The disposition of matter in this famous essay is as fol- lows. First, the antecedent probability of the ecclesiastical miracles is estimated; then, their internal character is in- vestigated; then, the argument in their behalf in general is presented; and finally the major portion of the essay is given to a detailed attempt to demonstrate that a few selected miracles of greater intrinsic likelihood and better attestation than the mass, actually happened — such as those of the thundering legion, the changing of water into oil by Narcissus, the alteration of the course of the Lycus by Gregory Thaumaturgus, the appearance of the cross to Constantine, the discovery of the cross by Helena, the death of Arius, the fiery eruption which stopped Julian's attempt to build the temple at Jerusalem, the cure of blindness by relics, and the speech of the African confessors without tongues. Everywhere the reader is charmed by the delightful style, and everywhere he is led on by the hand of a master-reasoner bending facts and reason alike to follow the path appointed for them.
The opening argument runs as follows. Although there may be a certain antecedent probability against this or that particular miracle, there can be no presumption whatever against miracles generally after the Apostles, because in- spiration has borne the brunt of any such antecedent preju- dice, and, in establishing the certainty of the supernatural histories of the Scriptures, has disproved their impossi- bility in the abstract. The skilfulness of this is beyond praise. By keeping his reader's attention fixed on the possibility of miracles in the abstract, Newman quite dis- tracts it from the decisive question in the case — whether the scriptural histories of miracles do not themselves raise a presumption against the alleged miracles succeeding them. At a later point, to be sure, this question is raised. But only in a special form, namely, whether the difference between the biblical and ecclesiastical miracles is not so great that the latter become improbable if the former be
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admitted. A difference is allowed ; but its implications are avoided by an appeal to the analogy of nature, in professed imitation of Joseph Butler. It is argued, namely, that the case is very much like that of a man familiar only with the noblest animals, which have been subjected to human do- minion, who is suddenly introduced into a zoological garden and, perceiving the great variety of animal nature, the hideousness and uselessness of much of it, is led to deny that all could have come from God. Thus, says Newman, one accustomed to only the noble miracles of Scripture may be pardoned some doubt when introduced into the jungles of ecclesiastical history. But doubt here too should pass away with increasing knowledge and a broadening outlook on the divine power and works. This is the argument of the second section, on the "internal character of ecclesi- astical miracles." But the real grounds of the presumption against ecclesiastical miracles are never adverted to — namely that Scripture represents miracles to be attached to the Apostles, the vehicles of revelation, as their signs, and thus raises an antecedent presumption against any miracles having occurred after their age ; that on the testi- mony of history miracles accordingly ceased with the Apostolic age, and only after an interval are heard of again ; that, when heard of again, they are the apparent progeny of the apocryphal miracles of the Gnostic and Ebionitic romances of the second and third centuries and not of the miracles of the New Testament ; that they accordingly differ not only toto ccelo from the miracles of the Scripture in kind, but are often wrought in support of superstitions not only foreign to the religion of the Bible, but in contra- diction to it. Of all this Newman says not a word, and he manages to carry the reader so along with him by an ex- hibition of candor when candor is harmless that there is danger of its being forgotten that of all this anything ought to be said. The section on the state of the argument begins polemi-
58 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES