SUPERNATURAL RELIGION SUPERNATURAL RELIGION AN INQUIRY INTO THE REALITY OF DIVINE REVELATION POPULAR EDITION CAREFULL Y RE VISED [ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED] LONDON : WATTS & CO. 1902 [ The right of translation is reserved} " Credulity is as real, if not so great, a sin as unbelief." ARCHBISHOP TRENCH, Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, 8th ed., p. 27. "The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair." DR. LIGHTFOOT, St. Paul' 's Epistle to the Galatians, 4th ed., p. ix. 2095024 PREFACE IN preparing this edition it has been thought desirable to make some changes, both with the view of rendering the book more convenient to the reader, and bringing the argument as much as possible up to date. On the one hand, an entirely new chapter has been introduced dealing with the evidence of " The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," an ancient treatise which had not been published when the last edition was issued. Much pertinent matter regarding the martyrdom of Ignatius, which has hitherto only formed part of the preface to the sixth and complete editions, has now been suitably incorporated in the text. In a similar way, considerable additions have been made to the chapter on Tatian, dealing with more recent information on the nature of his Diatessaron. A still more important insertion in this edition is a critical examination of the use of the works of Josephus by the author of the third Synoptic and the Acts of the Apostles, by which fresh light has been thrown upon the date at which those writings must have been produced. On the other hand, the long lists of writers on different subjects treated in the text have been omitted, where direct quotations have not been made from their works, or where such references were not considered specially interesting. The long linguistic analyses of speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, and unneces- sary Greek quotations in the notes throughout, have also been omitted as of little interest to general readers. Any student desirous of examining these is referred to the complete or earlier viii PREFACE editions. Nothing has been removed, however, which is of any importance to the main argument, and much that is of interest has been added. For the rest, whatever improvement could be effected in the style of the book has been carefully carried out, and it is hoped that this edition has considerably gained in clearness and pre- cision. Except in this respect, the Conclusions have not been materially altered, but, on the contrary, after bearing the test of many years of thought and study, they are repeated with unhesitating confidence. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION - - - .... . - - xiii PART I. MIRACLES CHAPTER I. MIRACLES IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY J - I CHAPTER II. MIRACLES IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE - - l8 CHAPTER III. REASON IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE - - 33 CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF MIRACLES - - 55 CHAPTER V. THE PERMANENT STREAM OF MIRACULOUS PRETENSION - 83 CHAPTER VI. MIRACLES IN RELATION TO IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION - - IO9 PART II. THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS INTRODUCTION NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION TO BE UNDERTAKEN, AND CANONS OF CRITICISM - - - *<"''*<* S A. '-''> '1'* tj CONTENTS CHAPTER I. CLEMENT OK ROME - 128 THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS - 137 THE PASTOR OF HERMAS 148 THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES 149 CHAPTER II. THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS 158 THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP . - 175 CHAPTER III. JUSTIN MARTYR - - 181 CHAPTER IV. HEGESIPPUS . 268 PAPIAS OF HIERAPOLIS - - . 276 CHAPTER V. THE CLEMENTINES THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS 299 320 CHAPTER VI. BASILIDES .... . , 22 VALENTINUS ----... ^, o CHAPTER VII. MARCION - ---.... 544 CHAPTER VIII. TATIAN - . . . . . . - 766 DIONYSIf S OK CORINTH - .... - 381 CHAPTER IX. MELITO OK SARDIS - . . . . ,g_ CLAUDIUS APOLLINARIS , > J; ; - ,, . . . 3 gr ATHENAGORAS - ,,.-..- ,.. . . - 398 EPISTLE OF VIENNE AND LYONS CONTENTS CHAPTER X. PTOLEMyEUS AND HERACLEON - - 408 CELSUS - - 422 THE CANON OF MURATORI - 427 RESULTS - - 433 PART III. THE FOURTH GOSPEL CHAPTER I. THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE - 435 CHAPTER II. THE AUTHORSHIP AND CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL - $10 PART IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES CHAPTER I. THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE - 567 CHAPTER II. EVIDENCE REGARDING THE AUTHORSHIP - 585 CHAPTER III. HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE WORK. DESIGN AND COMPOSITION - 613 CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE WORK, CONTINUED. PRIMITIVE CHRIS- TIANITY - - 638 CHAPTER V. HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE WORK, CONTINUED. STEPHEN THE MARTYR .;,<;.' ,-,-. ;-. >:?,.: :T - 659 CONTENTS CHAPTER VI. HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE WORK, CONTINUED. PHILIP IN SAMARIA. PETER AND CORNELIUS - 673 CHAPTER VII. HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE WORK, CONTINUED. PAUL THE APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES ------- 686 PART V. THE DIRECT EVIDENCE FOR MIRACLES CHAPTER I. THE EPISTLES AND THE APOCALYPSE - - - 753 CHAPTER II. THE EVIDENCE OF PAUL - 756 PART VI. THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION CHAPTER I. THE RELATION OF EVIDENCE TO ITS SUBJECT - - 8oi CHAPTER II. THE EVIDENCE OF THE GOSPELS ----- 8o8 CHAPTER III. THE EVIDENCE OF PAUL - - . - 851 CONCLUSIONS INTRODUCTION THEORETICALLY, the duty of adequate inquiry into the truth of any statement of serious importance before believing it is univer- sally admitted. Practically, no duty is more universally neglected. This is more especially the case in regard to Religion, in which our concern is so great, yet whose credentials so few personally examine. The difficulty of such an investigation and the inability of most men to pursue it, whether from want of opportunity or want of knowledge, are, no doubt, the chief reasons for this neglect ; but another, and scarcely less potent, obstacle has prob- ably been the odium which has been attached to any doubt regarding the dominant religion, as well as the serious, though covert, discouragement of the Church to all critical examination of the title-deeds of Christianity. The spirit of doubt, if not of intelligent inquiry, however, has, of late years, become too strong for repression, and, at the present day, the pertinency of the question of a German writer, " Are we still Christians ?" receives uncon- scious illustration from many a popular pulpit and many a social discussion. The prevalent characteristic of popular theology in England at this time may be said to be a tendency to eliminate from Chris- tianity, with thoughtless dexterity, every supernatural element which does not quite accord with current opinion, and yet to ignore the fact that in so doing it has practically been altogether abandoned. This tendency is fostered with illogical zeal by many distin- guished men within the Church itself, who endeavour to arrest the pursuing wolves of doubt and unbelief which press upon it by practically throwing to them, scrap by scrap, the very doctrines which constitute the claims of Christianity to be regarded as a Divine Revelation at all. They try to spiritualise or dilute that which remains into a form which does not shock their reason; and yet they cling to the delusion that they still retain the consolation and the hope of truths which, if not divinely INTRODUCTION revealed, are mere human speculation regarding matters beyond reason. Christianity itself distinctly claims to be a direct Divine Revelation of truths beyond the natural attainment of the human intellect. To submit the doctrines thus revealed, therefore, to criticism, and to clip and prune them down to the standard of human reason, whilst, at the same time, their supernatural character is maintained, is an obvious absurdity. Christianity must either be recognised to be a Divine Revelation beyond man's criticism, and, in that case, its doctrines must be received even though Reason cannot be satisfied, or the claims of Christianity to be such a Divine Revelation must be disallowed, in which case it becomes the legitimate subject of criticism like every other human system. One or other of these alternatives must be adopted ; but to assert that Christianity is Divine, and yet to deal with it as human, is illogical and wrong. When we consider the vast importance of the interests involved, therefore, it must be apparent that there can be no more urgent problem for humanity to solve than the question : Is Christianity a supernatural Divine Revelation or not ? To this we may demand a clear and decisive answer. The evidence must be of no uncertain character which can warrant our abandoning the guidance of Reason, and blindly accepting doctrines which, if not supernatural truths, must be rejected by the human intellect as monstrous delusions. We propose in this work to seek a con- clusive answer to this momentous question. We must, by careful and impartial investigation, acquire the right to our belief, whatever -it may be, and not float like a mere waif into the nearest haven. Even true conclusions which are arrived at either accidentally or by wrong methods are dangerous. The current which by good fortune led to-day to truth may to-morrow waft us to falsehood. If we look at the singular diversity of views entertained, not only with regard to the doctrines, but also to the evidences, of Christianity, we cannot but be struck by the deplorable position in which Divine Revelation is now placed. Orthodox Christians may be divided into two broad classes, one of which professes to base the Church upon the Bible, and the other the Bible upon the Church. The one party assert that the Bible is fully and absolutely inspired, that it contains God's INTRODUCTION revelation to man, and that it is the only and sufficient ground for all religious belief ; and they maintain that its authenticity is proved by the most ample and irrefragable external as well as internal evidence. On the other hand, men of undoubted piety and learning, as well as unquestioned orthodoxy, admit that the Bible is totally without literary or historical evidence, and cannot for a moment be upheld upon any such grounds as the revealed word of God ; that none of the great doctrines of ecclesiastical Christianity can be deduced from the Bible, but that, notwith- standing this absence of external and internal evidence, this Revelation stands upon the sure basis of the inspiration of the Church. Can the unsupported testimony of a Church which in every age has vehemently maintained errors and denounced truths which are now universally recognised, be considered sufficient guarantee of Divine Revelation ? Obviously, there is no ground for accepting from a fallible Church and fallacious tradition doctrines which, avowedly, are beyond the criterion of reason, and therefore require miraculous evidence. With belief based upon such uncertain grounds, and with such vital difference of views regarding evidence, it is not surprising that ecclesiastical Christianity has felt its own weakness, and entrenched itself against the assaults of investigation. Such inquiry, however, cannot be suppressed. Mere scientific questions may be regarded with apathy by those who do not feel their personal bearing. It may possibly seem to some a matter of little practical importance to them to determine whether the earth revolves round the sun, or the sun round the earth ; but no earnest mind can fail to perceive the immense personal importance of Truth in regard to Religion the necessity of investigating, before accepting, dogmas, the right interpretation of which is represented as necessary to salvation and the clear duty, before abandoning reason for faith, to exercise reason, in order that faith may not be mere credulity. It was in this conviction that the following inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation was originally undertaken, and in this spirit others should enter upon it. An able writer, who will not be suspected of exaggeration on this subject, has said: "The majority of mankind, perhaps, owe their belief, rather to the outward influence of custom and education, than to any strong principle of faith within ; and it is to be feared that many, if they came to perceive how wonderful what they believed was, would not find INTRODUCTION their belief so easy, and so matter-of-course a thing as they appear to find it." 1 If it is to be more than a mere question of priority of presentation whether we are to accept Buddhism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity, we must strictly and fearlessly examine the evidence upon which they profess to stand. The neglect of examination can never advance truth, as the severest scrutiny can never retard it ; but belief without discrimination can only foster ignorance and superstition. To no earnest mind can such inquiry be otherwise than a serious and often a painful task ; but, dismissing preconceived ideas and preferences derived from habit and education, and seeking only the Truth, holding it, whatever it may be, to be the only object worthy of desire or capable of satisfying a rational mind, the quest cannot but end in peace and satisfaction. In such an investigation, however, to quote words of Archbishop Whateley, " It makes all the difference in the world whether we place Truth in the first place or in the second place "; for if Truth acquired do not compensate for every pet illusion dispelled, the path is thorny indeed, although it must still be faithfully trodden. 1 J. B. Mozley, B.D., on Miracles; Bampton Lectures, 1865, 2nd ed. p. 4. AN INQUIRY INTO THE REALITY OF DIVINE REVELATION PART I. CHAPTER I. MIRACLES IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY AT the very outset of inquiry into the origin and true character of Christianity we are brought face to face with the Supernatural. Christianity professes to be a Divine revelation of truths which the human intellect could not otherwise have discovered. It is not a form of religion developed by the wisdom of man and appealing to his reason, but a system miraculously communicated to the human race, the central doctrines of which are either superhuman or untenable. If the truths said to be revealed were either of an ordinary character or naturally attainable, they would at once discredit the claim to a Divine origin. No one could maintain that a system discoverable by reason would be super- naturally communicated. The whole argument for Christianity turns upon the necessity of such a revelation, and the consequent probability that it would be made. There is nothing singular, it may be remarked, in the claim of Christianity to be a direct revelation from God. With the exception of the religions of Greece and Rome, which, however, also had their subsidiary supposition of Divine inspiration, there has scarcely been any system of religion which has not been proclaimed to the world as a direct Divine communication. Long before Christianity claimed this character, the religions of India had anticipated the idea. To quote the words of an accomplished scholar: "According to the orthodox views of Indian theologians, B SUPERNATURAL RELIGION not a single line of the Veda was the work of human authors. The whole Veda is in some way or other the work of the Deity; and even those who received it were not supposed to be ordinary mortals, but beings raised above the level of common humanity, and less liable, therefore, to error in the reception of revealed truth." 1 The same origin is claimed for the religion of Zoroaster, whose doctrines, beyond doubt, exercised great influence at least upon later Jewish theology, and whose Magian followers are appropriately introduced beside the cradle of Jesus, as the first to do honour to the birth of Christianity. In the same way Mohammed announced his religion as directly communicated from heaven. Christianity, however, as a religion professing to be divinely revealed, is not only supernatural in origin and doctrine, but its claim to acceptance is necessarily based upon supernatural evidence ; for it is obvious that truths which require to be miraculously communicated do not come within the range of our intellect, and cannot, therefore, be intelligently received upon internal testimony. "And, certainly," says an able Bampton Lecturer, " if it was the will of God to give a revelation, there are plain and obvious reasons for asserting that miracles are necessary as the guarantee and voucher for that revelation. A revelation is, properly speaking, such only by virtue of telling us something which we could not know without it. But how do we know that that communication of what is undiscoverable by human reason is true ? Our reason cannot prove the truth of it, for it is by the very supposition beyond our reason. There must be, then, some note or sign to certify to it and distinguish it as a true communi- cation from God, which note can be nothing else than a miracle." 2 In another place the same Lecturer stigmatises the belief of the Mohammedan " as in its very principle irrational," because he accepts the account which Mohammed gave of himself, without supernatural evidenced The belief of the Christian is contrasted with it as rational, "because the Christian believes in a super- natural dispensation upon the proper evidence of such a dispensa- tion viz., the miraculous."-* Mohammed is reproached with having " an utterly barbarous idea of evidence, and a total miscalculation of the claims of reason," because he did not consider miraculous evidence necessary to attest a supernatural dispensation; "whereas 1 M. Miiller, Chips from a German Workshop, 1867, vol. i., p. 18. "J. B. Mozley, B.D., Bampton Lecturer in 1865, on Miracles, 2nd ed., 1867, p. 6f. 3 Ib., p. 30, cf. Butler, Analogy of Religion, pt. ii., chap, vii., 3; Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity, ed. Whately, 1859, p. 324 ff. 4 //>.,p. 3'- , THE NECESSITY OF MIRACULOUS EVIDENCE the Gospel is adapted to perpetuity for this cause especially, with others, that it was founded upon a true calculation, and a foresight of the permanent need of evidence; our Lord admitting the inadequacy of His own mere word, and the necessity of a rational guarantee to His revelation of His own nature and commission." 1 The spontaneous offer of miraculous evidence, indeed, has always been advanced as a special characteristic of Christianity, logically entitling it to acceptance in contradistinction to all other religions. " It is an acknowledged historical fact," says Bishop Butler, " that Christianity offered itself to the world, and demanded to be received, upon the allegation i.e., as unbelievers would speak, upon the pretence of miracles, publicly wrought to attest the truth of it in such an age ; and Christianity, including the dispensation of the Old Testament, seems distinguished by this from all other religions." 2 Most of the great English divines have clearly recognised and asserted the necessity of supernatural evidence to establish the reality of a supernatural revelation. Bishop Butler affirms miracles and the completion of prophecy to be the " direct and fundamental proofs " of Christianity.3 Elsewhere he says : " The notion of a miracle, considered as a proof of a divine mission, has been stated with great exactness by divines, and is, I think, sufficiently understood by everyone. There are also invisible miracles the Incarnation of Christ, for instance which, being secret, cannot be alleged as a proof of such a mission, but require themselves to be proved by visible miracles. Revelation itself, too, is miraculous ; and miracles are the proof of it." 4 Paley states the case with equal clearness : " In what way can a revelation be made but by miracles ? In none which we are able to conceive." 5 His argument, in fact, is founded upon the prin- ciple that "nothing but miracles could decide the authority" of Christianity. 6 In another work he asserts that no man can prove a future retribution but the teacher " who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God. "7 Bishop Atterbury, again, referring to the principal doctrines of ecclesiastical Chris- tianity, says : " It is this kind of Truth that God is properly said to reveal ; Truths, of which, unless revealed, we should have 1 /*., P. 32- - The Analogy of Religion, pt. ii. , ch. vii. , 3. 3 Ib., pt. ii. , ch. vii. * Ib., pt. ii., ch. ii., I. 5 A View of the Evidences of Christianity. " Preparatory Considerations, " p. 12. 6 Ib., p. 14. 7 Moral Philosophy, book v. Speaking of Christianity, in another place, he calls miracles and prophecy "that splendid apparatus with which its mission was introduced and attested " (book iv. ). SUPERNATURAL RELIGION always continued ignorant ; and 'tis in order only to prove these Truths to have been really revealed that we affirm Miracles to be Necessary." 1 Dr. Heurtley, Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, after pointing out that the doctrines taught as the Christian Revelation are such as could not by any possibility have been attained by the unassisted human reason, and that, conse- quently, it is reasonable that they should be attested by miracles, continues : " Indeed, it seems inconceivable how without miracles including prophecy in the notion of a miracle it could suffi- ciently have commended itself to men's belief? Who would believe, or would be justified in believing, the great facts which constitute its substance on the ipse dixit of an unaccredited teacher? and how, except by miracles, could the first teacher be accredited ? Paley, then, was fully warranted in the assertion that ' we cannot conceive a revelation ' such a revelation of course as Christianity professes to be, a revelation of truths which transcend man's ability to discover ' to be substantiated without miracles.' Other credentials, it is true, might be exhibited in addition to miracles and such it would be natural to look for but it seems impossible that miracles could be dispensed with." 2 Dr. Mansel bears similar testimony : " A teacher who proclaims himself to be specially sent by God, and whose teaching is to be received on the authority of that mission, must, from the nature of the case, establish his claim by proofs of another kind than those which merely evince his human wisdom or goodness. A superhuman authority needs to be substantiated by superhuman evidence ; and what is superhuman is miraculous." 3 Newman, in discussing the idea and scope of miracles, says : "A revelation that is, a direct message from God to man itself bears in some degree a miraculous character And as a revelation itself, so again the evidences of a revelation may all more or less be considered miraculous It might even be said that, strictly speaking, no evidence of a revelation is con- ceivable which does not partake of the character of a miracle ; since nothing but a display of power over the existing system of things can attest the immediate presence of Him by whom it was originally established." 4 Dr. Mozley has stated in still stronger terms the necessity that 1 Sermons, etc. Sermon viii., " Miracles the Most Proper Way of Proving any Religion" (vol. iii., 1766, p. 199). 2 Replies to Essays and Jteviews, 1862, p. 151. ' Aids to Faith, 4th ed., 1863, p. 35. Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical, by John H. Newman, 2nd ed., 1870, p. 6 f. 5 Christianity should be authenticated by the evidence of miracles. He supposes the case that a person of evident integrity and lofti- ness of character had appeared, eighteen centuries ago, announcing himself as pre-existent from all eternity, the Son of God, Maker of the world, who had come down from heaven and assumed the form and nature of man in order to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, and so on, enumerating other doctrines of Christianity. Dr. Mo/ley then asks : " What would be the inevitable conclusion of sober reason respecting that person ? The necessary conclusion of sober reason respecting that person would be that he was disordered in his understanding By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements. Miracles are the necessary complement, then, of the truth of such announcements, which, without them, are purposeless and abortive, the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing unless it is the whole. They are necessary to the justification of such announcements, which indeed, unless they are supernatural truths, are the wildest delusions." 1 He, therefore, concludes that " Christianity cannot be maintained as a revelation undiscoverable by human reason, a revelation of a supernatural scheme for man's salvation, without the evidence of miracles." 2 In all points Christianity is emphatically a Supernatural Religion, claiming to be divine in its origin, superhuman in its essence, and miraculous in its evidence. It cannot be accepted without an absolute belief in miracles, and those who profess to hold the religion whilst they discredit its supernatural elements and they are many at the present day have widely seceded from ecclesiastical Christianity. Miracles, it is true, are external to Christianity in so far as they are evidential, but inasmuch as it is admitted that miracles alone can attest the reality of Divine revelation they are still inseparable from it ; and as the contents of the revelation are, so to say, more miraculous than its attesting miracles, the supernatural enters into the very substance of Chris- tianity, and cannot be eliminated. It is obvious, therefore, that the reality of miracles is the vital point in the investigation which we have undertaken. If the reality of miracles cannot be estab- lished, Christianity loses the only evidence by which its truth can be sufficiently attested. If miracles be incredible, the super- natural revelation and its miraculous evidence must together be rejected. This fact is thoroughly recognised by the ablest Christian divines. Dean Mansel, speaking of the position of miracles in 1 Bainpton Lectures > 1865, p. 14. 2 Ib. t p. 23. !/ SUPERNATURAL RELIGION regard to Christianity, says : " The question, however, assumes a very different character when it relates, not to the comparative importance of miracles as evidences, but to their reality as facts, and as facts of a supernatural kind. For, if this is denied, the denial does not merely remove one of the supports of a faith which may yet rest securely on other grounds. On the contrary, the whole system of Christian belief with its evidences all Christianity, in short, so far as it has any title to that name, so far as it has any special relation to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at the same time." 1 A little further on he says : " If there be one fact recorded in Scripture which is entitled, in the fullest sense of the word, to the name of a miracle, the RESURRECTION OF CHRIST is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in which the entire Christian faith must stand or fall with our belief in the supernatural." 2 He, therefore, properly repudiates the view, " which represents the question of the possibility of miracles as one which merely affects the external accessories of Christianity, leaving the essential doctrines untouched" 3 Dr. Mozley, in a similar manner, argues the insepar- able union of miracles with the Christian faith. " Indeed, not only are miracles conjoined with doctrine in Christianity, but miracles are inserted in the doctrine and are part of its contents. A man cannot state his belief as a Christian in the terms of the Apostles' Creed without asserting them. Can the doctrine of our Lord's Incarnation be disjoined from one physical miracle ? Can the doctrine of His justification of us and intercession for us be disjoined from another? If a miracle is incorporated as an article in a creed, that article of the creed, the miracle, and the proof of it by a miracle, are all one thing. The great miracles, therefore, upon the evidence of which the Christian scheme rested, being thus inserted in the Christian Creed, the belief in the Creed was of itself the belief in the miraculous evidence of it Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Christianity must stand or fall together."* Dr. Heurtley, referring to the dis- cussion of the reality of miracles, exclaims : " It is not too much to say, therefore, that the question is vital as regards Christianity."s Dr. Westcott not less emphatically makes the same statement. " It is evident," he says, " that if the claim to be a miraculous religion is essentially incredible, apostolic Christianity is simply false The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle; and, if it can be shown that a miracle is either impossible or incredible, all further inquiry into the details of its history is superfluous in a 1 Aids to Faith, 1863, p. 3. /., p . 4 . 3 /<*, p. 5- 4 Bamplon Lectures, 1865, p. 21 f. 5 Replies to Essays and Reviews, 1862, p. 143. VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION OF MIRACLES 7 religious point of view." 1 Similarly, Dr. Farrar has said : " How- ever skilfully the modern ingenuity of semi-belief may have tampered with supernatural interpositions, it is clear to every honest and unsophisticated mind that, if miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy If the Resurrection be merely a spiritual idea, or a mythicised hallucination, then our religion has been founded on an error " 2 It has been necessary clearly to point our this indissoluble connection between ecclesiastical Christianity and the supernatural, in order that the paramount importance of the question as to the credibility of miracles should be duly appreciated. Our inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation, then, whether we consider its contents or its evidence, practically reduces itself to the very simple issue : Are miracles antecedently credible ? Did they ever really take place ? We do not intend to confine ourselves merely to a discussion of the abstract question, but shall also endeavour to form a correct estimate of the value of the specific allegations which are advanced. Having, then, ascertained that miracles are absolutely necessary to attest the reality of Divine revelation, we may proceed to examine them more closely, and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the representations of these phenomena which are given in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament the doctrine is inculcated that supernatural communications must have super- natural attestation. God is described as arming his servants with power to perform wonders, in order that they may thus be accredited as his special messengers. The Patriarchs and the people of Israel generally are represented as demanding " a sign '' of the reality of communications said to come from God, without which, we are led to suppose, they not only would not have believed, but would have been justified in disbelieving, that the message actually came from him. Thus Gideons asks for a sign that the Lord talked with him, and Hezekiah* demands proof of the truth of Isaiah's prophecy that he should be restored to health. It is, however, unnecessary to refer to instances, for it may be affirmed that, upon all occasions, miraculous evidence of an alleged divine mission is stated to have been required and accorded. The startling information is at the same time given, however, 1 The Gospel of the Resurrection, 3rd ed., 1874, p. 34. - The Witness of History to Christ, Hulsean Lectures for 1870, 2nd ed., 1872, p. 25. 3 Judges vi. 17. 4 2 Kings xx. 8 f. 8 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION that miracles may be wrought to attest what is false, as well as to accredit what is true. In one place 1 it is declared that, if a prophet actually gives a sign or wonder, and it comes to pass, but teaches the people, on the strength of it, to follow other gods, they are not to hearken to him, and the prophet is to be put to death. The false miracle is, here, 2 attributed to God himself : " For the Ix>rd your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." In the book of the Prophet Ezekiel the case is stated in a still stronger way, and God is represented as directly deceiving the prophet : " And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. "3 God, in fact, is represented as exerting his almighty power to deceive a man, and then as destroying him for being deceived. In the same spirit is the passage 4 in which Micaiah describes the Lord as putting a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets who incited Ahab to go to Ramoth-Gilead. Elsewhere, 5 and notably in the New Testament, we find an ascription of real signs and wonders to another power than God. Jesus himself is represented as warning his disciples against false prophets, who work signs and wonders : " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ? and in thy name cast out devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ?" of whom he should say : " I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." 6 And again in another place : " For false prophets shall arise, and shall work signs and wonders (o-^/xeta KOI ripo.ro) to seduce, if it were possible, the elect. "1 Also, when the Pharisees accuse him of casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, Jesus asks : " By whom do your children cast them out ?" 8 a reply which would lose all its point if they were not admitted to be able to cast out devils. In another passage John is described as saying : " Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who folio weth not us, and we forbad him. "9 Without multiplying instances, however, there can be no doubt of the fact that the reality of false miracles and lying wonders is admitted in the Bible. The obvious deduction from this representation of miracles is ' lit*!'. - ; .r -., ' . . ' Deut, xiii. I ff. * Deut. xiii. 3. Ezek. xiv. 9. The narrative of God's hardening the heart of Pharaoh in order to bring other plagues upon the land of Egypt is in this vein. 4 I Kings xxii. 14-23. 5 The counter miracles of the Egyptian sorcerers need not be referred to as Instances. Ex. vii. 11, 12, 22. 6 Matt. vii. 22, 23. 7 Mark xiii. 22, 8 Matt. xii. 27. 9 Mark ix, 38. THE ORIGIN OF MIRACLES AVOWEDLY DOUBTFUL 9 that the source and purpose of such supernatural phenomena must always be exceedingly uncertain. 1 Their evidential value is, therefore, profoundly affected, " it being," as Newman has said of ambiguous miracles, " antecedently improbable that the Almighty should rest the credit of His revelation upon events which but obscurely implied His immediate presence." 2 As it is affirmed that other supernatural beings exist, as well as an assumed Personal God, by whose agency miracles are performed, it is impossible to argue with reason that such phenomena are at any time specially due to the intervention of the Deity. Newman recognises this, but passes over the difficulty with masterly lightness of touch. After advancing the singular argument that our knowledge of spirits is only derived from Scripture, and that their existence cannot be deduced from nature, whilst he asserts that the being of a God a Personal God be it remembered can be so discovered, and that, therefore, miracles can only properly be attributed to him, he proceeds : " Still, it may be necessary to show that on our own principles we are not open to inconsistency. That is, it has been questioned whether, in admitting the existence and power of Spirits on the authority of Revelation, we are not in danger of invalidating the evidence upon which that authority rests. For the cogency of the argument for miracles depends on the assump- tion that interruptions in the course of nature must ultimately proceed from God, which is not true if they may be effected by other beings without His sanction. And it must be conceded that, explicit as Scripture is in considering miracles as signs of Divine agency, it still does seem to give created spirits some power of working them ; and even in its most literal sense intimates the possibility of working them in opposition to the true doctrine (Deut. xiii. 1-3; Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Thess. ii. 9-11). " 3 Newman repudiates the attempts of various writers to overcome this difficulty by making a distinction between great miracles and small, many miracles and few, or by referring to the nature of the doctrine attested in order to determine the author of the miracle, or by denying the power of spirits altogether, and explaining away Scripture statements of demoniacal possession and the narrative of the Lord's Temptation. " Without having recourse to any of these dangerous modes of answering the objection," he says, " it 1 Tertullian saw this difficulty, and in his work against Marcion he argues that miracles alone, without prophecy, could not sufficiently prove Christ to be the Son of God ; for he points out that Jesus himself forewarned his disciples that false Christs would come with signs and wonders, like the miracles which he himself had worked, whom he enjoined them beforehand not to believe. Adv. Mare., iii. 3. So also the Author of the Clementines, xvii. 14, '-' Two Essays on Miracles, p. 31. 3 Ib., p. SO f. io SUPERNATURAL RELIGION may be sufficient to reply that since, agreeably to the antecedent sentiment of reason, God has adopted miracles as the seal of a divine message, we believe he will never suffer them to be so counterfeited as to deceive the humble inquirer." 1 This is the only reply which even so powerful a reasoner as Newman can give to an objection based on distinct statements of Scripture itself. He cannot deny the validity of the objection; he can only hope or believe in spite of it. Personal belief, independent of evidence, is the most common and the weakest of arguments ; at the best, it is prejudice masked in the garb of reason. It is perfectly clear that miracles being thus acknowledged to be common both to God and to other spirits, they cannot be considered a distinctive attestation of divine intervention ; and, as Spinoza finely argued, not even the mere existence of God can be inferred from them ; for, as a miracle is a limited act, and never expresses more than a certain and limited power, it is certain that we cannot from such an effect conclude even the existence of a cause whose power is infinite. 2 This dual character obviously leads to many difficulties in defining the evidential function and force of miracles, and we may best appreciate the dilemma which is involved by continuing to follow the statements and arguments of divines themselves. To the question whether miracles are absolutely to command the obedience of those in whose sight they are performed, and whether, upon their attestation, the doer and his doctrine are to be accepted as of God, Archbishop Trench unhesitatingly replies : " It cannot be so, for side by side with the miracles which serve for the furthering of the kingdom of God runs another line of wonders, the counter-workings of him who is ever the ape of the Most High."3 The deduction is absolutely logical and cannot be denied. " This fact," he says, " that the kingdom of lies has its wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, is itself sufficient evidence that miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and finally, in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims." This being the case, it is important to discover how miracles perform their function as the indispensable evidence for a Divine revelation, for with this disability they do not seem to possess much potentiality. Archbishop Trench, then, offers the following definition of the function of miracles : " A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine, or the divine mission of him that brings it to pass. That which alone it claims for him at the first is a right to be listened to ; it puts him in the alternative 1 Two Essays on Scripture Miracles, p. 51 f. 2 Opera, ed Tauthnitz, vol in., cap. vi., 24. 3 Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, 8th ed., 1866, p. 22. DILEMMA FROM THEIR DUAL CHARACTER u of being from heaven or from hell. The doctrine must first commend itself to the conscience as being good, and only then can the miracle seal it as divine. But the first appeal is from the doctrine to the conscience, to the moral nature of man." 1 Under certain circumstances, he maintains, their evidence is utterly to be rejected. " But the purpose of the miracle," he says, " being, as we have seen, to confirm that which is good, so, upon the other hand, where the mind and conscience witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a right to demand sub- mission to the word which they seal. On the contrary, the great act of faith is to believe, against, and in despite of them all, in what God has revealed to, and implanted in the soul of the holy and the true; not to believe another Gospel, though an angel from heaven, or one transformed into such, should bring it (Deut. xiii. 3 ; Gal. i. 8) ; and instead of compelling assent, miracles are then rather warnings to us that we keep aloof, for they tell us that not merely lies are here, for to that the conscience bore witness already, but that he who utters them is more than a common deceiver, is eminently ' a liar and an Anti-christ,' a false prophet standing in more immediate connection than other deceived and evil men to the kingdom of darkness, so that Satan has given him his power (Rev. xiii. 2), is using him to be an especial organ of his, and to do a special work for him." 2 And he lays down the distinct principle that "The miracle must witness for itself, and the doctrine must witness for itself, and then, and then only, the first is capable of witnessing for the second." 3 These opinions are not peculiar to the Archbishop of Dublin, but are generally held by divines, although Dr. Trench expresses them with unusual absence of reserve. Dr. Mozley emphatically affirms the same doctrine when he says : "A miracle cannot oblige us to accept any doctrine which is contrary to our moral nature, or to a fundamental principle of religion."'* Dr. Mansel speaks 1 Notes, etc., p. 25. Dr. Trench's views are of considerable eccentricity, and he seems to reproduce in some degree the Platonic theory of Remi- niscence. He continues: "For all revelation presupposes in man a power of recognising the truth when it is shown him that it will find an answer in him that he will trace in it the lineaments of a friend, though of a friend from whom he has been long estranged, and whom he has well-nigh forgotten. It is the finding of a treasure, but of a treasure which he himself and no other had lost. The denial of this, that there is in man any organ by which truth may be recognised, opens the door to the most boundless scepticism is, indeed, the denial of all that is god-like in man" (/<., p. 25). The Arch- bishop would probably be shocked if we suggested that the god-like organ of which he speaks is Reason. 3 /5., p. 2;f. 3 ib. t p . 33. 4 Bainpton Lectures, 1865, p. 25. 12 to the same effect : " If a teacher claiming to work miracles proclaims doctrines contradictory to previously established truths, whether to the conclusions of natural religion or to the teaching of a former revelation, such a contradiction is allowed, even by the most zealous defenders of the evidential value of miracles, to invalidate the authority of the teacher. But the right conclusion from this admission is not that true miracles are invalid as evidences, but that the supposed miracles in this case are not true miracles at all i.e., are not the effects of Divine power, but of human deception or of some other agency." 1 A passage from a letter written by Dr. Arnold which is quoted by Dr. Trench in support of his views both illustrates the doctrine and the necessity which has led to its adoption : " You complain," says Dr. Arnold, writing to Dr. Hawkins, " of those persons who judge of a revela- tion not by its evidence, but by its substance. It has always seemed to me that its substance is a most essential part of its evidence ; and that miracles wrought in favour of what was foolish or wicked would only prove Manicheism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen world that the character of any'supernatural power can only be judged by the moral character of the state- ments which it sanctions. Thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from God or from the Devil." 2 In another place Dr. Arnold declares : " Miracles must not be allowed to overrule the Gospel ; for it is only through our belief in the Gospel that we accord our belief to them. "3 1 Aids to Faith, p. 32. - Life of Arnold, ii. , p. 226. 3 Lectures on Modern History, p. 137. Those who hold such views forget that the greatest miracles of ecclesiastical Christianity are not external to it, but are the essence of its principal dogmas. If the "signs" and "wonders" which form what may be called the collateral miracles of Christianity are only believed in consequence of belief "in the Gospel, upon what basis does belief in the miraculous birth, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, Ascension, and other leading dogmas, rest? These are themselves the Gospel. Newman, the character of whose mind leads him to believe every miracle the evidence against which does not absolutely prohibit his doing so, rather than only those the evidence for which constrains him to belief, supports ecclesiastical miracles somewhat at the expense of those" of the Gospels. He points out that only a few of the latter now fulfil the purpose of evidence for a Divine revelation, and the rest are sustained and authenticated by those few ; that ' ' The many never have been evidence except to those who saw them, and have but held the place of doctrine ever since ; like the truths revealed to us about the unseen world, which are matters of faith, not means of conviction. They have no existence, as it were, out of the record in which they are found." He then proceeds to refer to the criterion of a miracle suggested by Bishop Douglas : " We may suspect miracles to be false the account of which was not published at the time or place of their alleged occurrence, or, if so published, yet without careful attention being called to them." Newman then adds : " Yet St. Mark is said to have written at Rome, St. Luke in Rome or Greece, and St. John MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF MIRACLES AND DOCTRINES 13 It is obvious that the mutual dependence which is thus estab- lished between miracles and the doctrines in connection with which they are wrought destroys the evidential force of miracles, and that the first and the final appeal is made to reason. The doctrine, in fact, proves the miracle instead of the miracle attesting the doctrine. Divines of course attempt to deny this, but no other deduction from their own statements is logically possible. Miracles, according to Scripture itself, are producible by various supernatural beings, and may be Satanic as well as Divine ; man, on the other hand, is so ignorant of the unseen world that avowedly he cannot, from the miracle itself, determine the agent by whom it was performed; 1 the miracle, therefore, has no intrinsic evidential value. How, then, according to divines, does it attain any potentiality ? Only through a favourable decision on the part of Reason or the " moral nature in man " regarding the character of the doctrine. The result of the appeal to Reason respecting the morality and credibility of the doctrine determines the evidential status of the miracle. The doctrine, therefore, is the real criterion of the miracle which, without it, is necessarily an object of doubt and suspicion. We have already casually referred to Newman's view of such a relation between miracle and doctrine, but may here more fully quote his suggestive remarks. " Others, by referring to the nature of the doctrine attested," he says, "in order to determine the author of the miracle, have exposed themselves to the plausible charge of adducing, first the miracle to attest the divinity of the doctrine, and then the doctrine to prove the divinity of the miracle." 2 This argument he characterises as one of the "dangerous modes " of removing a difficulty, although he does not himself point out a safer, and, in a note, he adds : "There is an appear- ance of doing honour to the Christian doctrines in representing them as intrinsically credible, which leads many into supporting opinions which, carried to their full extent, supersede the need of miracles altogether. It must be recollected, too, that they who are allowed to praise have the privilege of finding fault, and may reject, according to their a priori notions, as well as receive. at Ephesus ; and the earliest of the Evangelists wrote some years after the events recorded, while the latest did not write for sixty years ; and moreover, true though it be that attention was called to Christianity from the first, yet it is true also that it did not succeed at the spot where it arose, but principally at a distance from it" (Two Essays on Miracles, etc., and ed., 1870, p. 232 f. ). How much these remarks might have been extended and strengthened by one more critical and less ecclesiastical than Newman need not here be stated. 1 Newman says of a miracle : " Considered by itself, it is at most but the token of a superhuman being " ( Two Essays, p. 10). 2 Two Essays, etc., p. 51. I 4 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION Doubtless the divinity of a clearly immoral doctrine could not be evidenced by miracles ; for our belief in the moral attributes of God is much stronger than our conviction of the negative proposi- tion that none but He can interfere with the system of nature. 1 But there is always the danger of extending this admission beyond its proper limits, of supposing ourselves adequate judges of the tendency of doctrines ; and, because unassisted reason informs us what is moral and immoral in our own case, of attempting to decide on the abstract morality of actions These remarks are in nowise inconsistent with using (as was done in a former section) our actual knowledge of God's attributes, obtained from a survey of nature and human affairs, in determining the probability of certain professed miracles having proceeded from Him. It is one thing to infer from the experience of life, another to imagine the character of God from the gratuitous conceptions of our own minds." 2 Although Newman apparently fails to perceive that he himself thus makes reason the criterion of miracles, and therefore incurs the condemnation with which our quotation opens, the very indecision of his argument illustrates the dilemma in which divines are placed. Dr. Mozley, however, still more directly condemns the principle which we are discussing that the doctrine must be the criterion of the miracle although he also, as we have seen, elsewhere substantially affirms it. He says : " The position that the revelation proves the miracles, and not the miracles the revelation, admits of a good qualified meaning ; but, taken literally, it is a double offence against the rule that things are properly proved by the proper proof of them ; for a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural doctrine ; while a supernatural doctrine, on the other hand, is certainly not the proper proof of a supernatural fact."3 1 In another place, however, Newman, contrasting the " Rationalistic" and "Catholic" tempers, and condemning the former, says : "Rationalism is a certain abuse of reason that is, a use of it for purposes for which it never was intended, and is unfitted. To rationalise in matters of revelation is to make our reason the standard and measure of the doctrines revealed ; to stipulate that those doctrines should be such as to carry with them their own justifica- tion ; to reject them if they come in collision with our existing opinions or habits of thought, or are with difficulty harmonised with our existing stock of knowledge" (Essays, Crit. and Hist., 1872, vol. i.; p. 31); and a little further on: "A like desire of judging for one's self is discernible in the original fall of man. Eve did not believe the Tempter any more than God's word, till she perceived ' the fruit was good for food ' " (Ib., p. 33). Newman, of course, wishes to limit his principle precisely to suit his own convenience ; but in permitting the rejection of a supposed revelation in spite of miracles, on the ground of our disapproval of its morality, it is obvious that the doctrine is substantially made the final criterion of the miracle. 2 Two Essays, etc. , p. 5 1 f. , note (k). 3 Bampton Lectures, 1865, p. 19. DOCTRINE AS THE CRITERION OF MIRACLES 15 This statement is obviously true, but it is equally undeniable that, their origin being uncertain, miracles have no distinctive evidential force. How far, then, we may inquire in order thoroughly to understand the position, can doctrines prove the reality of miracles or determine the agency by which they are performed? In the case of moral truths within the limits of reason, it is evident that doctrines which are in accordance with our ideas of what is good and right do not require miraculous evidence at all. They can secure acceptance by their own merits alone. At the same time, it is universally admitted that the truth or goodness of a doctrine is, in itself, no proof that it emanates directly from God, and consequently the most obvious wisdom and beauty in the doctrine could not attest the Divine origin of a miracle. Such truths, however, have no proper connection with revelation at all. " These truths," to quote the words of Bishop Atterbury, " were of themselves sufficiently obvious and plain, and needed not a Divine testimony to make them plainer. But the truths which are necessary in this manner to be attested are those which are of positive institution ; those which, if God had not pleased to reveal them, human reason could not have discovered ; and those which, even now they are revealed, human reason cannot fully account for and perfectly comprehend." 1 How is it possible, then, that reason or " the moral nature in man " can approve as good, or appreciate the fitness of, doctrines which in their very nature are beyond the criterion of reason ? 2 What reply, for instance, can reason give to any appeal to it regarding the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Incarnation ? If doctrines the truth and goodness of which are apparent do not afford any evidence of Divine revelation, how can doctrines which reason can neither discover nor comprehend attest the Divine origin of miracles ? Dr. Mozley clearly recognises that they cannot do so. " The proof of a revelation," he says and, we may add, the proof of a miracle, itself a species of revelation " which is contained in the substance of a revelation, has this inherent check or limit in it : viz., that it cannot reach to what is undiscoverable by reason. Internal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, because at every step the test is our own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fitness; but human reason cannot in the nature of the case prove that which, by the very hypothesis, lies beyond human reason."3 It naturally follows that no doctrine which lies beyond reason, and therefore requires 1 Sermons, 8th ed. , 1766, vol. Hi., p. 198. 2 Bishop Butler says : " Christianity is a scheme quite beyond our compre- hension " (Analogy of Religion, part ii. , ch. iv., i). 3 Bainpton Lectures, 1865, p. 15. 16 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION the attestation of miracles, can possibly afford that indication of the source and reality of miracles which is necessary to endow them with evidential value ; and the supernatural doctrine must, therefore, be rejected in the absence of miraculous evidence of a decisive character. Dr. Mozley labours earnestly, but unsuccessfully, to restore to miracles as evidence some part of that potentiality of which these unfortunate limitations have deprived them. Whilst, on the one hand, he says, " We must admit, indeed, an inherent modification in the function of a miracle as an instrument of proof," 1 he argues that this is only a limitation, and no disproof of it, and he contends that " The evidence of miracles is not negative, because it has conditions." 2 His reasoning, however, is purely apologetic, and attempts, by the unreal analogy of supposed limitations of natural principles and evidence, to excuse the disqualifying limitation of the supernatural. He is quite conscious of the serious difficulty of the position. " The question," he says, " may at first sight create a dilemma If a miracle is nugatory on the side of one doctrine, what cogency has it on the side of another ? Is it legitimate to accept its evidence when we please, and reject it when we please ?" The only reply he seems able to give to these very pertinent questions is the remark which immediately follows them : " But in truth a miracle is never without an argumentative force, although that force may be counterbalanced.'^ In other words, a miracle is always an argument, although it is often a bad one. It is scarcely necessary to go to the supernatural for bad arguments. It might naturally be expected that the miraculous evidence selected to accredit a Divine revelation should possess certain unique and marked characteristics. It must, at least, be clearly distinctive of Divine power, and exclusively associated with Divine truth. It is inconceivable that the Deity, deigning thus to attest the reality of a communication from himself of truths beyond the criterion of reason, should not make the evidence simple and complete, because, the doctrines proper to such a revelation not being appreciable from internal evidence, it is obvious that the external testimony for them if it is to be of any use must be unmistakable and decisive. The evidence which is actually produced, however, so far from satisfying these legitimate anticipations, lacks every one of the qualifications which reason antecedently declares to be necessary. Miracles are not distinctive of Divine power, but are common to Satan, and they are admitted to be performed in support of falsehood as well as in the service of truth. They bear, indeed, so little upon them the impress of their origin and true character that they are dependent for their 1 Bampton Lectures, p. 25. 2 76., fy 25. 3 76., p. 25. MIRACLES INCOMPETENT TO PERFORM FUNCTION 17 recognition upon our judgment of the very doctrines to attest which they are said to have been designed. Even taking the representation of miracles, therefore, which divines themselves give, they are utterly incompetent to perform their contemplated functions. If they are superhuman they are not super-Satanic, and there is no sense in which they can be considered miraculously evidential of anything. To argue, as theologians do, that the ambiguity of their testimony is deliberately intended as a trial of our faith is absurd, for, reason being unable to judge of the nature either of supernatural fact or supernatural doctrine, it would be mere folly and injustice to subject to such a test beings avowedly incapable of sustaining it. Whilst it is absolutely necessary, then, that a Divine revelation should be attested by miraculous evidence to justify our believing it, the testimony so-called seems, in all respects, unworthy of the name, and presents anomalies much more suggestive of human invention than Divine originality. We are, in fact, prepared, even by the Scriptural account of miracles, to expect that further examination will supply an explanation of such phenomena which will wholly remove them from the region of the supernatural. CHAPTER II. MI. MIRACLES IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE WITHOUT at present touching the question as to their reality, it may be well to ascertain what miracles are considered to be, and how far, and in what sense, it is asserted that they are supernatural. We have, hitherto, almost entirely confined our attention to the arguments of English divines, and we must for the present continue chiefly to deal with them, for it may broadly be said that they alone, at the present day, maintain the reality and supernatural character of such phenomena. No thoughtful mind can fail to see that, considering the function of miracles, this is the only logical and consistent course. 1 The insuperable difficulties in the way of admitting the reality of miracles, however, have driven the great majority of continental, as well as very many English, theologians who still pretend to a certain orthodoxy, either to explain the miracles of the Gospel naturally, or to suppress them altogether. Since Schleiermacher denounced the idea of Divine interuptions of the order of nature, and explained away the super- natural character of miracles, by denning them as merely relative miracles to us, but in reality mere anticipations of human knowledge and power his example has been more or less followed throughout Germany, and almost every expedient has been adopted by would-be orthodox writers to reduce, or altogether eliminate, the miraculous elements. The attempts which have been made to do this, and yet to maintain the semblance of unshaken belief in the main points of ecclesiastical Christianity, have lamentably failed, from the hopeless nature of the task and the fundamental error of the conception. The endeavour of Paulus and his school to get rid of the supernatural by a bold naturalistic interpretation of the language of the Gospel naratives, whilst the credibility of the record was represented as intact, was too glaring an outrage upon common sense to be successful; but it was scarcely more illogical than subsequent efforts to suppress the 1 Newman writes : " Nay, if we only go so far as to realise what Christianity is, when considered merely as a creed, and what stupendous overpowering facts are involved in the doctrine of a Divine Incarnation, we shall feel that no miracle can be great after it, nothing strange or marvellous, nothing beyond expectation " ( 7 wo Essays on Scripture Miracles, etc., 1870, p. 185). 18 ANALYSIS OF MIRACLES 19 miraculous, yet retain the creed. The great majority of modern German critics, however, reject the miraculous altogether, and consider the question as no longer worthy of discussion ; and most of those who have not distinctly expressed this view either resort to every linguistic device to evade the difficulty, or betray by their hesitation the feebleness of their belief. 1 In dealing with the question of miracles, therefore, it is not to Germany we must turn, but to England, where their reality is still maintained. Archbishop Trench rejects with disdain the attempts of Schleier- macher and others to get rid of the miraculous elements of miracles, by making them relative, which he rightly considers to be merely " a decently veiled denial of the miracle altogether "; 2 and he will not accept any reconciliation which sacrifices the miracle, " which," he logically affirms, " is, in fact, no miracle, if it lay in nature already, if it was only the evoking of forces latent therein, not a new thing, not the bringing in of the novel powers of a higher world ; if the mysterious processes and powers by which those works were brought about had been only undiscovered hitherto, and not undiscoverable, by the efforts of human inquiry. "3 When Dr. Trench tries to define what he considers 1 It may be well to refer more particularly to the views of Ewald, one of the most profound scholars, but, at the same time, arbitrary critics, of this time. In his great work, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, he rejects the supernatural from all the "miracles" of the Old Testament (cf. III. Ausg. 1864, Band i., p. 385 ff., ii., p. 88 f., 101 ft"., 353 ff.), and in the fifth volume Christus u.s. Zeit, he does not belie his previous opinions. lie deliberately repudiates the miraculous birth of Jesus (v. p. 236), rejects the supernatural from the birth of John the Baptist, and denies the relationship (Luke i. 36) between him and Jesus (p. 230 ff.). The miraculous events at the Crucifixion are mere poetical imaginations (p. 581). The Resurrection is the creation of the pious longing and excited^ feeling of the disciples (Band vi. Gesch. des Apost. Zeitalters, 1858, p. 71 f. ), and the Ascension, its natural sequel (vi. p. 95 f. ). In regard to the miracles of Jesus, his treatment of disease was principally mental and by the exercise of moral influence on the mind of the sick ; but he also employed external means, inquired into the symptoms of disease, and his action was subject to the laws of Divine order (v. pp. 291-299). Ewald spiritualises the greater miracles until the physical basis is almost completely lost. In the miracle at the marriage of Cana, "water itself, under the influence of his spirit, becomes the best wine," as it still does wherever his spirit is working in full power (v. p. 329). The miraculous feeding of 5,000 is a narrative based on some tradition of an occasion in which Jesus, " with the smallest external means, but infinitely more through his spirit and word and prayer, satisfied all who came to hint" -an allegory, in fact, of the higher satisfying power of the bread of life which in course of time grew to the consistency of a physical miracle (v. p. 442). The raising of the son of the widow of Nain is represented as a case of suspended animation (v. p. 424). In his latest work, Die Lehre der Bibel von Goit, Ewald eliminates all the miraculous elements from Revelation, which he extends to all historical religions (with the exception of Mohammedanism), as well as to the religion of the Bible (i., p. 18, 8). - Notes on Miracles, p. 74. 3 /j, ( p 75. 20 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION the real character of miracles, however, he becomes, as might be expected, voluminous and obscure. He says : " An extra- ordinary Divine casualty, and not that ordinary which we acknow- ledge everywhere, and in everything, belongs, then, to the essence of the miracle ; powers of God other than those which have always been working ; such, indeed, as most seldom or never have been working before. The unresting activity of God, which at other times hides and conceals itself behind the veil of what we term natural laws, does in the miracle unveil itself; it steps out from its concealment, and the hand which works is laid bare. Beside and beyond the ordinary operation of nature, higher powers (higher, not as coming from a higher source, but as bearing upon higher ends) intrude and make themselves felt even at the very springs and sources of her power." 1 " Not, as we shall see the greatest theologians have always earnestly contended, contra naturam, but prceter naturam, and supra naturam." 2 Further on he adds : " Beyond nature, beyond and above the nature which we know, they are, but not contrary to it." 3 Newman, in a similar strain, though with greater directness, says : " The miracles of Scripture are undeniably beyond nature "; and he explains them as " wrought by persons consciously exercising, under Divine guidance, a power committed to them for definite ends, professing to be immediate messengers from heaven, and to evidencing their mission by their miracles." 4 Miracles are here described as " beside," and " beyond," and " above " nature ; but a moment's consideration must show that, in so far as these terms have any meaning at all, they are simply evasions, not solutions, of a difficulty. Dr. Trench is quite sensible of the danger in which the definition of miracles places them, and how fatal to his argument it would be to admit that they are contrary to the order of nature. "The miracle/' he protests, "is not thus unnatural ; nor could it be such, since the unnatural, the contrary to order, is of itself the ungodly, and can in no way, therefore, be affirmed of a Divine work, such as that with which we have to do." 5 The Archbishop, in this, however, is clearly arguing from nature to miracles, and not from miracles to nature. He does not, of course, know what miracles really are ; but, as he recognises that the order of nature must be maintained, he is forced to assert that miracles are not contrary to nature. He repudiates the idea of their being natural phenomena, and yet attempts to deny that they are unnatural. They must either be the one or the other. Indeed, that his distinction is purely 1 Notes on Miracles, p. 12. 3 Ib>, p. 12, note 2. 3 Ib., p. 14. 4 Two Essays on Scripture Miracles ', etc., p. 116. 5 Notes on Miracles, p. 15. ANALYSIS OF MIRACLES imaginary, and inconsistent with the alleged facts of Scriptural miracles, is apparent from Dr, Trench's own illustrations. The whole argument is a mere quibble of words to evade a palpable dilemma. Newman does not fall into this error, and more boldly faces the difficulty. He admits that the Scripture miracles " innovate upon the impressions which are made upon us by the order and the laws of the natural world "; r and that " walking on the sea, or the resurrection of the dead, is a plain reversal of its laws." 2 Take, for instance, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, Five thousand people are fed upon five barley loaves and two small fishes ; " and they took up of the fragments which remained twelve baskets full, "2 Dr. Trench is forced to renounce all help in explaining this miracle from natural analogies, and he admits ; " We must simply behold in the multiplying of the bread " (and fishes ?) " an act of Divine omnipotence on His part who was the Word of God not, indeed, now as at the first, of absolute creation out of nothing, since there was a substratum to work on in the original loaves and fishes, but an act of creative accre- tion. "* It will scarcely be argued by anyone that such an "act of Divine omnipotence " and " creative accretion " as this multiplica- tion of five baked loaves and two small fishes is not contrary to the order of nature. 5 For Dr. Trench has himself pointed out that there must be interposition of man's art here, and that "a grain of wheat could never by itself, and according to the laws of natural development, issue in a loaf of bread." 6 Undaunted by, or rather unconscious of, such contradictions, the Archbishop proceeds with his argument, and with new defini- tions of the miraculous. So far from being disorder of nature, he continues, with audacious precision : " The true miracle is a higher and a purer nature, coming down out of the world of untroubled harmonies into this world of ours, which so many discords have jarred and disturbed, and bringing this back again, though it be but for one mysterious prophetic moment, into harmony with that higher."? In that " higher and purer nature " can a grain of wheat issue in a loaf of bread ? We have only to apply this theory to the miraculous multiplication of loaves and 1 Two Essays on Scripture Miracles, etc., p. 154. 2 /#., p. 158. 3 Matt. xiv. 20. < Notes on Miracles, p. 274 f. 5 Newman, referring to this amongst other miracles as "a far greater innovation upon the economy of nature than the miracles of the Church upon the economy of Scripture," says: "There is nothing, for instance, in nature at all to parallel and mitigate the wonderful history of the multiplication of an artificially prepared substance such as bread" (Two Essays, p. 157 f.). 6 Notes on Miracles, p. 274. 7 ib. t p. 15. SUPERNATURAL RELIGION fishes to perceive how completely it is the creation of Dr. Trench's poetical fancy. These passages fairly illustrate the purely imaginary and arbitrary nature of the definitions which those who maintain the reality and supernatural character of miracles give of them. The favourite hypothesis is that which ascribes miracles to the action of unknown law. Archbishop Trench naturally adopts it. " We should see in the miracle," he says, "not the infraction of a law, but the neutralising of a lower law, the suspension of it for a time by a higher "; and he asks with indignation whence we dare conclude that, because we know of no powers sufficient to produce miracles, none exist. " They exceed the laws of our nature ; but it does not therefore follow that they exceed the laws of all nature." 1 It is not easy to follow the distinction here between " our nature " and " all nature," since the order of nature, by which miracles are judged, is, so far as knowledge goes, universal, and we have no grounds for assuming that there is any other. The same hypothesis is elaborated by Dr. Mozley. Assuming the facts of miracles, he proceeds to discuss the question of their " referribleness to unknown law," in which expression he includes both " unknown law, or unknown connection with known law." 2 Taking first the supposition of unknoivn connection with known law, he argues that, as a law of nature, in the scientific sense, cannot possibly produce single or isolated facts, it follows that no isolated or exceptional event can come under a law of nature by direct observation ; but, if it comes under it at all, it can only do so by some explanation, which takes it out of its isolation and joins it to a class of facts, whose recurrence indeed constitutes the law. Now Dr. Mozley admits that no explanation can be given by which miracles can have an unknown connection with known law. 1 Notes on Miracles, p. 16. Dr. Liddon writes on the evidential purpose of miracles and their nature, as follows : " But how is man enabled to identify the Author of this law within him " (which the highest instincts of the human con- science derive from the Christian Revelation and the life of Christ), " perfectly reflected as it is in the Christ, with the Author of the law of the Universe without him ? The answer is, by miracle. Miracle is an innovation upon physical law or at least a suspension of some lower physical law by the inter- vention of a higher one in the interests of moral law. The historical fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead identifies the Lord of physical life and death with the Legislator of the Sermon on the Mount. Miracle is the certificate of identity between the Ix>rd of Nature and the Lord of Conscience the proof that He is really a moral being who subordinates physical to moral interests. Miracle is the meeting-point between intellect and the moral sense, because it announces the answer to the efforts and yearnings alike of the moral sense and the intellect ; because it announces revelation (Some Elements of Religion, Lent Lectures, 1870 ; H. P. Liddon, D.D., Canon of St. Paul's, 1872, p. 74 f.). 3 Bampton Lectures } 1865, p. 145. * % UNKNOWN LAW 23 Taking the largest class of miracles, bodily cures, the corre- spondence between a simple command or prophetic notification and the cure is the chief characteristic of miracles, and dis- tinguishes them from mere marvels. No violation of any law of nature takes place in either the cure or the prophetic announce- ment taken separately, but the two taken together are the proof of superhuman agency. He concludes that no physical hypothesis can be framed accounting for the superhuman knowledge and power involved in this class of miracles, supposing the miracles to stand as they are recorded in Scripture. 1 The inquiry is then shifted to the other and different question : whether miracles may not be instances of laws which are as yet wholly unknown. 2 This is generally called a question of " higher law " that is to say, a law which comprehends under itself two or more lower or less wide laws. And the principle would be applicable to miracles by supposing the existence of an unknown law, hereafter to be discovered, under which miracles would come, and then considering whether this new law of miracles and the old law of common facts might not both be reducible to a still more general law, which comprehended them both; but Dr. Mozley, of course, recognises that the discovery of such a law of miracles would necessarily involve the discovery of fresh miracles, for to talk of a law of miracles without miracles would be an absurdity, 3 The supposition of the discovery of such a law of miracles, how- ever, would be tantamount to the supposition of a future new order of nature, from which it immediately follows that the whole supposition is irrelevant and futile as regards the present question.* For no new order of things could make the present order different, and a miracle, could we suppose it becoming the ordinary fact of another different order of nature, would not be less a violation of the laws of nature in the present one. 5 This explanation is also rejected. We pause here to remark that throughout the whole inquiry into the question of miracles we meet with nothing from theologians but mere assumptions. The facts of the narrative of the miracle are first assumed, and so are the theories by which it is explained. Now, with regard to every theory which seeks to explain miracles by assumption, we may quote words applied by one of the ablest defenders of miracles to some conclusion of straw, which he placed in the mouth of an imaginary antagonist in order that he might refute it. " But the question is," said Dr. Mansel, "not whether such a conclusion has been asserted, as many other absurdities have been asserted, by the advocates of a ' Bampton Lectures, 1865, pp. 145-153. - //>., pp. 153-159. 3 Ib., p. 154 f. * /., p. 156. s /., p . 157. SUPERNATURAL RELIGION theory, but whether it has been established on such scientific grounds as to be entitled to the assent of all duly-cultivated minds, whatever their own consciences may say to the contrary." 1 Immediately after his indignant demand for scientific accuracy of demonstration, Dr. Mansel proceeds to argue as follows : In the will of man we have the solitary instance of an efficient cause, in the highest sense of the term, acting among the physical causes of the material world, and producing results which could not have been brought about by any mere sequence of physical causes. If a man of his own will throw a stone into the air, its motion, as soon as it has left his hand, is determined by a combination of purely material laws ; but by what law came it to be thrown at all ? The law of gravitation, no doubt, remains constant and unbroken, whether the stone is lying on the ground or moving through the air ; but all the laws of matter could not have brought about the particular result, without the interposition of the free will of the man who throws the stone. Substitute the will of God for the will of man, and the argument becomes applicable to the whole extent of creation and to all the phenomena which it embraces, 2 It is evident that this argument merely tends to prove that every effect must have a cause a proposition too obvious to require any argument at all. If a man had not thrown the stone, the stone would have remained lying on the ground. No one doubts this. We have here, however, this "solitary instance of an efficient cause acting among the physical causes of the material world," producing results which are wholly determined by natural laws, 3 and incapable of producing any opposed to them. If, therefore, we substitute, as Dr. Mansel desires, " the will of God " for " the will of man," we arrive at no results which are not in harmony with the order of nature. We have no ground whatever for assuming any efficient cause acting in any other way than in accordance with the laws of nature. It is, however, one of the gross fallacies of this argument, as applied to miracles, to pass from the efficient cause producing results which are strictly in accordance with natural laws, and determined by them, to an assumed efficient cause producing effects which are opposed to natural law. The restoration to life of a decomposed human body, and the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes, are 1 Mansel, Aids to Faith, p. 19. 2 //>., p. 20. 3 Throughout this argument we use the term "law" in its popular sense as representing the series of phenomena to which reference is made. We do not think it necessary to discuss the assumption that the will of man is an "efficient cause"; it is sufficient to show that even admitting the premiss, for the sake of argument, the supposed consequences do not follow. SUSPENSION OF LAW opposed to natural laws, and no assumed efficient cause conceiv- able, to which they may be referred, can harmonise them. Dr. Mozley continues his argument in a similar way. He inquires : " Is the suspension of physical and material laws by a spiritual being inconceivable? We reply that, however incon- ceivable this kind of suspension of physical law is, it is a fact. Physical laws are suspended any time an animate being moves any part of its body ; the laws of matter are suspended by the laws of life." 1 He goes on to maintain that, although it is true that his spirit is united with the matter in which it moves in a way in which the Great Spirit who acts on matter in the miracle is not, yet the action of God's Spirit in the miracle of walking on the water is no more inconceivable than the action of his own spirit in holding up his own hand. "Antecedently, one step on the ground and an ascent to heaven are alike incredible. But this appearance of incredibility is answered in one case literally ambulando. How can I place any reliance upon it in the other ?" 2 From this illustration, with a haste very unlike his previous careful procedure, he jumps to the following conclusions : " The consti- tution of nature, then, disproves the incredibility of the Divine suspension of physical law ; but, more than this, it creates a presumption for it. "3 The laws of life of which we have experience, he argues, are themselves in an ascending scale. First come the laws which regulate unorganised matter ; next the laws of vegeta- tion ; then the laws of animal life, with its voluntary motion ; and, above these, again, the laws of moral being. A supposed intelligent being whose experience was limited to one or more classes in this ascending scale of laws would be totally incapable of conceiving the action of the higher classes. The progressive succession of laws is perfectly conceivable backward, but an absolute mystery forward. " Analogy," therefore, he contends, when in this ascend- ing series we arrive at man, leads us to expect that there is a higher sphere of law as much above him as he is above the lower natures in the scale, and " supplies a presumption in favour of such a belief." 4 And so we arrive at the question whether there is or is not a God, a Personal Head in Nature, whose free will penetrates the universal frame invisibly to us, and is an omnipresent agent. If there be, Dr. Mozley concludes, then every miracle in Scripture is as natural an event in the universe as any chemical experiment in the physical world. 5 This is precisely the argument of Dr. Mansel regarding the " Efficient Cause," somewhat elaborated ; but, however ingeniously devised, it is equally based upon assumption and defective in 1 fiainpton Lectures, 1865, p. 164. 2 Ik., p. 164. 3 //'., p. 164. 4 Ib., p. 165. 5 Ib., p. 165. SUPERNATURAL RELIGION analogy. The " classes of law " to which the Bampton lecturer refers are really in no ascending scale. Unorganised matter, vegetation, and animal life may each have special conditions modifying phenomena, but they are all equally subject to natural laws. Man is as much under the influence of gravitation as a stone is. The special operation of physical laws is not a modifi- cation of law, but law acting under different conditions. The law of gravitation suffers no alteration, whether it cause the fall of an apple or shape the orbit of a planet. The reproduction of the plant and of the animal is regulated by the same fundamental principle, acting through different organisms. The mere superiority of man over lower forms of organic and inorganic matter does not lift him above physical laws, and the analogy of every grade in nature forbids the presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt from their control. If in animated beings, as is affirmed, we have the solitary instance of an " efficient cause " acting among the forces of nature, and possessing the power of initiation, this " efficient cause " produces no disturbance of physical law. Its action is a recog- nised part of the infinite variety of form within the order of nature ; and although the character of the force exercised by it may not be clearly understood, its effects are regulated by the same laws as govern all other forces in nature. If " the laws of matter are suspended by the laws of life" each time an animated being moves any part of its body, one physical law is counteracted in precisely the same manner, and to an equivalent degree, each time another physical law is called into action. The law of gravi- tation, for instance, is equally neutralised by the law of magnetism each time a magnet suspends a weight in the air. In each case a law is successfully resisted precisely to the extent of the force employed. The arm that is raised by the animated being falls again, in obedience to law, as soon as the force which raised it is exhausted, quite as certainly as the weight descends when the mag- netic current fails. This, however, is not the suspension of law in the sense of a miracle, but, on the contrary, is simply the natural operation upon each other of co-existent laws. It is a recognised part of the order of nature, 1 and instead of rendering 1 Dr. Mozley says, in the preface to the second edition of his Bampton Lectures : " It is quite true that we see laws of nature any day and any hour neutralised and counteracted in particular cases and do not look upon such counteractions as other than the most natural events ; but it must be remem- leered that, when this is the case, the counteracting agency is as ordinary and constant an antecedent in nature as the agency which it counteracts. The agency of the muscles and the agency of the magnet are as ordinary as the agency of gravitation which they both neutralise The elevation of a body in the air by the force of an arm 'is a counteraction indeed of the law of gravita- tion, but it is a counteraction of it by another law as natural as that of gravity. THE EFFICIENT CAUSE SUBJECT TO LAW 27 credible any supernatural suspension of laws, the analogy of animated beings distinctly excludes it. The introduction of life in no way changes the relation between cause and effect, which con- stitutes the order of nature. Life favours no presumption for the suspension of law, but, on the contrary, whilst acting in nature, universally exhibits the prevalence and invariability of law. The supposed " Efficient Cause " is wholly circumscribed by law. It is brought into existence by the operation of physical laws, and from the cradle to the grave it is subject to those laws. The whole process of life is dependent on obedience to natural laws, and so powerless is this efficient cause to resist their jurisdic- tion that, in spite of its highest efforts, it pines or ceases to exist in consequence of the mere natural operation of law upon the matter with which it is united, and without which it is impotent, It cannot receive an impression from without that is not conveyed in accordance with law, and perceived by an exquisitely ordered organism, in every part of which law reigns supreme ; nor can it communicate from within except through channels equally ordered by law. The " laws of life " act amongst the laws of matter, but are not independent of them, and the action of both classes of law is regulated by precisely the same principles. Dr. Mozley's affirmation, that antecedently one step on the ground and an ascent to heaven are alike incredible, does not help him. In that sense it follows thaU there is nothing that is not antecedently incredible, nothing credible until it has happened. This argument, however, while it limits us to actual experience, prohibits presumptions with regard to that which is beyond expe- rience. To argue that, because a step on the ground and an ascent to heaven are antecedently alike incredible, yet, as we subsequently make that step, therefore the ascent to heaven, which The fact, therefore, is in conformity with the laws of nature. But if the same body is raised in the air without any application of a known force, it is not a fact in conformity with natural law. In all these cases the question is not whether a law of nature has been counteracted, for that does not constitute a fact contradictory to the laws of nature ; but whether it has been counteracted by another natural law. If it has been, the conditions of science are fulfilled. But if a law of nature has been counteracted by a law out of nature, it is of no purpose, with a view to naturalise scientifically that counteraction of a law of nature, to say that the law of nature has been going on all the time, and only been neutralised, not suspended or violated. These are mere refinements of language, which do not affect the fact itself, that a new conjunction of ante- cedent and consequent, wholly unlike the conjunctions in nature, has taken place. The laws of nature have in that instance not worked, and an effect contrary to what would have issued from those laws has been produced. This is ordinarily called a violation or suspension of the laws of nature ; and it seems an unnecessary refinement not to call it such. But whatever name we give to it, the fact is the same ; and the fact is not according to the laws of nature in the scientific sense" (p. xii. f.). 28 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION we cannot make, from incredible becomes credible, is a contradic- tion in terms. If the ascent be antecedently incredible, it cannot at the same time be antecedently credible. That which is incredible cannot become credible because something else quite different becomes credible. Experience comes with its sober wisdom to check such reasoning. We believe in our power to walk because we habitually exercise it ; we disbelieve in bodily ascensions because all experience excludes them, and if we leap into the air on the brink of a precipice, belief in an ascent to heaven is shattered to pieces at the bottom, to which the law of gravitation infallibly drags us. There is absolutely nothing in the constitution of nature, we may say, reversing Dr. Mozley's assertion, which does not prove the incredibility of a Divine suspension of physical laws, and does not create a presumption against it. A distinction between the laws of nature and the " laws of the universe," 1 by which he endeavours to make a miracle credible, is one which is purely imaginary. We know of no laws of the universe differing from the laws of nature. So far as human observation can range, these laws alone prevail. The occasional intervention of an unknown "efficient cause," producing the effects called "miracles " effects which are not referrible to any known law is totally opposed to experience, and such a hypothesis to explain alleged occurrences of a miraculous character cannot find a legitimate place within the order of nature. The proposition with which Dr. Mozley commences these Bampton Lectures, and for which he contends to their close, is this : " That miracles, or visible suspensions of the order of nature for a providential purpose, are not in contradiction to reason." 2 He shows that the purpose of miracles is to attest a supernatural revelation, which, without them, we could not be justified in believing. " Christianity," he distinctly states, " cannot be maintained as a revelation undiscoverable by human reason a revelation of a supernatural scheme for man's salvation without the evidence of miracles. "3 Out of this very admission he attempts to construct an argument in support of miracles. " Hence it follows," he continues, " that, upon the supposition of the Divine design of a revelation, a miracle is not an anomaly or irregularity, but part of the system of the universe; because, though an irregularity and an anomaly in relation to either part, it has a complete adaptation to the whole. There being two worlds, a visible and invisible, and a communication between the 1 Bampton Lectures, 1865, p. 163. * Ib.> p. 6. 3/j. } p. 23. THE DIVINE DESIGN OF REVELATION 29 two being wanted, a miracle is the instrument of that communi- cation." 1 This argument is based upon mere assumption. The sup- position of the Divine design of a revelation, by which a miracle is said to become " part of the system of the universe " and, therefore, neither an "anomaly" nor "irregularity," is the result of a foregone conclusion in its favour, and is not suggested by antecedent probability. It is, in fact, derived solely from the contents of the revelation itself. Divines assume that a com- munication of this nature is in accordance with reason, and was necessary for the salvation of the human race, simply because they believe that it took place. No attempt is seriously made, independently, to prove the reality of the supposed " Divine design of a revelation." A revelation having, it is supposed, been made, that revelation is consequently supposed to have been con- templated, and to have necessitated and justified suspensions of the order of nature to effect it. The proposition for which the evidence of miracles is demanded is viciously employed as evidence for miracles. The circumstances upon which the assumption of the necessity and reasonableness of a revelation is based, however, are in- credible, and contrary to reason. We are asked to believe that God made man in his own image, pure and sinless, and intended him to continue so, but that scarcely had this, his noblest work, left the hands of the Creator than man was tempted into sin by Satan, an all-powerful and persistent enemy of God, whose existence and antagonism to a Being in whose eyes sin is abomina- tion are not accounted for, and are incredible. 2 Adam's fall brought a curse upon the earth, and incurred the penalty of death for himself and for the whole of his posterity. The human race, although created perfect and without sin, thus disappointed the expectations of the Creator, and became daily more wicked, the Evil Spirit having succeeded in frustrating the designs of the Almighty, so that God repented that he had made man, and at length destroyed by a deluge all the inhabitants of the earth, with the exception of eight persons who feared him. This sweeping purification, however, was as futile as the original design, and the race of men soon became more wicked than ever. The final and only adequate remedy devised by God for the salvation of his creatures, become so desperately and hopelessly evil, was the incarnation of himself in the person of " the Son," the second * Bampton Lectures, p. 23. 2 The history of the gradual development of the idea of the existence and personality of the Devil is full of instruction, and throws no small light upon the question of revelation. 30 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION person in a mysterious Trinity, of which the Godhead is said to be composed (who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary), and his death upon the cross as a vicarious expiation of the sins of the world, without which supposed satis- faction of the justice of God his mercy could not possibly have been extended to the frail and sinful work of his own hands. The crucifixion of the incarnate God was the crowning guilt of a nation whom God himself had selected as his own peculiar people, and whom he had condescended to guide by constant direct revela- tions of his will, but who, from the first, had displayed the most persistent and remarkable proclivity to sin against him, and, in spite of the wonderful miracles wrought on their behalf, to forsake his service for the worship of other gods. We are asked to believe, therefore, in the frustration of the Divine design of creation, and in the fall of man into a state of wickedness hateful to God, requiring and justifying the Divine design of a revelation, and such a revelation as this, as a preliminary to the further proposi- tion that, on the supposition of such a design, miracles would not be contrary to reason. The whole theory of this abortive design of creation, with such impotent efforts to amend it, is emphatically contradicted by all that experience has taught us of the order of nature. It is difficult to say whether the details of the scheme or the circum- stances which are supposed to have led to its adoption are more shocking to reason or to moral sense. The imperfection ascribed to the Divine work is scarcely more derogatory to the power and wisdom of a Creator than the supposed satisfaction of his justice in the death of himself incarnate, the innocent for the guilty, is degrading to the idea of his moral perfection. The supposed necessity for repeated interference to correct the imperfection of the original creation, the nature of the means employed, and the triumphant opposition of Satan are anthropomorphic conceptions totally incompatible with the idea of an infinitely wise and Almighty Being. The constitution of nature, so far from favouring any hypothesis of original perfection and subsequent deterioration, bears everywhere the record of systematic upward progression. Not only is the assumption that any revelation of the nature of ecclesiastical Christianity was necessary excluded upon philo- sophical grounds, but it is contradicted by the whole operation of natural laws, which contain in themselves inexorable penalties against retrogression, or even unprogressiveness, and furnish the only requisite stimulus to improvement. The survival only of the fittest is the stern decree of nature. The invariable action of law of itself eliminates the unfit. Progress is necessary to existence ; extinction is the doom of retrogression. The highest effect contemplated by the supposed revelation is to bring man AN INCREDIBLE ASSUMPTION 31 into perfect harmony with law ; but this is ensured by law itself acting upon intelligence. Civilisation is nothing but the know- ledge and observance of natural laws. The savage must learn these laws or be extinguished ; the cultivated must observe them or die. The balance of moral and physical development cannot be deranged with impunity. In the spiritual as well as the physical sense, only the fittest eventually can survive in the struggle for existence. There is, in fact, an absolute upward impulse to the whole human race supplied by the invariable operation of the laws of nature, acting upon the common instinct of self-preservation. As, on the one hand, the highest human conception of infinite wisdom and power is derived from the universality and invariability of law ; so that universality and invariability, on the other hand, exclude the idea of interruption or occasional suspension of law for any purpose whatever, and more especially for the correction of supposed original errors of design which cannot have existed, or for the attainment of objects already provided for in the order of nature. Upon the first groundless assumption of a Divine design of such a revelation follows the hypothetical inference that, for the purpose of making the communication from the unseen world, a miracle or visible suspension of the order of nature is no irregu- larity, but part of the system of the universe. This, however, is a mere assertion, and no argument. An avowed assumption which is contrary to reason is followed by another which is contrary to experience. It is not permissible to speak of a visible suspension of the order of nature being part of the system of the universe. Such a statement has no meaning whatever within the range of human conception. Moreover, it must be remembered that miracles or " visible suspensions of the order of nature " are ascribed indifferently to Divine and to Satanic agency. If miracles are not an anomaly or irregularity on the supposition of the Divine design of a revelation, upon what supposition do Satanic miracles cease to be irregularities ? Is the order of nature, which it is asserted is under the personal control of God, at the same time at the mercy of the Devil ? Archbishop Trench has, as usual, a singular way of overcoming the difficulty. He says : "So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and improbable, miraculous and incredible, may be admitted as convertible terms. But once lift up the whole dis- cussion into a higher region, once acknowledge something higher than nature, a kingdom of God, and men the intended denizens of it, and the whole argument loses its strength and the force of its conclusions He who already counts it likely that God will interfere for the higher welfare of men, who believes that there is a nobler world-order than that in which we live and move, and 32 SUPERNATURAL RKLIGION that it would be the blessing of blessings for that nobler to intrude into and to make itself felt in the region of this lower, who has found that here in this world we are bound by heavy laws of nature, of sin, of death, which no powers that we now possess can break, yet which must be broken if we are truly to live he will not find it hard to believe the great miracle, the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, &c And as he believes that greatest miracle, so will he believe all other miracles, etc." 1 In other words, if we already believe the premisses we shall not find it difficult to adopt the conclusions if we already believe the greatest miracle we shall not hesitate to believe the less if we already believe the dogmas we shall not find it hard to believe the evidence by which they are supposed to be authenticated. As we necessarily do abide in the region of nature, in which Dr. Trench admits that miraculous and incredible are convertible terms, it would seem rather difficult to lift the discussion into the higher region here described without having already abandoned it altogether. 1 Notes on Miracles, p. 71 f. Archbishop Trench believes that exemption from the control of the law of gravitation, etc., is a "lost prerogative" of our race, which we may one day recover. It would be difficult to produce a parallel to his reasoning in modern times. He says : " It has been already observed that the miracle, according to its true idea, is not a violation nor yet suspension of law, but the incoming of a higher law, as of a spiritual in the midst of natural laws, and the momentary assertion, for that higher law, of the predominance which it was intended to have, and but for man's fall it would always have had, over the lower ; and with this a prophetic anticipation of the abiding prevalence which it shall one day recover. Exactly thus was there here" (in the miracle of the Walking on the Sea) " a sign of the lordship of man's will, when that will is in absolute harmony with God's will, over external nature. In regard to this very law of gravitation, a feeble, and for the most part unconsciously possessed, remnant of his power survives to man in the well-attested fact that his body is lighter when he is awake than sleeping; a fact which every nurse who has carried a child can attest. From this we conclude that the human consciousness, as an inner centre, works as an opposing force to the attraction of the earth and the centripetal force of gravity, however unable now to overbear it" (!) Ib. , p. 292. CHAPTER III. REASON IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE THE argument of those who assert the possibility and reality of miracles generally takes the shape of an attack, more or less direct, upon our knowledge of the order of nature. To establish an exception they contest the rule. " Whatever difficulty there is in believing in miracles in general," he says, " arises from the circum- stance that they are in contradiction to or unlike the order of nature. To estimate the force of this difficulty, then, we must first understand what kind of belief it is which we have in the order of nature ; for the weight of the objection to the miraculous must depend on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous is opposed." 1 Dr. Mozley defines the meaning of the phrase, " order of nature," as the connection of that part of the order of nature of which we are ignorant with that part of which we know, the former being expected to be such and such, because the latter is. But how do we justify this expectation of likeness?* We cannot do so, he affirms, and all our arguments are mere state- ments of the belief itself, and not reasons to account for it. It may be said, e.g., that when a fact of nature has gone on repeating itself a certain time, such repetition shows that there is a per- manent cause at work, and that a permanent cause produces permanently recurring effects. But what is there, he inquires, to show the existence of a permanent cause ? Nothing. The effects which have taken place show a cause at work to the extent of these effects, but not further. That this cause is of a more permanent nature we have no evidence. Why, then, do we expect the further continuance of these effects ?3 We can only say : because we believe the future will be like the past. After a physical phenomenon has even occurred every day for years we have nothing but the past repetition to justify our certain ex- pectation of its future repetition. 4 Do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that, though no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had experience of what was future ? It is true, he admits, that what is future becomes at every step of our advance what was future, but that 1 Bampton Lectures, 1865, p. 33. 2 Ib., p. 34. . 3 Ib., p. 36. Ib., p. 37. 33 34 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION which is now still future is not the least altered by that circum- stance ; it is as invisible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if it were the very beginning and the very starting-point of nature. At this starting-point of nature what would a man know of its future course ? Nothing. At this moment he knows no more. 1 What ground of reason, then, can we assign for our expectation that any part of the course of nature will the next moment be like what it has been up to this moment i.e., for our belief in the uniformity of nature? None. It is without a reason. It rests upon no rational ground, and can be traced to no rational principle. 2 The belief in the order of nature being thus an " unintelligent im- pulse " of which we cannot give any rational account, Dr. Mozley concludes, the ground is gone upon which it could be maintained that miracles, as opposed to the order of nature, were opposed to reason. A miracle, then, in being opposed to our experience is not only not opposed to necessary reasoning, but to any reasoning. 3 We need not further follow the Bampton Lecturer, as, with clear- ness and ability, he applies this reasoning to the argument of " Experience," until he pauses triumphantly to exclaim : " Thus, step by step, has philosophy loosened the connection of the order of nature with the ground of reason, befriending in exact pro- portion, as it has done this, the principle of miracles."* We need not here enter upon any abstract argument regarding the permanence of cause : it will be sufficient to deal with these objections in a simpler and more direct way. Dr. Mozley, of course, acknowledges that the principle of the argument from experience is that " which makes human life practicable ; which utilises all our knowledge ; which makes the past anything more than an irrelevant picture to us ; for of what use is the experience of the past to us unless we believe the future will be like it ? "s Our knowledge in all things is relative, and there are sharp and narrow limits to human thought. It is, therefore, evident that, in the absence of absolute knowledge, our belief must be accorded to that of which we have more full cognizance, rather than to that which is contradicted by all that we do know. It may be "irrational" to feel entire confidence that the sun will " rise " to-morrow, or that the moon will continue to wax and wane as in the past, but we shall without doubt retain this belief, and reject 'any assertion, however positive, that the earth will stand still to-morrow, or that it did so some thousands of years ago. Evidence must take its relative place in the finite scale of knowledge and thought, and if we do not absolutely know anything, so long as one thing is more fully established than another, we must hold to that 1 Bampton Lectures, p. 38. - Ib., p. 39. 3 Ib., p. 48. 4 Ib., p. 49. s /