there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of these accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct," is made by Paley the argument of the first nine chapters of his work, as the converse of the proposition, that similar attestation of other miracles cannot be produced, is of the following two. This shows the importance which he attaches to the point; but, notwithstanding, even if he could substantiate this statement, the cause of miracles would not be one whit advanced.

We have freely quoted these arguments in order to illustrate the real position of miracles; and no one who has seriously considered the matter can doubt the necessity for very extraordinary evidence, even to render the report of such phenomena worthy of a moment's attention. The argument for miracles, however, has hitherto proceeded upon the merest assumption, and, as we shall further see, the utmost that they can do who support miracles, under the fatal disadvantage of being contradictory to uniform experience, is to refer to the alleged contemporaneous nature of the evidence for their occurrence, and to the character of the supposed witnesses. Mr. Mill has ably shown the serious misapprehension of so many writers against Hume's "Essay on Miracles," which has led them to what he calls "the extraordinary conclusion, that nothing supported by credible testimony ought ever to be disbelieved." In regard to historical facts, not contradictory to all

1 Mill, Logic, ii. pp. 173, 175.

experience, simple and impartial testimony may be sufficient to warrant belief, but even such qualities as these can go but a very small way towards establishing the reality of an occurrence which is opposed to complete induction. It is admitted that the evidence requisite to establish the reality of a supernatural Divine Revelation of doctrines beyond human reason, and comprising in its very essence such stupendous miracles as the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension, must be miraculous. The evidence for the miraculous evidence, which is scarcely less astounding than the contents of the Revelation itself, must, logically, be miraculous also, for it is not a whit more easy to prove the reality of an evidential miracle than of a dogmatic miracle. It is evident that the resurrection of Lazarus, for instance, is as contradictory to complete induction as the resurrection of Jesus. Both the Supernatural Religion, therefore, and its supernatural evidence labour under the fatal disability of being antecedently incredible.

1 Cf. Mill, Logic, ii. p. 168.

CHAPTER IV.

THE AGE OF MIRACLES.

LET us now, however, proceed to examine the evidence for the reality of miracles, and to inquire whether they are supported by such an amount of testimony as can in any degree outweigh the reasons which, antecedently, seem to render them incredible. It is undeniable that belief in the miraculous has gradually been dispelled, and that, as a general rule, the only miracles which are now maintained are limited to brief and distant periods of time. Faith in their reality, once so comprehensive, does not, except amongst a certain class, extend beyond the miracles of the New Testament and a few of those of the Old,' and the countless myriads of ecclesiastical

1 Dr. Irons, a Prebendary of St. Paul's, in his work "On Miracles and Prophecy," lays down the rule that we are not bound to believe in any miracle narrated in the Old Testament which has not been confirmed by the direct reference to it of Jesus. By this means he quietly gets rid of the difficulties involved in such miracles, for instance, as the sun and moon standing still at the order of Joshua, and that of Balaam, p. 30 ff. The whole argument of Dr. Irons is an amazing one. In the "Bible and its Interpreters," he abandons altogether the popular theory that the Bible and the doctrines supposed to be derived from it can be established by literary evidence; and after thus cutting away all solid ground, he attempts to stand upon nothing, in the shape of the vague feeling that the records are supernatural. His admissions as to the insufficiency of the evidence are creditable to his honesty as a scholar, but his conclusion is simply lame and impotent. (Dr. Irons repudiates the insinuationnone was made in the preceding note, which is reprinted without alteration, that his book is "of the nature of an admission to which his

and other miracles, for centuries devoutly and implicitly believed, are now commonly repudiated, and have sunk into discredit and contempt. The question is inevitably suggested how so much can be abandoned and the remnant still be upheld.

As an essential part of our inquiry into the value of the evidence for miracles, we must endeavour to ascertain whether those who are said to have witnessed the supposed miraculous occurrences were either competent to appreciate them aright, or likely to report them without exaggeration. For this purpose, we must consider what was known of the order of nature in the age in which miracles are said to have taken place, and what was the intellectual character of the people amongst whom they are reported to have been performed. Nothing is more rare, even amongst intelligent and cultivated men, than accuracy of observation and correctness of report, even in matters of sufficient importance to attract vivid attention, and in which there is no special interest unconsciously to bias the observer. It will scarcely be denied, however, that in persons of fervid imagination, and with a strong natural love of the marvellous, whose minds are not only unrestrained by specific knowledge, but predisposed by superstition towards false conclusions, the probability of inaccuracy and exaggeration is enormously candour was reluctantly driven," and explains that "it is a vindication of the only possible grounds on which Revelation could rest," for " the only 'Revelation' he can ever imagine is that which has possessed the mind and conscience of the advanced portion of our race these 1800 years -the Church of the Saints of all Christendom." The admission to which we refer, whether willingly or unwillingly, is, nevertheless, fully made, and after showing Revelation to be totally unsupported by anything worthy of the name of evidence, he affirms the Religion and the Book to be Supernatural because he feels-Dr. Irons generally italicizes the word as the main prop of his theory-that they are so. No one who does not feel as he does receives much help from the theory of Dr. Irons.)

increased. If we add to this such a disturbing element as religious excitement, inaccuracy, exaggeration, and extravagance are certain to occur. The effect of even one of these influences, religious feeling, in warping the judgment, is admitted by one of the most uncompromising supporters of miracles. "It is doubtless the tendency of religious minds," says Dr. Newman, “to imagine mysteries and wonders where there are none; and much more, where causes of awe really exist, will they unintentionally mis-state, exaggerate, and embellish, when they set themselves to relate what they have witnessed or have heard;" and he adds: "and further, the imagination, as is well known, is a fruitful cause of apparent miracles." We need not offer any evidence that the miracles which we have to examine were witnessed and reported by persons exposed to the effects of the strongest possible religious feeling and excitement, and our attention may, therefore, be more freely directed to the inquiry how far this influence was modified by other circumstances. Did the Jews at the time of Jesus possess such calmness of judgment and sobriety of imagination as to inspire us with any confidence in accounts of marvellous occurrences, unwitnessed except by them, and limited to their time, which contradict all knowledge and all experience? Were their minds sufficiently enlightened and free from superstition to warrant our attaching weight to their report of events of such an astounding nature? and were they themselves sufficiently impressed with the exceptional character of

1 J. H. Newman, Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical, 1870, p. 171. This passage occurs in a reply to the argument against admitting Ecclesiastical Miracles as a whole, or against admitting certain of them, that certain others are rejected on all hands as fictitious or pretended.