far as it was of a nature capable of being known or witnessed by others, to be true (which is certainly to admit all that the reception of the religion can be brought to prove), and Mahomet might still be an impostor, or enthusiast, or a union of both.  Admit to be true almost any part of Christ’s history, of that, I mean, which was public, and within the cognizance of his followers, and he must have come from God.  Where matter of fact is not in question, where miracles are not alleged, I do not see that the progress of a religion is a better argument of its truth than the prevalency of any system of opinions in natural religion, morality, or physics, is a proof of the truth of those opinions.  And we know that this sort of argument is inadmissible in any branch of philosophy what ever.

But it will be said, if one religion could make its way without miracles, why might not another?  To which I reply, first, that this is not the question; the proper question is not, whether a religious institution could be set up without miracles, but whether a religion, or a change of religion, founding itself in miracles, could succeed without any reality to rest upon?  I apprehend these two cases to be very different:  and I apprehend Mahomet’s not taking this course, to be one proof, amongst others, that the thing is difficult, if not impossible, to be accomplished:  certainly it was not from an unconsciousness of the value and importance of miraculous evidence; for it is very observable, that in the same volume, and sometimes in the same chapters, in which Mahomet so repeatedly disclaims the power of working miracles himself, he is incessantly referring to the miracles of preceding prophets.  One would imagine, to hear some men talk, or to read some books, that the setting up of a religion by dint of miraculous pretences was a thing of every day’s experience:  whereas, I believe that, except the Jewish and Christian religion, there is no tolerably well authenticated account of any such thing having been accomplished.

II.  The establishment of Mahomet’s religion was affected by causes which in no degree appertained to the origin of Christianity.

During the first twelve years of his mission, Mahomet had recourse only to persuasion.  This is allowed.  And there is sufficient reason from the effect to believe that, if he had confined himself to this mode of propagating his religion, we of the present day should never have heard either of him or it.  “Three years were silently employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes.  For ten years, the religion advanced with a slow and painful progress, within the walls of Mecca.  The number of proselytes in the seventh year of his mission may be estimated by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen women, who retired to Aethiopia.” (Gibbon’s Hist. vol. ix. p. 244, et seq. ed.  Dub.) Yet this progress, such as it was, appears to have been aided by some very important advantages which Mahomet found in his situation, in his mode of conducting his design, and in his doctrine.