objection to this is that savages have a religion; but the answer is that they have heard the true spoken of, as appears by the deluge, circumcision, the cross of Saint Andrew, &c.
818
Having considered how it comes that there are so many false miracles, false revelations, sorceries, &c., it has seemed to me that the true cause is that there are some true; for it would not be possible that there should be so many false miracles, if there were none true, nor so many false revelations, if there were none true, nor so many false religions, if there were not one true. For if there had never been all this, it is almost impossible that men should have imagined it, and still more impossible that so many others should have believed it. But as there have been very great things true, and as they have been believed by great men, this impression has been the cause that nearly everybody is rendered capable of believing also the false. And thus, instead of concluding that there are no true miracles, since there are so many false, it must be said, on the contrary, that there are true miracles, since there are so many false; and that there are false ones only because there are true; and that in the same way there are false religions because there is one true.—Objection to this: savages have a religion. But this is because they have heard the true spoken of, as appears by the cross of Saint Andrew, the deluge, circumcision, &c.—This arises from the fact that the human mind, finding itself inclined to that side by the truth, becomes thereby susceptible of all the falsehoods of this…
819
Jeremiah, xxiii. 32. The miracles of the false prophets. In the Hebrew and Vatable[1] they are the tricks.
Miracle does not always signify miracle, 1 Sam., xiv. 15; miracle signifies fear, and is so in the Hebrew. The same evidently in Job, xxxiii. 7; and also Isaiah, xxi. 4; Jeremiah, xliv. 12. Portentum signifies simulacrum, Jeremiah, 1. 38;
- ↑ Professor of Hebrew in the College Royal in the 16th Century.
