her office, and assume functions of another order, before she can
pronounce a peremptory negative upon the point in controversy.[36]
Physical science needs to become metaphysical, and to pass into fields
of abstract reasoning in order to the utterance of a universal dictum.
To this kind of mental employment in itself I make no objection; for
the science of merely physical nature, without any outlook into higher
regions, keeps the soul in humiliating imprisonment. The excursions of
thought, however, now before us are regarded in some quarters under
the singular delusion of being strictly scientific, whilst employed
in devising a theory of the universe which excludes the constant
control of a personal God, an Almighty will. The assaults on what
is miraculous can be carried on only with metaphysical weapons. The
facts of physical nature do not supply them; only from theories of
physical nature, taking a metaphysical form, can they be gathered. Even
Positivism, with all its doubtfulness and denial--strange contradiction
that--must, in order to deny the possibility of miracles, build up a
wall to shut them out, by trenching first on ground beyond its own
domain. Pure Positivism, consistently with itself, is not competent to
contradict the existence of the supernatural; it can but leave it an
open question. The common method of distinctly denying miracles is one
involving either some atheistic or pantheistic principle. Assume--and
it is but an assumption--that matter is eternal and self-sufficient;
that natural laws have not originated in, or are not administered
by, a personal will; and thus assuming what prepares for, if it does
not necessitate, some atheistic or pantheistic hypothesis, you can
plausibly maintain that the wonders of which we speak are utterly
inconceivable. But, as you see, it is not physical science simply
considered which brings out this result; the result comes through
adding to physical science what is really a metaphysical element.
At what a tremendous cost, it may be observed by the way, is such a
result achieved. The philosophy of universal necessity places man in
the same predicament as it does simple matter. If all nature excludes
voluntary control, and is subject only to an iron rule of invariable
succession, then man also must himself be incapable of voluntary
control, whether it comes from a supreme will or from his own. Thus
the warfare which assails miracles, threatens to destroy all ideas of
freedom and moral responsibility. And this dark foreshadowing is not
concealed. "Step by step," we are confidently and calmly told, "the
notion of evolution by law is transforming the whole field of our
knowledge and opinion. Not the physical world alone is now the domain
of inductive (?) science, but the moral, the intellectual, and the
spiritual are being added to the empire. It is the crown of philosophy
to see the immutable even in the complex action of human life."[37]
But when all assumptions are denied, the whole question presents
another aspect. Given the fundamental distinction between things
physical and things moral; given the higher nature of man, the personal
existence of God, a moral element in the Divine rule, the immortality
of the human soul, and the present vicinity of invisible spiritual
realms; and, immediately, miracles wrought by the Divine will for
men's moral welfare are completely removed out of the sphere of the
impossible.
Positivism, Atheism, and Pantheism are considered in other lectures of
this course, and therefore it is not my office to examine them. To what
has been said by the Archbishop of York and the Rev. Mr. Jackson, and
to what may be said by the Rev. Dr. Rigg, I must refer my hearers.
I would only observe in passing, what, indeed, I have hinted at
already, that it puzzles me beyond description to conceive how, by any
course of natural evolution, independent of the introduction of a new
force by an overruling power, the phenomena of the human will with its
morally creative energy for good and evil could have been produced. To
solve, on the principle of pure development, the problem of the genesis
of that mysterious faculty, is an insuperable task. If we may speak of
what is inconceivable--and scientific men set us the example--we should
say the existence of volition in man, with its moral accompaniments,
is utterly inconceivable, apart from belief in a Divine will, of which
ours is the offspring.
It appears, then, that science really presents no antecedent grounds
for rejecting miracles, and that if we believe in a personal God, the
presumed impossibility melts away. This point has been conceded by one
of the masters of modern reasoning. "A miracle," as was justly remarked
by Brown, "is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a
new effect, supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause.
Of the adequacy of that cause, if present, there can be no doubt, and
the only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the miracle,
is the improbability that any such cause existed."[38]
2. When we have disposed of the preliminary objection which, in
some way or other, says miracles are impossible, we are met by
another objection, namely, that they are immensely _improbable_.
Hume's ingenious position,[39]--that miracles are contrary to human
experience, that no amount of human testimony is sufficient to
establish them, and that it is far more likely men should be deceived
or mistaken, than that such events as miracles must be, could ever take
place,--has been made to do abundant service in this controversy; very
little, if anything, has been added by those who have persistently used
the argument, to improve its form or to increase its plausibility.
One of its latest modifications is, that incidents out of the common
course of things, said to happen in the present day, are by all of us
sceptically regarded, that supernatural pretensions are felt by us to
be inadmissible, and that where we are compelled to allow the honesty
of witnesses, if they affirm anything involving a miraculous nature,
we at once dispose of the whole matter by saying 'there must be a
mistake somewhere.' Undoubtedly it is true that miracles are contrary
to common experience. They must be so, or they would not be what they
are. If they were of frequent occurrence, if they had happened in the
history of the world so often as to become familiar to mankind, they
would change their character completely. Their nature and purpose, in
the view of those who receive them, is such as to render it necessary
that we should bear this in mind. But to allege that they are contrary
to human experience, taken in the widest point of view, is to beg the
question at issue, a fact remarked a thousand times. That they are
not contrary to the experience of certain persons who lived eighteen
hundred years ago, is what Christians affirm; to say that they are,
is illogically to cut the controversy short, and, by a general denial
of everything of the kind, to put out of court the very case about to
be tried, in support of which there are credible witnesses waiting
to give evidence. The question of probability must be looked at all
round. The circumstances under which any alleged wonders may have
happened must be taken into account, before we pronounce upon their
probability or improbability. When extraordinary things, coloured with
a supernatural tinge, are related to us as having occurred without
any assignable purpose, or only for some sectarian or party end, in
connection with beliefs long cherished and avowed, of course we look on
them suspiciously; giving to the authorities relating the narratives,
credit for integrity and truthfulness, we naturally say 'there must
be a mistake somewhere.' And, no doubt, the general culture of the
present age, however superficial that culture may be, makes us far
less ready than our fathers were, to endorse popular tales of wonder.
There is a salutary scepticism which grows out of extensive knowledge.
Truth is of such immense value, that we should not be indifferent
to it in the smallest communications and concernments of life. Most
assuredly any wayward, eccentric, unmeaning, and useless departure
from the common course of things, tending only to shake our faith in
nature,--as if men might gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles,
as if barley being sown, wheat should spring up, or an apple tree by
a sudden freak should bear oranges,--would deserve to be stigmatized
as unworthy of belief. But the wonders in question come under another
category. They are represented in the history which has recorded
them, not only as being exceptional incidents in themselves, but as
having been accomplished under exceptional circumstances. They are
not waifs and strays on the stream of time, floating no one knows why
and whither; but growths rooted in what appears as a unique system of
moral instruction and improvement, designed by the loving Father of
spirits for His lost children. They do not produce what may be called a
disturbance of nature--that is, a throwing things in the physical world
out of gear, so that men are thereby puzzled to make out what nature
is, and how far it may be trusted. The documents which contain our
miraculous chronicles attest the immutability of Him who is the King of
nature, and the unchangeable foundation of His government and law, with
a pre-eminent luminousness and with an unparalleled force.
The wonders chronicled were avowedly wrought for purposes of the
highest order; and here, again, we fall back upon the distinction
between what is physical and what is moral. Those purposes of the
highest order to which we refer are moral. They bear on the noblest
destinies of humanity, and they link themselves with the principles
of natural religion, with the being and sway of a mighty, wise, and
gracious God, with our conscience and responsibility, and with the
future existence of the soul. Natural religion, though it speaks not
a word of miracles, though it gives no prophecies of their advent,
yet prepares for their appearance so far, that its teachings, fairly
considered, cut off all antecedent unlikelihood of their occurrence.
For natural religion suggests the desirableness of revealed religion,
and revealed religion is only another name for supernatural
interposition.
In a lecture upon Science and Revelation, by the Dean of Canterbury,
it has been shown that man's moral nature, man's religious
susceptibilities, render religion a necessity for the supply of his
deepest wants; but that what is called natural religion is not clear
enough, nor certain enough, to affect the generality of our race.
Revelation, then, it may be fairly argued, looking at man, is a
desideratum, looking at God, is a probability; and Revelation, being
obviously a supernatural bestowment, seems to imply some authentication
of itself, in part at least, by means of evidence corresponding with
its own supernatural origin and character.
The conditions under which Scripture miracles are said to have been
performed must be kept in view when we are told they are improbable.
They were not performed in one continued series by a succession
of Thaumaturgists; but they are found grouped together in certain
clusters. As science indicates particular epochs of the energizing
power of nature, so the Bible records particular epochs of an
energizing power above nature.
The first great cluster of Bible wonders we find gathered round the
Lawgiver of Israel; the second round the great Reformer of God's
ancient Church; the third round Him who is spoken of as The Word made
flesh, who dwelt among us, and who imparted to His apostles miraculous
powers akin to His own. Miracles, for the most part, are halos of
divine light encircling three grand names--Moses, Elijah, Jesus,--the
last the greatest of the three.
Physical wonders we meet with in company with spiritual ones--wonders
in outward nature in company with wonders in the great soul-world,
of which sensible things are the types and shadows. In other words,
miracles occur in connection with inspiration, and, whilst marvels
startle the eye, new truths or new applications of truth are addressed
to the mind. In harmony with facts in the intellectual universe already
noticed, resembling the exceptional illuminations of genius which at
intervals have flashed on the rest of mankind,--like the lightning that
lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, and shineth unto the other
part under heaven,--souls inspired with a grand moral message have come
forth from the secret place of the Most High; and it has been in the
pathway of these inspired souls that physical miracles have started up;
rather, it has been by their hands that physical miracles have been
wrought.
There have been surprising coincidences in modern times between the
wonderful in nature and the wonderful in history; for example, between
the sailing of the invincible Spanish Armada, and the storm which
strewed the shores of Great Britain with its ponderous wrecks--between
the march of Napoleon's army and the winter's snow which blinded,
benumbed, and destroyed so many thousands. The connection is
unexplained except on the principle of a Divine providence.[40] And
so in ancient times there were coincidences between the lightning
and thunder of Sinai, and the legislative wisdom of Moses--between
the fire that fell on Carmel, and the reforming zeal of Elijah. The
connection is explicable only on the principle of these men having
been the internunciators of the Divine will. This explication is
strengthened by what they did with their own fingers or their own lips.
It may be considered as entrenching too much on the domain of doctrine
to speak in this lecture of the Incarnation; but I would venture to
say thus much, that Jesus appears on the face of the evangelical
narratives, as the Son of God, in a sense in which no other being
can be rightly called so; that in the opinions of early Christendom,
the lowest as well as the highest, He was esteemed as a supernatural
Person;[41] and that, by common consent, amidst diversities of
theological sentiment, it is acknowledged, never man spake like this
man, or lived like this man, or died like this man, or was like this
man. And being, by the perfection of His moral character, and by the
purpose of His benevolent mission, a truly exceptional person, it
is only in keeping with the first blush, and with the deeper study
of His wondrous life, to believe in signs and wonders attending His
earthly career, showing whence He came, and illustrating what He came
to do. Christ Himself is the greatest of wonders in the history of
the world. No other approaches Him in wisdom, love, beautifulness, and
glory. In more senses than one His name is "above every name." Taking
the four Gospels together, the Incarnation of the Word is associated
with a supernatural birth. The miracle in the spiritual world of the
manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, is coupled with the miracle in
the physical world of the Virgin's conception. If Christianity be more
than the republication of natural religion, if it be the revelation of
God's redeeming love, it involves a miracle as the very starting-point
of the process; and the unfolding of the idea in the New Testament
includes a divine manifestation, which is a miracle in history, and a
divine birth, which is a miracle in nature.[42]
His advent in the world comes out in the four Gospels as a central
sunlike marvel, and therefore it seems no improbability, but rather the
clearest of all probabilities, that around Him there should revolve a
planetary circle of miracles.
Difficulties are needlessly created by forgetfulness of the character
ascribed to this extraordinary Person. To argue as to what He did, or
as to what He did not do, without a recognition of the actual _One_
painted in the Gospels, is really to argue about another Christ, not
the one whom Christians follow.
In accordance with the view I have taken, is the manner in which
the New Testament miracles are narrated. It seems assumed that such
things might be expected in the wake of such a personage as the Son
of God. They are not introduced as a procession of facts challenging
supreme admiration. No flourish of trumpets heralds their march; but
they follow as the fitting and humble retinue of Him who walked the
earth its undisputed Master. The Evangelists write as men who were not
astounded at what their Master did, because they were so filled with
reverence and admiration, at the thought of what their Master was.
Having considered the antecedent objections made to miracles, we
are now prepared to look at what is really the _nature_ of the
miraculous testimony afforded to Christianity. And here, for the sake
of simplifying the argument, I shall confine myself to the miracles
ascribed to Christ. Faith in His miracles will lead to faith in
the miracles of His apostles. If it be granted, as we contend from
what has been said it ought to be, that this is a case in which
historical proof is admissible, then it is impossible to find stronger
historical proof than comes to hand in support of the truth of the
evangelical narratives. The historical proof, as such, has of late
been comparatively little impugned; the assaults made on the prior
credibility of supernatural facts being the main opposition with which
believers in Christianity have to contend. That opposition overcome,
and the validity of competent witnesses, as to the question at issue,
established, the course is free for an accumulation of evidence, such
as Dr. Lardner, with rare erudition, has piled up in his volumes on
the Credibility of the Gospel History: such as Archdeacon Paley,
with unique ingenuity, and with singular felicity of arrangement
and illustration, has condensed in his view of the Evidences of
Christianity.[43] The works now mentioned do not, it must be confessed,
supply all that is wanted for the settlement of the question,
according to the phase it assumes at present. But when scientific and
metaphysical difficulties of modern creation have been grappled with
and removed, the array of pagan and Christian testimonies in support
of the original credibility of the Evangelists, as collected by these
and other writers, comes to render service of immense value. It is
more than any one has yet attempted, to overturn, by citation against
citation, criticism against criticism, argument against argument, the
bulwarks of historical defence built up by the researches of learned
advocates. Indeed, the early historical evidence all goes one way. It
is evidence without counter-evidence.
And to pass for a moment to foreign literature. After the endeavours
of Strauss and others to resolve much of the Gospel story into myths of
a later age, and of Rénan, to construct out of the original documents a
French philosophical romance, we are provided with the works of Ebrard
and Pressensé, who have vindicated the truth of the New Testament story.
It would be idle to attempt, within the compass of this lecture, any
outline of the mass of matter brought together in this service. But I
may be allowed to indicate that it may be arranged in three divisions.
_First_, the concessions of the Jews. Talmudical writings imply that
Jesus of Nazareth did many mighty works. The _Toldoth Jeschu_ relates
a number of things, such as raising the dead, healing lepers, and
restoring the lame. It represents people as falling down before Him,
exclaiming, "Truly Thou art the Son of God."[44] The Christian miracles
are allowed, but they are attributed to magic. "There can be no doubt,"
says Whately, "that this must have been (as our sacred writers tell
us it was) what the adversaries of Jesus maintained from the first.
For if those who lived on the spot in His time had denied or doubted
the facts of the miracles, and had declared that the accounts of them
were false tales, and that no miracles had ever really been wrought,
we may be sure that the same would have been said ever after by their
descendants."[45] _Secondly_, the admissions of heathens. The extracts
from Celsus in Origen afford an abridged history of Jesus Christ,
and acknowledge that He did many marvellous things. Celsus explains
the fact by saying, Jesus went into Egypt, and having made trial of
powers practised there, returned highly elated, and pronounced Himself
a God.[46] Porphry speaks of Christian miracles as wrought by poor
rustics through magical arts.[47] Julian does not contradict them when
he contemptuously affirms, that Jesus did nothing in His lifetime
worthy of remembrance, unless any one thinks it a mighty matter to heal
lame and blind people, and exorcise demons in the villages of Bethsaida
and Bethany.[48] To these heathen admissions, which are of considerable
value, are to be added, _thirdly_, the affirmations of Christians.
Miracles are asserted by them in manifold forms and in manifold
writings. The Fathers follow in the wake of Apostles and Evangelists;
and, be it remembered, each New Testament author who testifies to
these superhuman achievements is an independent witness, so that their
statements bear the value of as many concurrent proofs: and if it
should be said that, because they were Christians, they are partial
witnesses, on the other hand it can be said that some of the Fathers,
and all the New Testament writers, had become so, contrary to former
habits and prejudices, in part, at least, through the very force of
miracles, and that too at the cost of extraordinary self-sacrifice and
suffering.