigantic wall.
Such strange delusion if a man embrace, Without some voice, some miracle of grace, It is in vain, to reas'ners of his cast, To urge the evidence of ages past: With minds resolv'd to disbelieve, or doubt, Small is the force of history throughout. Freedom of thought exerted, and of will, To claim the privilege of judging ill, Prophets, apostles, martyrs cannot move, Nor holy church, throughout the world, disprove. But to return-how does his first assault On miracles defend a second fault! Or rabbies, or rabbinical divines,
Help Lightfoot's comment, or his own designs!
Lightfoot, without detracting from his skill,
Wrote, in this instance, with a careless quill:
Such inf'rence else had never been annext;
He must have seen that the apostles text
Could not, with reason either good or great,
Compare the prophets with a dev'lish cheat.
This learned writer, sir, did not attend
To Peter's meaning, or not apprehend;
Or, if excuse may for his haste atone,
He did not well, perhaps, express his own.
Since, by his present citer here, you see
How quite forgetful learned men may be:
For after all the scraps he had amass'd,
And this triumphant inference at last:
The text," he says, "had, in St. Peter's views, No ref'rence to himself-but to the Jews 7," 250
P. 53. "Yet St. Peter's words, after all, as they are expounded by the freethinking author above mentioned, do not necessarily imply him to mean, that prophecy was a surer argument to himself, than the voice from Heaven, but to the Jewish converts in general, who did not hear that voice, but received it only from the reports of others. It was not his view in this epistle to declare what sort of arguments was the most convincing to himself, but to propose such as were most worthy of the attention of those to whom he was writing."-P. 54. "When St. Peter therefore gays, we have a more sure word of prophecy:
Not, in his haste, aware that what he said
Knock'd all the bath-kol pedantry o' th' head;
That what, he thought, his borrow'd pages won,
His own gave up, as soon as he had done,
For if" St. Peter's words do not imply,
What he himself was most persuaded by;
But only show what arguments were fit
For their attention, sir, to whom he writ:"
The bishop's reas'ning, which he strives to cloud,
Is not unanswer'd only, but allow'd:
260
The very thing pretended to be shown
Is, by his own confession, overthrown.
Do but observe the point in question, sir,
On which the doctor makes this learned stir;
How he, who talks of " its perpetual change
By others," takes the liberty to range:
When a comparison was judg'd absurd,
Peter could make no other, was the word;
Then by a contradiction plain and flat,
Peter's comparison could not be that;
And then again,-supposing that it could,
Thus he attempts to make the matter good.
"Let Peter be himself assur'd," says he,
"As fully as 'twas possible to be,
Of ev'ry circumstance that past; he might
Have still prefer'd the old prophetic light:
This was a standing evidence, and lay
Open to cool delib'rate reason's sway;
A firmer argument, that brought along
Conviction, sir, more permanent and strong, 280
To men of sober senses, and sedate,
Than could the vision which his words relate."
Set the perplex'd equivocation by
"That's here involv'd," how easy the reply
To reasons void, if we distinguish right
Betwixt a real, and reported sight:
For be the proof, that prophecies procure,
More to the Jews comparatively sure,
As oft the text is commented upon,
(Thro' a mistake, as will appear anon)
Yet his conviction vacates the pretence
Of reason, argument, and sober sense;
Because the prophets, here to be compar'd,
As evidences of what God declar'd,
Could but originally hear and see;
And be as fully satisfy'd as he.
The use of reason has, I apprehend,
When full assurance is attain'd, an end:
When we are certain that we see, and hear,
And ev'ry circumstance is plain, and clear,
the occasion of his words oblige us to interpret them, as spoken, not with any particular reference to himself, but to the general body of the Jewish converts."
P. 62." And thus the apostle's sense, as it is expounded by the author, (Collins) is clear and consistent, not liable to any exception but what flows from that perplexity, in which his lordship has involved it by his use of equivocal terms, and perpetual change of the point in question.”
P. 52. "Let Peter be as perfectly assured, as we can suppose him to be of every circumstance, which passed in the Mount, he might still take prophecy, considered as a standing evidence, always lying open to the cool and deliberate examination of reason to be a firmer argument on the whole, and to carry a more permanent conviction with it to the sober senses of men, than the vision with which he here compares it,"
What can examination teach, or learn?
By what criterion, sir, shall we discern,
When reason comes to be so deadly cool,
The sage deliberator from the fool?
Conceive St. Peter, if you can, entic'd
(Eye-witness of the majesty of Christ;
Of what the Father, in the Mount, had done
By showing forth the glory of the Son)
To disbelieve his senses, and to pore
Some ancient standing evidences o'er;
To see if that, which, on the holy spot,
He saw and heard, was seen and heard, or not:
Would such a cool deliberating plan
Have made him pass for a more sober man?
If so, then Middleton has hit the white;
Sherlock, if not, is thus far in the right;
And well may say that no man, in his wits,
Could be attack'd by such cold reas'ning fits.
But thus the frigid argument is brought, Why Peter might, in full persuaded thought, 320 Prefer predictions in the ancient law
To what himself most surely heard, and saw:
For, after all the full convincing scene,
Which he had witness'd, how did he demean?-
With faith infirm, he shamefully deny'd
His Master, seen so greatly glorify'd1."
Yes; so he did-and gave an humbling stroke
To human confidence in reason's cloak:
Enough to lay all syllogizing trust
In bare conclusions only in the dust;
An ample proof that, in a trying hour,
Ev'n demonstration loses all its pow'r;
That, without grace, and God's assisting hand,
In time of need, no evidence can stand.
Suppose a person of the clearest head,
In logic arts well grounded, and well read;
If, with a selfish love to truth, alone,
He arm himself with weapons ail his own,
When a temptation comes-alas! how soon
The valiant reas'ner turns a mere poltroon!
Peter, tho' void of learning, and of art,
Had a courageous, had an honest heart;
Had natural abilities, beyond
All those of which the critics are so fond:
Had hidden qualities, beyond their ken;
They fish for words-he was to fish for men.
His faith, in outward evidence, was such
That Peter trusted to himself too much:
When his denial plainly was foretold,
What should have humbled made him grow more
"Tho' all should be offended-yet not I—
Not death itself shall tempt me to deny."
We see in him, sir, what the utmost height
Of boasted reason, evidence, and light,
Of courage, honesty, and even love
Could do, without assistance from above:
It could to humbler thoughts resist the call;
It proudly could prefer itself to all:
Can, in their nature, only reach so far
As things are subject to an human bar;
All these, tho' actuating Peter's zeal,
To Christian doctrine could not set the seal.
God-like humility-the sacred root
Whence ev'ry virtue branches into fruit,
Lays the foundation of the Christian life;
As reason governs that of human strife.
And, I appeal, sir, setting grace aside,
How oft is human reason human pride?
Human desire of victory, or fame?
A Babel tow'ring to procure a name?
A self assurance? an untutor'd boast?
That can but form intention, at the most;
Which, tho' directed right, must humbly ask
380
Divine assistance to perform its task.
It could, in short, upon conclusions true,
Do all that numbers upon false ones do;
Rest on itself, be confident and bounce;
And, when the call to suff'ring came-renounce.
As human resolution, courage, skill,
Conviction, evidence, or what you will,
'P. 56. "For after all the convictions which he himself had received from it, we know, that his faith was still so infirm, as to betray him into a shameful denial of his Master, whom he had seen so wonderfully glorified,"
This Peter fail'd in-and a servant maid
Made him, with all his bold resolves, afraid;
With all his sure convictions, he began
To curse, and swear, and did not know the man.
"Till, for a lesson, wond'rously addrest
To sink full deep into his humbled breast,
The cock pronounc'd, by an awakening crow,
Peter the man, whom Peter did not know.
But how, sir, did his coward speech betray
Doubt of his Maker's glorious display?
By what account in hist'ry are we taught
That e'er it came into his frighted thought?
Or, since 't is certain that he did deny,
What prophecy did he prefer thereby?
"T is then a cold absurdity to draw,
From Peter's weakness, this pretended flaw;
To hint delusion in the god-like sight,
Because the man was put into a fright:
If, from distrust of evidence, his fears,
From whence his bitter penitential tears?
Whence was it that the holy pris'ner shook
The soul of Peter, with one gracious look?
No glory then, to credit, or distrust;
And yet th' apostle's penitence was just ;
And he himself but proof, upon the whole,
That grace alone can fortify a soul.
'Tis urg'd that, " on the other hand, we find, With faith confirm'd, and with enlighten'd mind, After the mission of the Holy Ghost, That argument which he appli'd the most Was what he calls" (for so the doctor too, Takes here a vulgar errour to be true) "This more sure word of prophecy, the chief Of all his motives to enforce belief; From whence he prov'd that Jesus was, of old, Describ'd by all the prophets, and foretold2." Peter's condition, sir, is that of all Who, from the heart, obey the Christian call: They, by experience, have the triple sight Of weakness, penitence, and heav'nly light; 420 While others wrangle about outward show; Nature, and grace, and miracle they know:
2 P. 56. We know on the other hand, that after our Lord's ascension, when his faith was more fully confirmed, and his understanding enlightened by the mission of the Holy Ghost, the chief argument, which he applied in all his sermons, to evince the truth of the Gospel, was this more sure word of prophecy, as he calls it; from which he demonstrated to the Jews, how the character, doctrine, and mission of Jesus were foretold and described by the mouths of all their prophets.
Tho' not inspir'd, like Peter, and th' eleven;
Or struck, like walking Paul, by voice from Heav'n,
They meet, what others foolishly evade,
The real mission of celestial aid:
Of which, howe'er the tokens are perceiv'd,
No faithful soul can ever be bereav'd.
What does the share of it that Peter had
To all the doctor's forc'd refinements add?
Might not the bishop, justly, give him back
Some compliments bestow'd in his attack?
Such as "the nothing but an empty strain
Of rhet'ric, insignificant, and vain-
The choosing not to see, of any theme,
More than may suit his preadopted scheme-
The passing over what he should confute,
With matters foreign to the main dispute 3"—
And such-like flow'rs, upon his pages thrown,
That, full as well, become the doctor's own.
For, has the bishop, in his book, deny'd
That prophecy was properly apply'd?
No-but that Peter did a thing so odd,
As to prefer it to the voice of God.
This was the point requir'd to be explain'd,
In contradiction to what he maintain'd;
That which the doctor undertook to clear,
And make the pref'rence of the saint appear:
But while we look'd what reasons he would bring
For so incomprehensible a thing,
As common sense must reckon an appeal
From what th' Almighty should himself reveal,
Shifting the circumstances, time, and place,
In short, the question, to another case,
He tells us not of prophecy preferr'd
Its author shows great spirit, and great art,
And well performs the contradicting part;"
But, in his subsequent remarks, we find
How lamely confutation limps behind.
Fully resolv'd, and singly, to maintain
A paradox, so quite against the grain,
The learned antithaumatist must choose
"Not to instruct his reader, but amuse ";"
Whene'er he touches a prophetic clause,
"Not to illustrate, but perplex the cause,"
To speak some truth, that shows the favour'd side,
And, that which gives the whole connection, hide.
Why, else, a total silence on the head
Of miracles, in what St. Peter said?
How could recited prophecies, alone,
Prove to the Jews that Jesus was foreshown?
Had not there been that other previous proof,
To every thoughtful Jew, in his behoof?
Had not such wond'rous facts struck up the light,
That show'd their application to be right?
Trace the quotations, sir, that Peter made,
"And see their force impartially display'd;
See what solution stated fact supplies,
Without contriv'd evasion, or disguise 7."
The first occasion, which th' apostle took
To cite a passage from a prophet's book,
Was at that public, wonderful event,
Upon the blessed Spirit's first descent:
The faithful flock, that met, with one accord,
To wait the gifts of their ascended Lord,
Soon as the tokens of his presence came,
The sound celestial, and the sacred flame,
Began to speak, with holy ardour fir'd,
In various hymns, by Heav'n itself inspir'd;
This joyful voice, of a diviner laud,
Was spread thro' all Jerusalem abroad;
And pious Jews, from ev'ry distant clime
460 Residing there, that providential time,
Devout epitome of all mankind,
To voice from Heav'n, which he had just averr'd,
But how the saint apply'd, in his discourse,
Prophetic words, to give the Gospel force;
How Peter argued from them, he relates,
And proves full well-what nobody debates.
How gravely, sir, from fallacy so crude,
He prompts th' amused reader to conclude
"That any man, especially a Jew,
(As Peter was) might think the pref'rence due!
And what himself had heard th' Almighty speak,
Might be esteem'd, comparatively, weak!"
Under this millstone, oft, the struggling page Bestirs itself, but cannot disengage. "At all events resolving to confute 5, (To use his logic) or at least dispute,
Were drawn to witness that which God design'd:
His wond'rous works as Galileans sung,
All understood the spirit-utter'd tongue;
Of language, then, was no confusion known;
Each heard this one, and heard it as his own:
God gave the word himself; and all the good
Shar'd in the promis'd gift, and understood:
Tho', then, astonish'd at the wond'rous theme,
470 Prepar'd to spread it to the world's extreme.
Others, insensible of grace divine,
Mock'd at its influence, and talk'd of wine; 520
Themselves intoxicated with that pride,
By which the deaf in spirit still deride.
'Twas then that Peter, standing up to show
Th' absurd reproach, gave all of them to know
That, what these mockers call'd a drunken fit,
Was God's performance of what Joel writ
3 P. 60. "Yet all this pomp of words, this solemn appeal to the whole college of the apostles and evangelists, is nothing else but an empty strain of rhetoric, without any argument or significancy in it whatsoever."-P. 34. "One would be apt to suspect, that his lordship never chooses to see more of any subject, than what may serve that particular hypothesis which he comes prepared to support." P. 39. "It is this alone, which the nature of the subject required him to confute, and what he had undertaken to confute; but instead, he changes the question upon us, and when we were expecting reasons, &c."
P. 56. "I might now leave it to the reader to judge whether in contradiction to what the bishop maintains, a man in his wits, and especially a Jew, might not think prophecy a stronger argument in general, than a voice from Heaven, which he himself had heard."
5 P. 29. "This was the ground of his lordship's resolution to confute, or at all events to contradict
them, (the free-thinker's words); which last part he has performed with great spirit, but how far he has succeeded in the first, will be seen in the following remarks."
6P. 4. "Proper rather (speaking of the bishop's works) to perplex than to illustrate the notion of prophecy; and to amuse rather than instruct an inquisitive reader."
P. 153. Instead of contriving any evasive expedients, or fanciful systems to elude the force of such objections, I thought it my duty to examine seriously and impartially, what solution of them the subject itself, when fairly stated, would supply."
Of days, then dawning, when he would impart
His gospel gifts to ev'ry faithful heart;
Pour out his heav'nly spirit, and refresh
Not single nations only, but all flesh;
All should partake, that would, of richer grace
Now fully purchas'd for the human race.
For this was what St. Peter, then inspir'd,
Went on to show, and argument requir'd;
The Jews all knew, Messiah was to come;
That this of all prediction gave the sum:
The question was, if it had been fulfill'd
In Jesus? whom their wicked hands had kill'd.
Now, to prove this, th' apostle first applies
The miracles, perform'd before their eyes;
God's approbation of him, he defines,
Was manifest by wonders, and by signs,
Done in the midst of them-see here the ground
Prepar'd, before he offer'd to expound,
By arguments of such immediate force,
So plain, so striking, that they must, of course,
Make, secondly, to such as should take heed,
The word of prophecy more sure indeed,
And then he shows how the prophetic word
With its exact accomplishment concurr'd:
What David had prophetically said
Jesus fulfill'd, in rising from the dead;
Whereof we all are witnesses-here lay
The strength of all that any words could say:
When numbers present could the fact attest,
Thousands of souls th' accomplished word confest;
That this was he, the Lord, the Holy One,
Whom David fix'd his heart and hopes upon;
And so describ'd, as only could agree
To him, whose flesh should no corruption see. 560
His resurrection, you perceive, it was
That show'd the prophet's word now come to pass;
That made th' apostle's intimation clear,
"He shed forth this, which we now see, and hear."
Again; when Peter had restor❜d the lame
To perfect soundness, in our Saviour's name,
He told the wond'ring throng, that they had slain
The Prince of Life, whom God had rais'd again;
"Whereof we are the witnesses," says he;
Then shows how all the prophecies agree;
570
All have successively foretold these days, [raise.
And mark'd the prophet, whom the Lord should
So, when the priests and Sadducees, aggriev'd
That such increasing multitudes believ'd,
Ask'd by what pow'r he acted, Peter said,
"By that of Jesus, risen from the dead;
By him this healing miracle is wrought:"
Then quotes-"The stone, which ye have set at
nought,
On this, rejected by the builders' hands,
As a sure basis, all salvation stands."
No priest was then so impotently skill'd,
As to suggest the passage unfulfill'd;
All, by the wond'rous cure, were overcome;
The living proof was there, and struck them dumb.
In vain, a council then, as well as now,
To silence miracles, or disavow:
Peter and John could neither be deterr'd;
They needs must speak what they had seen, and
heard:
That all the preachers of the gospel trod,
When they explain'd the oracles of God:
Preach'd what themselves, without a learned strife,
"Saw, heard, and handled of the Word of Life;"
When, in their days, so mightily it grew,
And wrought such proofs that prophecy was true:
Which, tho' it pointed to the future scene,
And oft prefigur'd the Messiah's reign,
Yet gave a light, comparatively dim,
That ow'd its shining certainty to him.
Thus, sir-to come directly to the text,
With which the critics are so much perplex'd;
Whereof the real meaning, fairly trac'd,
Lays heaps of paper, printed on it, waste;
Had they adverted that St. Peter, still,
From what he saw, upon the holy hill,
Argues apostles not to have surmis'd,
Or follow'd fables cunningly devis'd;
But to have witness'd only what they knew,
From their own sight, and hearing, to be true;
And to have justly gathered, from thence,
The sure completion of prophetic sense:
To which the Jews did rightly to attend,
'Till they themselves should see it in the end;
Had they consider'd this, they would have found
Of all their wide perplexities the ground; 620
Have soon perceiv'd that, in the various brawl,
A wrong translation was the cause of all.
Peter makes no comparison between
Prophetic word, and what himself had seen;
As if he thought the vision in the Mount
Less sure to him, upon his own account.
This is a stretch by which the doctor meant
"Of public patience, sure, to try th' extent;"
Or, (still to copy so polite a clown)
"To try how far his nonsense would go down. 630
To say the truth, his pages indevout
Have furnish'd matter of offence throughout;
But here, from knowing what the world would
bear,
Grown, without ceremony, quite severe8,"
He would oblige his readers to admit
A thing, that shocks or plain, or critic wit;
That dark old prophecy, in Peter's choice,
Was held more sure than God's immediate voice:
They must admit, or else they must be weak,
Something more sure than truth itself could speak.
Nor does St. Peter, as the learned gloze,
Speaking to Jewish converts, here suppose,
That they would think comparative distrust
Of an apostle's own experience just:
8 P. 8. "But to say the truth, I have never observed a stranger instance of the public patience 580 and blind deference to the authority of a great name, than in the case of these very Discourses; which, though in all parts greatly exceptionable, and furnishing matter of offence in every page, have yet passed through many editions, not only without reproof, but with some degree even of approbation. And it was this experience perhaps of what the world would bear, which made his lordship resolve to withdraw his preface, and to treat us no longer with any ceremony; having seen that, notwithstanding the consciousness, which he had declared, of being in the wrong, the public was still disposed to think him in the right, and that his nonsense would go down with them, without giving him the trouble of making an excuse for it."
Nor charge, nor chains, nor meditated death
Could stop to God's commands th' obedient breath;
His final argument, still, Peter brings,
"We are his witnesses of all these things."
This, you may read, sir, was the real path
That Peter trod, in his confirmed faith;
That spreads a ray through places that are dark; 'Till ye, with us, enjoy the perfect light, And want no prophecies to set you right.
An English reader may be led, indeed,
To think, that, as th' apostle's words proceed
With "we have also"-it was something more,
Some surer proof than what had gone before: 660
But also," tho' without italics read,
Is an addition to what Peter said:
It only shows how our translation fail'd,
And made the blunder, that has since prevail'd;
Which, tho' sufficiently provok’d to mend,
The learned still choose rather to defend.
A writer, whose freethinking schemes incite
The bishop, and the doctor both to write;
Who had, it seems, in prophecies, a rule
First to extol, and then to ridicule,
Took, sir, bis stand on this corrupted place,
From whence he both might heighten, and dis-
grace:
One point the vulgar errour gain'd, alone;
While, for the other, he employ'd his own.
Ingenious authors answer'd him apace,
But got no triumph in this knotty place:
Good sense oblig'd them wholly to reject
St. Peter's pref'rence, in his own respect;
Collins himself th' absurdity forbore;
That height was left for Middleton to soar.
But still some other they suppos'd there was,
Something that prophecy must needs surpass :
What it was not, they easily could see;
But what it was, scarce two of them agree:
Intent some kind of pref'rence to provide,
Which "also" plainly, and "more sure" imply'd:
All, by an errour, which the simple thought
Of constring right had rectifi'd, were caught.
In this mistake the bishop too has shar'd,
"Asserting prophecy indeed compar'd,
And, by St. Peter, to the voice preferr'd,
Which he himself, upon the Mount, had heard:
Yet not, says he, as that freethinker meant;
The words relate but to that one event,
That stands upon prophetical record,
To wit, the glorious coming of our Lord.
But, one or all, to make a surer word
Than heav'nly demonstration is absurd;
9 P. 29. "His lordship's exposition of the text is this: that the word of prophecy is compared, indeed and preferred here by St. Peter to the evidence of that heavenly voice, which he himself had heard in the Mount,' yet not, as that freethinking author imagines, on the account of its being a surer proof, or better argument for the general truth of the gospel, but only for the particular article of Christ's coming again in glory, to which case alone the comparison relates; for with regard to the truth of the gospel, Peter is so far from speaking of prophecy in this place, as the best evidence, that he manifestly speaks of it as not the best."
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And glaring, in the instance that he chose,
Because that coming, as the context shows, 700
Was of such majesty, as Peter knew
That Christ was really cloth'd with, in his views
And, therefore, could not possibly say, We
Have also something surer than to see:
We were eye-witnessess of what we preach,
Yet think more certain what the prophets teach.
He contradicts, in splitting on the shelf
Of our translation, Peter, and himself;
The saint-by such restriction of his own,
As was, by him, unthought of, and unknown; 710
Himself who says that Peter, in this place,
Admitting gospel truth to be the case,
Far from preferring the prophetic test,
Has manifestly said 't was not the best.
And of all gospel truths, that you can name,
This glorious coming is the one great aim;
The sum, and substance, with respect to man,
Of heav'nly purpose, since the world began:
Divine intention could no more have been
For Christ to suffer, than for man to sin;
Tho', since that fatal accident befell,
Incarnate love would save him from a hell.
Whereas his glorious reign amongst mankind
Might, from their first existence, be design'd:
And since his suff'ring, saving advent past,
What sense of justice can deny the last?
His reigning glory, were the prophets dumb,
All things, in nature, cry aloud will come.
Besides, what better does the text afford,
To any tolerable sense restor❜d,
Compare, prefer, or construe how you will,
Than that divine appearance on the hill?
That ascertaining, in a heav'nly light,
Our Saviour's glory, by a present sight;
That record, which the Father, thereupon,
Gave of his Son to Peter, James, and John:
So full of proofs that, let what will be chief,
Doubt is too near akin to disbelief.
The doctor says, "'t is surely no offence To true religion, or to common sense, To think that, tracing circumstances out, Perplext apostles might be left in doubt." Yet may a serious reader think it is, From one plain circumstance, and that is this; When they descended from the sacred place, After partaking of this heav'nly grace, Our Saviour charg'd them that they should not To any man, the vision that befell; "Till he himself was risen from the dead: The vision then-if he knew what he said- 750 Was true, and real; while, if you complete The doctor's hints of possible deceit, To give his rash reflections any force, Our Lord himself must be deceiv'd, or worse: Such things would follow-but the horrid train Is too offensive, even to explain. [make
In fine these comments, which the learned On Peter's words, are owing to mistake: Those, which the doctor has been pleas'd to frame, Upon his whole behaviour, are the same, Nor is more learning needful in the case, Than to consult the untranslated place: The phrase, you'll see, asserts what I assert, And leaves no critic room to controvert.
'P. 54." It is no offence surely, either to reason or religion, to imagine that this wonderful apparition," &c. before quoted, line 37.
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