mythical hypothesis of Strauss is found guilty of the logical absurdity of deducing the premise from the con- clusion : it assumes that men invented an imaginary life of Jesus because they believed him to be the ^les- siah, when the verj- supposition that the life is imagi- nary leaves the belief in the !Messiahship unexplained and inexplicable. On the other hand, the a ptiuri rea- sonings of Spinoza and Hume exhibit a vitality which is certainly not due to their logical conclusiveness, but which has enabled them in various disguises to peqdex the intellects and unsettle the faith of a different gen- eration from that for which they were first written. Hence it is that a writer who is required, by the exi- gencies of his own day, to consider the (juestion of mir- acles from an apologetic point of view, finds himself compelled to dwell mainly on the abstract argument conceniing miracles in general, rather than on the dis- tinctive features which characterize the Christian mir- acles in particular. The latter are the more pleasant and the more useful theme, when the object is the edi- fication of the believer; the former is indispensable when it is requisite to controvert the positions of the unbeUever. There is, however, one phase of the scep- tical argument which may be met by considerations of the special rather than of the general kind. It has been objected that no testimony can prove a miracle as such. 'Testimony,' we are told, 'can apply only to apparent, sensible facts; testimony can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon; that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous belief and assump- tions of the parties.' AVhatever may be the value of this objection as applied to a hypothetical case, in which the objector may select such occurrences and such testimonies as suit his purpose, it is singularly in- applicable to the works actually recorded as having been done by Christ and his apostles. It may, with certain exceptions, be applicable to a case in which the assertion of a supernatural cause rests solely on the tes- timony of the spectator of the fact ; but it is not appli- cable to those in which the cause is decLared by the performer. Let us accept, if we please, merely as a narrative of 'apparent sensible facts,' the history of the cure of the blind and dumb diemoniac, or of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate ; but we cannot place the same restriction ujwn the words of our Lord and of St. Peter, which expressly assign the supernatural cause — ' If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.' ' By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth doth this man stand here be- fore you whole.' We have here, at least, a testimony reaching to the supernatural; and if that testimony be admitted in these cases, the same cause becomes the most reasonable and probable that can be assigned to the other Avonderful works performed by the same jicr- sons. For if it be admitted that our Lord exercised a supernatural power at all, there is, to use the words of bishop Butler, 'no more presumption worth mentioning against his having exerted this miraculous power in a certain degree greater, than in a certain degree less; in one or two more instances, than in one or two few- er.' This brings us to the consideration on which the most important part of this controversy must ultimate- ly rest; namely, that the true evidence on behalf of the Christian miracles is to be estimated, not by the force of testimony in general, as comi)ared with antece- dent improbaiiility, but by the force of the peculiar tes- timony by which the Christian miracles are sujiported, as compared with the antecedent proi>ai)ility or improb- ability that a religion of sudi a char.icter shoidd have been first introduced into the world of superlnnnan agency. The miracles of Christ, and, as the chief of them all, that great crowning miracle of his resurrec- tion, are sup|)orted by all the testimony which they de- rived from liis own positive declarations concerning them, taken in conjunction with the record of his life, and the subsequent history of the Christian religion.
MIRACLES
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MIRACLES