5. It has been already pointed out (ii. ὃ 6) that miracles are not represented in the Gospels as sufficient of themselves in all cases to generate conviction. ‘Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on Him’ (Jn 1237), All the spectators at the Raising of Lazarus were not persuaded of the claims of Christ (Jn 11%), Yet the miracles of Jesus are repeatedly said to have arrested the attention and quickened the faith of those who witnessed them (Mt 827, Lk 58, Jn 2"). Not only the disciples, but the populace were impressed (Jn 64, Lk 716), ‘Many believed on his name, beholding his signs which he did’ (Jn 2%3), is a typical statement. And this aspect of His miracles, their witness to the truth of His claims, is emphatically asserted by Christ Himself. ‘The very works that I do bear witness of me’ (Jn 5%), ‘That ye may know that the Son of man hath power Gn earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house’ (Mk 24°): the cure of the paralytic was a credential of His claim to be the pardoner of sin. When the tidings reached the disciples that Lazarus was dead, He said that it was well, for the miracle of his recovery would be the greater ‘sign’ (Jn 11). He rebuked the greedy multitudes, because they followed Him for what they might get, and not because of His signs (Jn 6%). He upbraided Chorazin and Bethsaida because His mighty works had not drawn them to repentance (Mt 112°). And St. John expressly states that the signs of Jesus were recorded ‘that ye may believe’ (Jn 2081) : the evidential function of miracles was not merely an accidental result, due to the credulity of the con- temporaries of Jesus ; it was a function, according to the Fourth Gospel, which miracles and the record of them were in some measure to fulfil throughout the Christian centuries (see, however, iv. § 7).
MIRACLE
But it is also to be observed that Christ more than once refused to work ‘signs,’ and that He often kept secret those which had been wrought. ‘Tell no man,’ He said to the leprous, the blind, the deaf, who had been healed (Mt 8* 9%, Mk 158): Herod ‘hoped to see some sign done by him’ (Lk 23°), but no sign was forthcoming. ‘The scribes and Pharisees who sought a sign were sternly re- fused (Mt 12%). The faith which would be enkin- dled by signs, though it may be true faith, is not the highest. To believe Him ‘for the very works’ sake’ is the lower stage of discipleship (Jn 14); though it, too, may find its reward (Jn 448). The highest faith is not that of Thomas, who believed when he saw the wound-prints, but that which can believe without seeing any sign (Jn 2039).
In brief, miracles are represented in the Gospels as of considerable evidential importance, although they will not convince an unwilling heart (Lk 16%), nor is the faith which they enkindle the purest form of spiritual allegiance.
iv. THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPELS.— Their Characteristics.—1. A somewhat closer examination of the miraculous element in the Gospels must now be made. We have seen that miracles are possible objectively and in the abstract ; that it is unrea- sonable to declare that no testimony can make them credible, albeit testimony of a high order may fairly be demanded; and that, when put forward as credentials, a scrutiny of their internal character is necessary as well as a scrutiny of the evidence by which they are substantiated. The miracles of the Gospel come weli out of this last test ; and we go on to ask, Are there any other leading charac- teristics which they present to our view besides this, that they are morally sublime ?
2. A second characteristic is probably that they are certain, not tentative or doubtful. Many al- leged cases of thaumaturgic power profess to be no more than this. Out of many trials there are a few successes. Such, doubtless, were the supposed cures wrought by the relics and at the tombs of martyrs. Nothing is alleged concerning them which is not alleged of various quack medicines, namely, that out of the thousands who use them a few will be found to assert that they have derived benefit. But the phenomenon presented by Christ’s miracles as recorded by the evangelists is quite different. There is nothing in the narratives which in any way suggests that the Lord attempted cures in many instances and succeeded only in a few; we seem to be told of a ‘standing miraculous power lodged in a person.’ *
To assert that the miracles of the Lord were wrought without effort, as it were, and that they are to be ascribed to the exercise of His Divine nature rather than to the operation of His human nature enriched and glorified by His indissoluble union with the Father, is a to go beyond the evidence. The power, the δύναμις which He put forth as He ‘went about doing good,’ is not spoken of as always present in the same fulness or as bearing no relation to the faith of those for whose sakes it was exercised. He said once that power had ‘gone forth’ from Him (Lk 546): He ‘sighed’ as He restored hearing to the deaf (Mk 74); and a mysterious limitation to His power to heal seems to be hinted at in passages such as Mt 18, Mk 65, of which something has been said above.t The truth is, that we so little understand the conditions of the Incarnation that we find ourselves at fault when we attempt to define closely the laws (if we may so speak) of Christ’s miraculous activity. Considerations such as have been suggested hardly touch the miracles which He wrought upon nature, as distinet from those which He wrought upon man; and all that can be gathered on this subject with confi- dence from the Gospels resolves itself into this, that while there was a ‘standing miraculous power’ in Him, there was also a