the danger of extending this admission beyond its proper limits, of supposing ourselves adequate judges of the tendency of doctrines; and, because unassisted Reason informs us what is moral and immoral in our own case, of attempting to decide on the abstract morality of actions; . . . These remarks are in nowise inconsistent with using (as was done in a former section) our actual knowledge of God's attributes, obtained from a survey of nature and human affairs, in determining the probability of certain professed Miracles having proceeded from Him. It is one thing to infer from the experience of life, another to imagine the character of God from the gratuitous conceptions of our own minds." Although Dr. Newman apparently fails to perceive that he himself thus makes reason the criterion of miracles and therefore incurs the condemnation with which our quotation opens, the very indecision of his argument illustrates the dilemma in which divines are placed. Dr. Mozley, however, still more directly condemns the principle which we are discussing-that the doctrine must be the criterion of the miracle-although he also, as we have

purposes for which it never was intended, and is unfitted. To rationalise in matters of Revelation is to make our reason the standard and measure of the doctrines revealed; to stipulate that those doctrines should be such as to carry with them their own justification; to reject them, if they come in collision with our existing opinions or habits of thought, or aro with difficulty harmonised with our existing stock of knowledge " (Essays, Crit. and Hist., 1872, vol. i. p. 31); and a little further on: “A like desire of judging for one's self is discernible in the original fall of man. Eve did not believe the Tempter any more than God's word, till she perceived 'the fruit was good for food" (Ib., p. 33). Dr. Newman, of course, wishes to limit his principle precisely to suit his own convenience, but in permitting the rejection of a supposed Revelation in spite of miracles, on the ground of our disapproval of its morality, it is obvious that the doctrine is substantially made the final criterion of the miracle.

1 Two Essays, &c., p. 51 f., note (h).

seen, elsewhere substantially affirms it. He says: "The position that the revelation proves the miracles, and not the miracles the revelation, admits of a good qualified meaning; but taken literally, it is a double offence against the rule, that things are properly proved by the proper proof of them; for a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural doctrine; while a supernatural doctrine, on the other hand, is certainly not the proper proof of a supernatural fact."1

This statement is obviously true, but it is equally undeniable that, their origin being uncertain, miracles have no distinctive evidential force. How far, then, we may inquire in order thoroughly to understand the position, can doctrines prove the reality of miracles or determine the agency by which they are performed? In the case of moral truths within the limits of reason, it is evident that doctrines which are in accordance with our ideas of what is good and right do not require miraculous evidence at all. They can secure acceptance by their own merits alone. At the same time it is universally admitted that the truth or goodness of a doctrine is in itself no proof that it emanates directly from God, and consequently the most obvious wisdom and beauty in the doctrine could not attest the divine origin of a miracle. Such truths, however, have no proper connection with revelation at all. "These truths," to quote the words of Bishop Atterbury, were of themselves sufficiently obvious and plain, and needed not a Divine Testimony to make them plainer. But the Truths which are necessary in this Manner to be attested, are those which are of Positive Institution; those, which if God had not pleased to reveal them, Human Reason could not

1 Bampton Lectures for 1865, p. 19.

have discovered; and those, which, even now they are revealed, Human Reason cannot fully account for, and perfectly comprehend." How is it possible then that Reason or "the moral nature in man man" can approve as good, or appreciate the fitness of, doctrines which in their very nature are beyond the criterion of reason?? What reply, for instance, can reason give to any appeal to it regarding the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Incarnation? If doctrines the truth and goodness of which are apparent do not afford any evidence of Divine Revelation, how can doctrines which Reason can neither discover nor comprehend attest the Divine origin of miracles? Dr. Mozley clearly recognizes that they

In

cannot do so. "The proof of a revelation," he says, and we may add, the proof of a miracle-itself a species of revelation" which is contained in the substance of a revelation has this inherent check or limit in it: viz. that it cannot reach to what is undiscoverable by reason. ternal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, because at every step the test is our own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fitness; but human reason cannot in the nature of the case prove that which, by the very hypothesis, lies beyond human reason." 113 It naturally follows that no doctrine which lies beyond reason, and therefore requires the attestation of miracles, can possibly afford that indication of the source and reality of miracles which is necessary to endow them with evidential value, and the supernatural doctrine must, therefore, be rejected in the absence of miraculous evidence of a decisive character.

1 Sermons, 8th ed., 1766, vol. iii., p. 198.

Bishop Butler says: "Christianity is a scheme, quite beyond our comprehension." Analogy of Religion, Part II., ch. iv., § 1. 3 Bampton Lectures for 1865, p. 15.

Canon Mozley labours earnestly, but unsuccessfully, to restore to Miracles as evidence some part of that potentiality of which these unfortunate limitations have deprived them. Whilst on the one hand he says: "We must admit, indeed, an inherent modification in the function of a miracle as an instrument of proof," he argues that this is only a limitation, and no disproof of it, and he contends that: "The evidence of miracles is not negatived because it has conditions."2 His reasoning, however, is purely apologetic, and attempts by the unreal analogy of supposed limitations of natural principles and evidence to excuse the disqualifying limitation of the supernatural. He is quite conscious of the serious difficulty of the position: "The question," he says, "may at first sight create a dilemma-If a miracle is nugatory on the side of one doctrine, what cogency has it on the side of another? Is it legitimate to accept its evidence when we please, and reject it when we please?" The only reply he seems able to give to these very pertinent questions is the remark which immediately follows them: "But in truth a miracle is never without an argumentative force, although that force may be counterbalanced." In other words a miracle is always an argument although it is often a bad one. It is scarcely necessary to go to the supernatural for bad arguments. It might naturally be expected that the miraculous evidence selected to accredit a Divine Revelation should possess certain unique and marked characteristics. It must, at least, be clearly distinctive of Divine power, and exclusively associated with Divine truth. It is inconceivable that the Deity, deigning thus to attest

1 Bampton Lectures for 1865, p. 25. 2 Ib., p. 25.

3 Ib.,

p. 25.

the reality of a communication from himself of truths beyond the criterion of reason, should not make the evidence simple and complete, because, the doctrines proper to such a revelation not being appreciable from internal evidence, it is obvious that the external testimony for them-if it is to be of any use-must be unmistakable and decisive. The evidence which is actually produced, however, so far from satisfying these legitimate anticipations, lacks every one of the qualifications which reason antecedently declares to be necessary. Miracles are not distinctive of Divine power but are common to Satan, and they are admitted to be performed in support of falsehood as well as in the service of truth. They bear, indeed, so little upon them the impress of their origin and true character, that they are dependent for their recognition upon our judgment of the very doctrines to attest which they are said to have been designed.

Even taking the representation of miracles, therefore, which divines themselves give, they are utterly incompetent to perform their contemplated functions. If they are superhuman they are not super-satanic, and there is no sense in which they can be considered miraculously evidential of anything. To argue, as theologians do, that the ambiguity of their testimony is deliberately intended as a trial of our faith is absurd, for Reason being unable to judge of the nature either of supernatural fact or supernatural doctrine, it would be mere folly and injustice to subject to such a test beings avowedly incapable of sustaining it. Whilst it is absolutely necessary, then, that a Divine Revelation should be attested by miraculous evidence to justify our believing it the testimony so called seems in all respects