substantiated without miracles.' Other credentials, it is true, might be exhibited in addition to miracles,--and such it would be natural to look for,-but it seems impossible that miracles could be dispensed with."1 Dr. Mansel, the late Dean of St. Paul's, bears similar testimony: "A teacher who proclaims himself to be specially sent by God, and whose teaching is to be received on the authority of that mission, must, from the nature of the case, establish his claim by proofs of another kind than those which merely evince his human wisdom or goodness. A superhuman authority needs to be substantiated by superhuman evidence; and what is superhuman is miraculous.” 2

. .

Dr. J. H. Newman, in discussing the idea and scope of miracles, says: "A Revelation, that is, a direct message from God to man, itself bears in some degree a miraculous character; . . . And as a Revelation itself, so again the evidences of a Revelation may all more or less be considered miraculous. ... It might even be said that, strictly speaking, no evidence of a Revelation is conceivable which does not partake of the character of a Miracle; since nothing but a display of power over the existing system of things can attest the immediate presence of Him by whom it was originally established." 3

Dr. Mozley has stated in still stronger terms the necessity that Christianity should be authenticated by the evidence of miracles. He supposes the case that a person of evident integrity and loftiness of character had appeared, eighteen centuries ago, announcing himself as pre-existent from all eternity, the Son of God, Maker

1 Replies to Essays and Reviews, 1862, p. 151.

Aids to Faith, 4th ed., 1863, p. 35.

3 Two E-says on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical, by John H. Newman, 2nd ed., 1870, p. 6 f.

of the world, who had come down from heaven and assumed the form and nature of man in order to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, and so on, enumerating other doctrines of Christianity. Dr. Mozley then asks: "What would be the inevitable conclusion of sober reason respecting that person? The necessary conclusion of sober reason respecting that person would be that he was disordered in his understanding By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements. Miracles are the necessary complement, then, of the truth of such announcements, which, without them, are purposeless and abortive, the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing unless it is the whole. They are necessary to the justification of such announcements, which indeed, unless they are supernatural truths, are the wildest delusions." He, therefore, concludes that: "Christianity cannot be maintained as a revelation undiscoverable by human reason, a revelation of a supernatural scheme for man's salvation, without the evidence of miracles." 2

In all points, Christianity is emphatically a Supernatural Religion claiming to be divine in its origin, superhuman in its essence and miraculous in its evidence. It cannot be accepted without an absolute belief in Miracles, and those who profess to hold the religion whilst they discredit its supernatural elements—and they are many at the present day-have widely seceded from ecclesiastical Christianity. Miracles, it is true, are external to Christianity in so far as they are evidential, but inasmuch as it is admitted that miracles alone can attest the reality of Divine Revelation they are still inseparable 1 Bampton Lectures for 1865, p. 14. 2 Ib., p. 23.

from it; and as the contents of the Revelation are so to say more miraculous than its attesting miracles, the supernatural enters into the very substance of Christianity and cannot be eliminated. It is obvious, therefore, that the reality of miracles is the vital point in the investigation which we have undertaken. If the reality of miracles cannot be established, Christianity loses the only evidence by which its truth can be sufficiently attested. If miracles be incredible the supernatural Revelation and its miraculous evidence must together be rejected.

This fact is thoroughly recognized by the ablest Christian divines. Dean Mansel, speaking of the position of miracles in regard to Christianity, says: "The question, however, assumes a very different character when it relates, not to the comparative importance of miracles as evidences, but to their reality as facts, and as facts of a supernatural kind. For if this is denied, the denial does not merely remove one of the supports of a faith which may yet rest securely on other grounds. On the contrary, the whole system of Christian belief with its evidences all Christianity in short, so far as it has any title to that name, so far as it has any special relation to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at the same time."1 A little further on he says: "If there be one fact recorded in Scripture which is entitled, in the fullest sense of the word, to the name of a Miracle, the RESURRECTION OF CHRIST is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in which the entire Christian faith must stand or fall with our belief in the supernatural."2 He, therefore, properly repudiates the view, "which represents the question of the possi

1 Aids to Faith, 1863, p. 3.

2 lb.,

Op. 4.

bility of miracles as one which merely affects the external accessories of Christianity, leaving the essential doctrines untouched." Dr. Mozley in a similar manner argues the inseparable union of miracles with the Christian faith. "Indeed not only are miracles conjoined with doctrine in Christianity, but miracles are inserted in the doctrine and are part of its contents. A man cannot state his belief as a Christian in the terms of the Apostles' Creed without asserting them. Can the doctrine of our Lord's Incarnation be disjoined from one physical miracle? Can the doctrine of His justification of us and intercession for us, be disjoined from another? . . . If a miracle is incorporated as an article in a creed, that article of the creed, the miracle, and the proof of it by a miracle, are all one thing. The great miracles, therefore, upon the evidence of which the Christian scheme rested, being thus inserted in the Christian Creed, the belief in the Creed was of itself the belief in the miraculous evidence of it. . . . Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Christianity must stand or fall together."2 Dr. Heurtley, referring to the discussion of the reality of miracles, exclaims: "It is not too much to say, therefore, that the question is vital as regards Christianity."3 Canon Westcott not less emphatically makes the same statement. "It is evident," he says, "that if the claim to be a miraculous religion is essentially incredible apostolic Christianity is simply false. . . . The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle; and if it can be shown that a miracle is either impossible or incredible, all further inquiry into the details of its history is superfluous

3 Replies to Essays and Reviews, 1862, p. 143.

1

in a religious point of view." Similarly, a recent Hulsean lecturer, Dr. Farrar, has said: "However skilfully the modern ingenuity of semi-belief may have tampered with supernatural interpositions, it is clear to every honest and unsophisticated mind that, if miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy; ... If the Resurrection be merely a spiritual idea, or a mythicized hallucination, then our religion has been founded on an error.

It has been necessary clearly to point out this indissoluble connection between ecclesiastical Christianity and the supernatural, in order that the paramount importance of the question as to the credibility of miracles should be duly appreciated. Our inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation, then, whether we consider its contents or its evidence, practically reduces itself to the very simple issue: Are miracles antecedently credible? Did they ever really take place? We do not intend to confine ourselves merely to a discussion of the abstract question, but shall also endeavour to form a correct estimate of the value of the specific allegations which are advanced.

2.

Having then ascertained that miracles are absolutely necessary to attest the reality of Divine Revelation we may proceed to examine them more closely, and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the representations of these phenomena which are given in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament the doctrine is inculcated

The Gospel of the Resurrection, 3rd ed., 1874, p. 34.

The Witness of History to Christ, Hulsean Lectures for 1870, 2nd ed., 1872, p. 25.