In this fact, that the Divine Power dwelt in its fulness in the personality of Jesus, we find the unifying principle for all the miracles of the Gospels. The master-jjrinciple of them all is contained in our Lord's own declaration, ' If I by the finger of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you' (Lk 11^'). This declaration is in complete harmonj- with His repeated affirmations that the ultimate power by which He wrotight His beneficent and mighty works was the same as tiiat by which He knew and taught the truth — the Divine power dwelling in Him (Jn 5^*- ^ 14''^). "Tlie great deeds of healing and of re\elation were due to the direct action of the Infinite Life and active Power by which all things consist ( 1 ) on the nature of Jesus, and (2) through Him, so em- powered, upon the life of man and upon the world, bur Lord makes it perfectly plain that the mirac- ^ilous deeds were morallj- conditioned, were there- fore a moral achievement, and depended upon His living faith in and union ^^■ith God. Of Himself He could do nothing ( Jn 5^^). But He also has the feeling and knowledge that in His own nature there was a potentiality of superhuman work- ing. And the chief point to emphasize i;? that the Personality of Jesus cannot be conceived of even momentarily as apart from the Divine Life. He perfectly lived in God. The purpose of all was to accomplish the Divine will by the establishment of His Kingdom among men. Here and elsewhere the miracles are represented, not as an arbitrary ptitting forth of a supernatural power altogether out of relation to any human capacity or possi- bility, but as arising spontaneously out of the unique relation He sustained to the Infinite Life ; not as something given, while it could have been withheld, for the sake of commending the moral and spiritual and personal claims of Jesus, but as A-ital and essential parts of the DiWne Revelation. The evidential value of the work was secondary, tlie need of man and the Divine impulse primary.
In order to get an intelligent faith in the Gospel miracles, it is of great consequence at what point we approach tiie problem. Tiie important matter is to begin with the less obscure, with those works wiiich are most closely and obviously related to wliat may be called the innate forces of human nature. Tliis gives its as our starting-point the ! healing works of Jesus. Carefi^l studj- must be
188
MIRACLES
MIRACLKS
given to the principles and mcthotls employed in these cases of restoration from sickness, in- firmity, and distress. A growin"' disi>osition is evident to receive tliese as genuinely historical, on tlie ground that tlicj- are not in themselves incon- ceivahle, related as they are to the forces per- ceived to be at work in tlie complex nature of man. Psychical research has brought, and is more fully bringing, to light a vast wealth of resource in the depths and lieights of human personality. And a close study of tlie methml of Jesus convinces us that He worked ui)on this comjilex nature (see art. CuHES). His miracles were not simply the output of an alien force, but the living exercise of a Divine force, deeply akin to all liuinan powers, already working m the capacities, sj-mpathies, and life- tics of humanity, utilizing the known in all their unknown ramilications, and also the unknown and unsuspected. These works are no less Divine l>e- cause they are not emphasized as supernatural, the Divine energy l>eing more truly conceived of as the normal and natural. If these deepest jirin- cii)les which our Lord follo\ve<l are duly recognizetl in cmr faith and conception, then the remaining miracles, most of which are rejected by many who receive tlie healings, become not only not incretlible, but inevitable as the completion of a revelation otherwise essentially incomplete. One who has gained a rational and imaginative faith in the heal- ing of body and mind, by the incarnate jiity and ])ower of God in Christ Jesus, will Ije jirepared to believe that it is extremely unlikelj* that Christ should so freely reveal the [Mjwer of (Itnl in this sphere, and not go l>eyond to give visible expres- sion to the power that resides in and animates and at the same time controls all Nature. .\nd those miracles which are a.ssociated with the life and career of Jesus, being wrouglit not so much by the power of our Lord, as bj- the Divine Power acting upon Him, have a strong j)resumj)tion in their favour, congruous as they are with the whole method of His mighty works and with the one revelation given in Him.
A. MIR.VCLK.S OF JICSUS.— 1. Our Lords own description of them. — A distinction must l>e made between what Jesus Himself said of the miracles and the description given by the i)eoi)leof the time, wiio were under the influence of low and vulgar ideas of a Divine revelation, and by the Evangelists, who were not altogether emancipated from current conceptions. (1) It must Ije l>orne in mind that the Synoptics give very few specilic terms which our Lord applied to His own supernormal action. They are the record of His deeds, not of His speech concerning them. But the Evangelists' descrii)tion may be taken without much deduction as a faitiiful reflexion of the Master's usage. Jesus does refer to His works, as in Mt 16^- '"* ; He speaks of casting out demons by the Spirit of God (Mt 12^) or by the finger of God (Lk U-""), and declares that ' this kind ' {tovto 5e TO yevoi) goeth not out except by prayer (Mt IT-' TR). He refers to the deed itself and its blessed result, without characterizing it by any specific term. (2) His favourite term for them, according to the Fourth Gospel, was Ipya, ' works' (Jn 5^ lO-^- 32. ST. 38) He ^^^^ t,,^ ^^^^^ ^^.^^^ ^^^