Rosalie Colie’s paper “Spinoza in England: 1665-1730,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107, number 3 (1963): 183-219, contains what appears to be a complete transcription of Boyle’s Letter on Miracles, which Collie identifies as “Mr. Boyle’s answer to Spinoza.” Because I have never seen the full text of this elsewhere – a few key excerpts are quoted in Burns’s The Great Debate on Miracles – I am going to paste in the complete text here as it appears in Collie.

APPENDIX II. Boyle Papers 111, Letter on Miracles

(“Mr. Boyle’s answer to Spinoza”)

I perceive that you have been lately told by N.N. and his Friends, that I have some uncommon sentiments about divers of the Miracles recorded in the Holy Scriptures; and that I look upon severall of those supernatural Phaenomena, as not being so Repugnant to the Laws of Nature, or perhaps not Receding so far from them, as men are wont to conceive. Wherefore I hope you will allow a Person, that is highly concern’d to stand right in your opinion, to give you himself a summary Account of his present Thoughts, whereby you may know what credit to give to the Relations you have receiv’d from others: especially, ther being few men so knowing, so impartial, and so candid, not sometimes to mistake, or, which is worse, to misrepresent, the Notions they are unaccustom’d to; particularly about nice and dark subjects, that require much Attenti[on] of Mind, as being of difficult Speculation.

And I hope I shall find my work somewhat [the] more easy, because not only N.N. and his Friends, [but y]ou your self also, are Embracers of the Cartesian [Philosophy: since on this account I may expect to fi[nd you] both less prejudic’d against my Opinions for their being uncommon, and more willing, as well as more able, to examine them.

[f. 112]

In the first place I shall inform you that by the word Miracles, that you will often meet with in the following Discourse, I understand those strange & wonderful Operations, Productions, and Phaenomena, that surpass the setled or common Course of Nature in some such manner, as that upon the whole Matter they cannot justly be attributed either to Nature left to her self, or to the skill, Power, frauds, mistakes, or credulity of men. I begin with this Declaration, partly to decline being unnecessarily engag’d to dispute about the Distinction between Divine Miracles strictly so call’d and other stupendious things that to most men seem to be supernatural; and partly that by explaining what I mean, I might obviate that Darknes and those Mistakes, which I have observ’d to proceed from the very confus’d Notion men commonly have of Miracles.

In the next place I desire you would take notice th[at] I do not at all deny, but that there may be, nay and [have been] Divine Miracles properly so call’d; that is such as cannot with probability be suppos’d to proceed from any other than the Fi[rst] Cause, that is from God. For, that the supream Being may, if he thinks fit, perform things above the Powers, and contra[ry] to the Laws, of Corporeal Beings, thô befriended by man himself; I think may be justly inferr’d from the Consideration of the boundles Perfectnes, and (if I may so speak) of the Primenes of his nature. For, as he is the Creator of Matter, and the sole Introducer of local Motion into it, so all the Laws of that Motion were at first arbitrary to him; and depended upon his Free Will: on whose account he might if he had pleas’d, have infus’d into, or (if you please) confer’d on, the whole mass of matter that he created, either a farr greater, or a far less, measure of Motion, than now it has. And he might also have setled other Laws of the Communication or Transmission of Motion from Body to Body, than those that now obtain in the Univers. As, instead of a hard Bodies

[f. 113]

communicating it’s whole Motion to another Body equal to it, that it hits against, and finds lying at rest; he might have appointed that the Movent should impart but halfe it’s motion to the Moveable. Wherefore thô the Supream Author of things, has by establishing the Laws of nature determin’d and bound up other Beings to act according to them, yet he has not bound up his own hands by them, but can envigorate, suspend, over-rule; and reverse any of them as he thinks fit.

I know there have been of late two or three Persons, much cry’d up by some witty men, than sound Philosophers; who admitting a Deity and a Providence, yet deny that there have been, or can be, any true Miracles; grounding their denial on this; That it would argue want of wisdom and foresight in God, to establish such Lawes as he might afterwards be oblig’d, or see cause, to make void or alter.

I might to this Objection very speciously oppose the concurrent suffrage that has for many Ages, and is stil given to that Assertion which it impugns, by the generality of men of almost all Religions; Christians, Jewes, Pagans, and Mahometans. But, thô I look upon this, in this particular case, as no despicable Argument; yet I have other Reasons to alleage for the Opinion attack’d by the propos’d Objection. I say then, as has been already noted; that God is a most free Agent; and his Divine Wisdom does accompany all that he does, in such a manner, as not to impair his Freedome; but concur to accomplish the Exertions or Issues of it, in the best manner that is possible. And, thô I do not only grant, but have elsewhere endeavour’d to prove, That God may have made some things in the world for some ends among others that are knowable by Us; yet I think we dim-sighted men presume too much of our own Abilities, if we dare, as some do, magisterially determine; That the great God, the most Free & Omniscient Author of Things, can have no Ends, to which it may be congruous, that some of the arbitrary Laws he has establish’d, in that little portion of his Workmanship that we men inhabit, should now & then, (thô very rarely) be control’d or receded from.

[f. 114]

I come now to that which I mainly intended to observe, which is, That God being as well the Author of the Laws and course of Nature, as of those supernaturall Phaenomena usually call’d Miracles: it becomes the profound veneration we ought to have of the divine wisdom, so to interpret the passages of the holy-scripture, wherein these wonders are recorded; as to make the natural order of things no more overrul’d, surpass’d, or receded from, then is absolutely necessary to make out the truth of the Relations, as they are delivered by the inspir’d Historians.

This consideration appeares so congruous to reason it self. that many would think it an impertinence if I should lanch out into a great discourse, to prove it. And indeed; as ‘tis generally and justly granted, that God being a most wise as well as supream Legislator, dos not work miracles, (which do as it were repeal, or controul, or suspend, the Laws which he himself establish’d in nature & without weighty reasons: ‘tis rational to conceive that he dos not even in working miracles, overrule or exceed those Laws any further, then is necessary for the production of the supernatural effects design’d: since any further recession from those Laws, seems, for so much, not to be accounted for by the same weighty reasons that may be given for the Miracle it self, abstracted from the additional recess newly mention’d.

And to this Opinion I am much the more inclin’d, because I observe, that in divers passages of Scripture, where Miracles are registred, God has been pleas’d to express a manifest regard to the stated Lawes, and usual course of things: and seems as it were to husband his omnipotence, by suffering naturall causes to performe some part of the work (and perhaps as much of it as they are able) and

[f. 114]

forbearing to display his Almighty power, save in those parts of it, that must necessarily be miraculous, because they require a power surpassing that of ordinary nature. Thus when he would bring innumerable swarmes of Locusts to infest, and punish Egypt, he brought an East wind upon the Land for a whole day & night, and the East wind brought the Locusts. And when upon Pharao’s submission and Moses’ intercession, he was pleas’d to remove that pest; the text informes us that he did not annihilate them, but sent a might strong west wind, which took away the Locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea: whereas when he took away the frogs, that were unfit to be so carried away, he caus’d them to dye in the houses, and the Fields, and left it to the Egyptians to rid themselves of their carcases; which they could not so do, but that, as the text relates, the Land stank. Thus when he employ’d a strong East wind that blew all that night to divide the waters.

[f. 115]

And here I desire it may be consider’d, that even among those things which men agree in judging to be done according to the Ordinary course of Nature, several1 things come to pass, otherwayes then would be perform’d by vertue of the Mechanical Laws that obtain among things meerly corporeal. This, thô perhaps you have not hitherto needed it, you will be in[vi]ted to grant, if you reflect upon what your Friends the Cartesians teach, about the Operation of the rational soul or mind, upon the humane Body. For thô they forbear, (as indeed Experience compells them) to ascribe to the mind a power of exciting Local Motion in matter, or communicating it to the Body; yet they give it a Power to determine & direct the motions of the Animal Spirits, and by their intervention at divers of the Limbs and other parts of the Body. But I confess I see not by what Mechanical Law or power, an immaterial Creature can at pleasure alter the determination of the motion of a Body; and make it move forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards, to the right hand, to the left; in a word, in I know not how many differing wayes. The Determination of a Body in motion, is as naturally the effect of Mechanical Laws as the motion it self; and cannot according to the course of things meerly corporeal, be altered, but by the scituation and the resistance of some Body that it meets with in its way. And consequently, if it otherwise [be] chang’d, it must be so, by some other power then meerly Mechanical: and such various determinations of motion as men arbitrarily make, when they draw Pictures, or trace the Letters of Characters belonging to differing Languages; as Hebrew, Greek, Arabick &c do curb and over-rule the motions which the Penn or Pencill would have, if the humane mind, thô an incorporeal substance, did not interpose.

[f. 116]

That the Regular Operations of Nature are by the most wise Creator directed to Determinate Ends, I have in another Paper endeavour’d to evince. But thô I there acknowledg, and am stil of Opinion, that severall of those Operations are so excellently fitted to those Ends, that divers of the Purposes of God are discoverable or knowable by Men; yet I think we presume too much of our own abilities, if we imagine that the Omniscient God can have no other Ends in the framing and managing of Things Corporeal, than such as we men can discover. And therefore I cannot look upon it as neither respectfull or safe, to conclude, that God can propose to himself no Ends that would not be incongruous to his w[is]dom, & yet be capable of inducing him to alter the orderly course that himself has establish’d among Natural Things. [The] unsearchable wisdom of God, being alwayes accompanyed [by] his Almighty Power, may have Reaches, if I may so [speak], far beyond what we purblind mortals are able [to think]. And therefore in this case it is more safe, as [I think], to conclude Affirmatively than Negatively; and [to say that] such a thing is one of Gods Ends, as for instance, That [the] Manifestations of his Glory, and the Covnmunicating of [his] Goodnes are some of his Ends in Creating the World, & [all] in it: the means being so very Apposite for these Ends; [than] it is to say That God cannot recede from the Laws he has once setled in Nature; and so, that he cannot work any Miracles, because we see not for what Rational End it can be that he should recede from these Laws, by Repealing, Suspending, or otherwise Altering them.