Section 3. On the Criterion of a Miracle, considered as a Divine Interposition{49} IT has sometimes been asked, whether Miracles are a sufficient evidence of the interposition of the Deity? under the idea that other causes, besides divine agency, might be assigned for their production. This is obviously the reverse objection to that I have as yet considered, which was founded on the assumption that they could be referred to no known cause whatever. After showing, then, that the Scripture Miracles may be ascribed to the Supreme Being, I proceed to show that they cannot reasonably be ascribed to those other causes which have been sometimes assigned for them, for instance, to unknown laws of nature, or to the secret agency of Spirits. 1. Now it is evidently unphilosophical to attribute them to the power of invisible Beings, short of God; because, independently of Scripture (the truth of which, of course, must not be assumed in this question), we have no evidence of the existence of such {50} beings. Nature attests, indeed, the being of a God, but not of a race of intelligent creatures between Him and Man. In assigning a Miracle, therefore, to the influence of Spirits, an hypothetical cause is introduced merely to remove a difficulty. And even did analogy lead us to admit their possible existence, yet it would tend rather to disprove than to prove their power over the visible creation. They may be confined to their own province, and though superior to Man, still may be unable to do many things which he can effect; just as Man in turn is superior to birds and fishes, without having, in consequence, the power of flying or of inhabiting the water [Note 1]. Still it may be necessary to show that on our own principles we are not open to any charge of 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 from Miracles depends on the assumption, 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 {51} to give created Spirits some power of working them; and even, in its most literal sense, intimates the possibility of their working them in opposition to the true doctrine [Note 2]. With a view of meeting this difficulty, some writers have attempted to make a distinction between great and small, many and few Miracles; and have thus inadvertently destroyed the intelligibility of any, as the criterion of a divine interposition [Note 3]. Others, by referring to the nature of the doctrine attested, 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 [Note 4]. Others, on the contrary, {52} have thought themselves obliged to deny the power of Spirits altogether, and to explain away the Scripture accounts of demoniacal possessions, and the narrative of our Lord's Temptation [Note 5]. Without, however, having recourse to any of these dangerous modes of answering the objection, it 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. Thus the information given by Scripture in nowise undoes the original conclusions of Reason; for it anticipates the objection which itself furnishes, and by revealing the express intention of God in miraculous {53} displays, guarantees to us that He will allow no interference of created power to embarrass the proof thence resulting, of His special interposition [Note 6]. It is unnecessary to say more on this subject; and questions concerning the existence, nature, and limits of spiritual agency will find their place when Christians are engaged in settling among themselves the doctrines of Scripture. We take it, therefore, for granted, as an obvious and almost undeniable principle, that real Miracles, i.e., interruptions in the course of nature, cannot reasonably be referred to any power but divine, because it is natural to refer an alteration in the system to its original author, and because Reason does not inform us of any other being but God exterior to nature; and lastly, because in the particular case of the Scripture Miracles, the workers of them confirm our previous judgment by expressly attributing them to Him. 2. A more subtle question remains, respecting the possible existence of causes in nature, to us unknown, by the supposed operation of which the apparent anomalies may be reconciled to the ordinary laws of the system. It has already been admitted that some difficulty will at times attend the discrimination of miraculous from merely uncommon events; and it must be borne in mind that in this, as in all questions {54} from which demonstration is excluded, it is impossible, from the nature of the case, absolutely to disprove any, even the wildest, hypothesis which may be framed. It may freely be granted, moreover, that some of the Scripture Miracles, if they stood alone, might reasonably be referred to natural principles of which we were ignorant, or resolved into some happy combination of accidental circumstances. For our purpose, it is quite sufficient if there be a considerable number which no sober judgment would attempt to deprive of their supernatural character by any supposition of our ignorance of natural laws, or of exaggeration in the narrative. Raising the dead and giving sight to the blind by a word, feeding a multitude with the casual provisions which one individual among them had with him, healing persons at a distance, and walking on the water, are facts, even separately taken, far beyond the conceivable effects of artifice or accident; and much more so when they meet together in one and the same history. And here Hume's argument from general experience is in point, which at least proves that the ordinary powers of nature are unequal to the production of works of this kind. It becomes, then, a balance of opposite probabilities, whether gratuitously to suppose a multitude of perfectly unknown causes, and these, moreover, meeting in one and the same history, or to have recourse to one, and that a known power, then miraculously exerted for an extraordinary {55} and worthy object. We may safely say no sound reasoner will hesitate on which alternative to decide. While, then, a fair proportion of the Scripture Miracles are indisputably deserving of their name, but a weak objection can be derived from the case of the few which, owing to accidental circumstances, bear at the present day less decisive marks of supernatural agency. For, be it remembered (and it is a strong confirmatory proof that the Jewish and Christian Miracles are really what they profess to be) that though the miraculous character of some of them is more doubtful in one age than in another, yet the progress of Science has made no approximation to a general explication of them on natural principles. While discoveries in Optics and Chemistry have accounted for a host of apparent miracles, they hardly touch upon those of the Jewish and Christian systems. Here is no phantasmagoria to be detected, no analysis or synthesis of substances, ignitions, explosions, and other customary resources of the juggler's art [Note 7]. But, as before, we shall best be able to estimate their character in this respect by contrasting them with other occurrences which have sometimes been considered miraculous. Thus, too, a second line of difference will be drawn between them and the mass of rival prodigies, whether religious or otherwise, to which they are often compared. {56} A Miracle, then, as far as it is an evidence of Divine interposition, being an ascertained anomaly in an established system, or an event without assignable physical cause, those facts, of course, have no title to the name— 1. Which may be referred to misstatements in the testimony1. Such are many of the prodigies of the Heathen Mythology and History, which have been satisfactorily traced to an exaggeration of natural events. For instance, the fables of the Cyclops, Centaurs, of the annual transformation of a Scythian nation into wolves, as related by Herodotus, etc. Or natural facts allegorized, as in the fable of Scylla and Charybdis. Or where the fact may be explained by supplying a probable omission; as we should account for a story of a man sailing in the air by supposing a balloon described [Note 8]. 2. Or where the Miracle is but verbal, as the poetical prodigy of thunder without clouds, which is little better than a play upon words; for, supposing it to occur, it would not be called thunder. Or as when Herodotus speaks of wool growing on trees; for, even were it in substance the same as wool, it could not be called so without a contradiction in terms. {57} 3. Or where the Miracle is one simply of degree, for then exaggeration is more easily conceivable;—thus many supposed visions may have been but natural dreams. 4. Or where it depends on the combination of a multitude of distinct circumstances, each of which is necessary for the proof of its supernatural character, and where, as in fine experiments, a small mistake is of vast consequence. As those which depend on a coincidence of time, which it is difficult for any person to have ascertained. For instance, the exclamation which Apollonius is said to have uttered concerning the assassination of Domitian at the time of its taking place; and, again, the alleged fact of his appearing at Puteoli on the same morning in which he was tried at Rome. Such, too, in some degree, is the professed revelation made to St. Basil, who is said to have been miraculously informed of the death of the Emperor Julian at the very moment that it took place [Note 9]. Here we may instance many stories of apparitions; as the popular one concerning the appearance of a man to the club which he used to frequent at the moment after his death, who was afterwards discovered to have escaped from his nurses in a fit of delirium shortly before it took place, and actually to have joined his friends. We may add the case related to M. Bonnet, of a woman who pretended to {58} know what was passing at a given time at any part of the globe, and who was detected by the simple expedient of accurately marking the time, and comparing her account with the fact [Note 10]. In the same class must be reckoned not a few of the answers of the Heathen Oracles, if it be worth while to allude to them; as that which informed Crœsus of his occupation at a certain time agreed upon. In the Gospel, the nobleman's son begins to amend at the very time that Christ speaks the word; but this circumstance does not constitute, it merely increases the Miracle. The argument from Prophecy is, in this point of view, somewhat deficient in simplicity and clearness, as implying the decision of many previous questions: such, for instance, as to the existence of the professed prediction before the event, the interval between the prediction and its accomplishment, the completeness of its accomplishment, etc. Hence Prophecy affords a more learned and less popular proof of Divine interposition than physical Miracles, and, except in cases where it contributes a very strong evidence, is commonly of inferior cogency. 2. Those which, from suspicious circumstances attending them, may not unfairly be referred to an unknown cause1. As those which take place in departments of {59} nature little understood; for instance, Miracles of Electricity.—Again, an assemblage of Miracles confined to one line of extraordinary exertion in some measure suggests the idea of a cause short of divine. For while their repetition looks like the profession, their similarity argues a want, of power. This remark is disadvantageous to the Miracles of the primitive Church, which consisted almost entirely of exorcisms and cures [Note 11]; to the Pythagorean, which were principally Miracles of sagacity; and, again, to those occurring at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, which were limited to cures, and cures, too, of particular diseases. While the Miracles of Scripture are frugally dispensed as regards their object and seasons, they are carefully varied in their nature; like the work of One who is not wasteful of His riches, yet can be munificent when occasion calls for it. 2. Here we may notice tentative Miracles, as Paley terms them; that is, where out of many trials only some succeed; for inequality of success seems to imply accident, in other words, the combination of unknown physical causes. Such are the cures of scrofula by the King's touch, and those effected in the Heathen Temples [Note 12]; and, again, those at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, there being but eight or nine well-authenticated cures out of the multitude of trials that {60} were made [Note 13]. One of the peculiarities of the cures ascribed to Christ is their invariable success [Note 14]. 3. Here, for a second reason, diffidence in the agent casts suspicion on the reality of professed Miracles; for at least we have the sanction of his own opinion for supposing them to be the effect of accident or unknown causes. 4. Temporary Miracles also, as many of the Jansenist and other extraordinary cures [Note 15], may be similarly accounted for; for, if ordinary causes can undo, it is not improbable they may be able originally to effect. The restoration of Lazarus and the others was a restoration to their former condition, which was mortal; their subsequent dissolution, then, in the course of nature, does not interfere with the completeness of the previous Miracle. 5. The Jansenist cures are also unsatisfactory, as being gradual, and, for the same reason, the professed liquefaction of St. Januarius's blood; a progressive effect being a characteristic, as it seems, of the operations of nature. Hence those Miracles are most perspicuous which are wrought at the word of command; as those of Christ and His Apostles. For this as well as other reasons, incomplete Miracles, as imperfect {61} cures, are no evidence of supernatural agency; and here, again, we have to instance the cures effected at the tomb of the Abbé Paris. 6. Again, the use of means is suspicious; for a Miracle may almost be defined to be an event without means. Hence, however miraculous the production of ice might appear to the Siamese, considered abstractedly, they would hardly so account it in an actual experiment, when they saw the preparation of nitre, etc., which in that climate must have been used for the purpose. In the case of the Steam-vessel or the Balloon, which, it has been sometimes said, would appear miraculous to persons unacquainted with Science, the chemical and mechanical apparatus employed could not fail to rouse suspicion in intelligent minds. Hence professed Miracles are open to suspicion, if confined to one spot; as were the Jansenist cures. For they thereby became connected with a necessary condition, which is all we understand by a means: for instance, such may often be imputed to a confederacy, which (as is evident) can from its nature seldom shift the scene of action. "The Cock-lane ghost could only knock and scratch in one place." [Note 16] The Apostles, on the contrary, are represented as dispersed about, and working Miracles in various parts of the world [Note 17]. These remarks are, of course, inapplicable {62} in a case where the apparent means are known to be inadequate, and are not constantly used; as our Lord's occasional application of clay to the eyes, which, while it proves that He did not need such instrumentality, conveys also an intimation that all the efficacy of means is derived from His appointment. 3. Those which may be referred to the supposed operation of a cause known to exist1. Professed Miracles of knowledge or mental ability are often unsatisfactory for this reason; being in many cases referable to the ordinary powers of the intellect. Of this kind is the boasted elegance of the style of the Koran, alleged by Mahomet in evidence of his divine mission. Hence most of the Miracles of Apollonius, consisting, as they do, in knowing the thoughts of others, and predicting the common events of life, are no criterion of a supernatural gift; it being only under certain circumstances that such power can clearly be discriminated from the natural exercise of acuteness and sagacity. Accordingly, though a knowledge of the hearts of men is claimed by Christ, it seems to be claimed rather with a view to prove to Christians the doctrine of His Divine Nature than to attest to the world His authority as a messenger from God. Again, St. Paul's prediction of shipwreck on his voyage to Rome was intended to prevent it; and so was the prediction of Agabus {63} concerning the same Apostle's approaching perils at Jerusalem [Note 18]. 2. For a second reason, then, the argument from Prophecy is a less simple and striking proof of divine agency than a display of Miracles; it being impossible, in all cases, to show that the things foretold were certainly beyond the ordinary faculties of the mind to have discovered. Yet when this is shown, Prophecy is one of the most powerful of conceivable evidences; strict foreknowledge being a faculty not only above the powers, but even above the comprehension of the human mind. 3. And much more fairly may apparent Miracles be attributed to the supposed operation of an existing physical cause, when they are parallel to its known effects; as chemical, meteorological, etc., phenomena. For though the cause may not, perhaps, appear in the particular case, yet it is known to have acted in others similar to it. For this reason, no stress can be laid on accounts of luminous crosses in the air, human shadows in the clouds, appearances of men and horses on hills, and spectres when they are speechless, as is commonly the case, ordinary causes being assignable in all of these; or, again, on the pretended liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, or on the exorcism of demoniacs, which is the most frequent Miracle in the Primitive Church. {64} 4. The remark applies, moreover, to cases of healing, so far as they are not instantaneous, complete, etc.: conditions which exclude the supposition of natural means being employed, and which are strictly fulfilled in the Gospel narrative. 5. Again, some cures are known as possible effects of an excited imagination; particularly when the disease arises from obstruction and other disorders of the blood and spirits, as the cures which took place at the tomb of the Abbé Paris [Note 19]. 6. We should be required to add those cases of healing in Scripture where the faith of the petitioners was a necessary condition of the cure, were not these comparatively few, and some of them such as no imagination could have effected (for instance, the restoration of sight), and some wrought on persons absent; and were not faith often required, not of the patient, but of the relative or friend who brought him to be healed [Note 20]. 7. The force of imagination may also be alleged to account for the supposed visions and voices which some enthusiasts have believed they saw and heard; for instance, the trances of Montanus and his followers, {65} the visions related by some of the Fathers, and those of the Romish saints [Note 21]; lastly, Mahomet's pretended night-journey to heaven: all which, granting the sincerity of the reporters, may not unreasonably be referred to the effects of disease or of an excited imagination. 8. Such, it is obvious, might be some of the Scripture Miracles; for instance, the various appearances of Angels to individuals, the vision of St. Paul when he was transported to the third heaven, etc., which accordingly were wrought, as Scripture professes, for purposes distinct from that of evidencing the doctrine, viz., in order to become the medium of a revelation, or to confirm faith, etc. In other cases, however, the supposition of imagination is excluded by the vision having been witnessed by more than one person, as the Transfiguration; or by its correspondence with distinct visions seen by others, as in the circumstances which attended the conversion of Cornelius; or by its connection with a permanent Miracle, as the appearance of Christ to St. Paul in his conversion, is connected with his blindness in consequence, which remained three days [Note 22]. 9. Much more inconclusive are those which are actually {66} attended by a physical cause known or suspected to be adequate to their production. Some of those who were cured at the tomb of the Abbé Paris were at the time making use of the usual remedies; the person whose inflamed eye was relieved was, during his attendance at the sepulchre, under the care of an eminent oculist; another was cured of a lameness in the knee by the mere effort to kneel at the tomb [Note 23]. Arnobius challenges the Heathens to produce one of the pretended miracles of their gods performed without the application of some prescription [Note 24]. 10. Again, Hilarion's cures of wounds, as mentioned by Jerome, were accompanied by the application of consecrated oil [Note 25]. The Apostles indeed made use of oil in some of their cures [Note 26], but they more frequently healed without a medium of any kind. A similar objection might be urged against the narrative of Hezekiah's recovery from sickness, both on account of the application of the figs, and the slowness of the cure, were it anywhere stated to have been miraculous [Note 27]. Again, the dividing of the Red Sea, accompanied as it was by a strong east wind, would not have been clearly miraculous, had it not been effected at the word of Moses. {67} 11. Much suspicion, too, is (as some think) cast upon the miraculous nature of the fire, etc., which put a stop to Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, by the possibility of referring it to the operation of chemical causes. 12. Lastly, answers to prayer, however providential, are not miraculous; for in granting them, God acts by means of, not out of, His usual system, making the ordinary course of things subservient to a gracious purpose. Such events, then, instead of evidencing the Divine approbation to a certain cause, must be proved from the goodness of the cause to be what they are interpreted to be. Yet by supposed answers to prayer, appeals to Heaven, pretended judgments, etc., enthusiasts in most ages have wished to sanction their claims to divine inspiration. By similar means the pretensions of the Romish hierarchy have been supported [Note 28]. Here we close our remarks on the criterion of a Miracle; which, it has been seen, is no one definite peculiarity, applicable to all cases, but the combined force of a number of varying circumstances determining our judgment in each particular instance. It might even be said, that a determinate criterion is almost inconceivable. For when once settled, it might {68} appear, as was above remarked, to be merely the physical antecedent of the extraordinary fact; while, on the other hand, from the direction thus given to the ingenuity of impostors, it would soon itself need a criterion to distinguish it from its imitations. Certain it is, that the great variety of circumstances under which the Christian Miracles were wrought, furnishes an evidence for their divine origin, in addition to that derived from their publicity, clearness, number, instantaneous production, and completeness. The exorcism of demoniacs, however, has already been noticed as being, perhaps, in every case deficient in the proof of its miraculous nature. Accordingly, this class of Miracles seems not to have been intended as a primary evidence of a divine mission, but to be addressed to those who already admitted the existence of evil spirits, in proof of the power of Christ and His followers over them [Note 29]. To us, then, it is rather a doctrine than an evidence, manifesting our Lord's power, as other doctrines instance His mercy. With regard to the argument from Prophecy, which some have been disposed to abandon on account of the number of conditions necessary for the proof of its supernatural character, it should be remembered, {69} that inability to fix the exact boundary of natural sagacity is no objection to such prophecies as are undeniably beyond it; and that the mere inconclusiveness of some of those in Scripture, as proofs of Divine Prescience, has no positive force against others contained in it, which furnishes a full, lasting, and, in many cases, growing evidence of its inspiration [Note 30]. Notes1. Campbell, On Miracles, Part ii. Sec. 3.
Farmer, Ch. ii. Sec. 1. 2.
Deut. xiii. 1-3; Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Thess. ii. 9-11. 3.
More or less, Sherlock, Clarke, Locke, and others. 4.
Prideaux, Clarke, Chandler, etc., seem hardly to have guarded
sufficiently against the charge here noticed. There is an appearance
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 (as they were by Middleton), 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 à priori notions, as well as receive.
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 proposition, that
none but He can interfere with the system of nature. 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; for many have rejected the miraculous narrative
of the Pentateuch, from an unfounded and an unwarrantable opinion,
that the means employed in settling the Jews in Canaan were in
themselves immoral. 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. From experience we gain but general and
imperfect ideas of wisdom, goodness, etc., enough (that is) to bear
witness to a Revelation when given, not enough to supersede it. On the
contrary, our speculations concerning the Divine Attributes and
designs, professing, as they do, to decide on the truth of revealed
doctrines, in fact go to supersede the necessity of a Revelation
altogether. 5.
Especially Farmer. 6.
Fleetwood, On Miracles, Disc. ii. p. 201. Van Mildert's Boyle
Lectures, Serm. xxi. 7.
See Farmer, Ch. i. Sec. 3. 8.
Bentham, Preuves Judiciaires, Liv. viii. Ch. x. 9.
Middleton, Free Inquiry. 10.
Bentham, Preuves Judiciaires, Liv. viii. Ch. x. 11.
[Vide, however, infra, Essay ii., n. 82, etc.] 12.
Stillingfleet, Orig. Sacr. Book ii. Ch. x. Sec. 9. 13.
Douglas, Criterion, p. 133. 14.
Ibid. p. 260, cites the following texts: Matt. iv. 23, 24; viii. 16;
ix. 35; xii. 15; xiv. 12; Luke iv. 40; vi. 19. 15.
Douglas, Criterion, p. 190. Middleton, Free Inquiry, iv. Sec. 3. 16.
Hey's Lectures, Book i. Ch. xvi. Sec. 10. 17.
Douglas, Criterion, p. 337. 18.
Acts xxi. 10-14; xxvii. 10, 21. 19.
Douglas, Criterion, p. 172. 20.
Mark x. 51, 52; Matt. viii. 5-13. See Douglas, Criterion, p. 258.
"Where persons petitioned themselves for a cure, a declaration of
their faith was often required, that none might be encouraged to try
experiments out of curiosity, in a manner which would have been very
indecent, and have tended to many bad consequences." Doddridge on Acts
ix. 34. 21.
[The visions of Catholic saints were granted to them, as is said in
the next sentence about Scripture visions, "for purposes distinct from
that of evidencing the doctrine."] 22.
Paley's Evidences, Part i. Prop. 2. 23.
Douglas, Criterion, pp. 143, 184, Note. 24.
Stillingfleet, Book ii. Ch. x. Sec. 9. 25.
Middleton, Free Inquiry, iv. Sec. 2. 26.
Mark vi. 13. 27.
2 Kings xx. 4-7. 28.
[But not ultimately founded and rested upon them, as has been the way
with enthusiasts.] 29.
See Div. Leg. Book ix. Ch. v. Hence the exercise of this gift seems
almost to have been confined to Palestine. At Philippi St. Paul casts
out a spirit of divination in self-defence (Acts xvi. 16-18). In the
transaction related Acts xix. 11-17, Jews are principally concerned. 30.
Some unbelievers have urged the irrelevancy of St. Matthew's citations
from the Old Testament Prophecies in illustration of the events of
Christ's life, e.g. ch. ii. 15. It must be recollected,
however, that what is evidence in one age is often not so in another.
That certain of the texts adduced by the Evangelist furnish at the
present day no proof of Divine Prescience, is very true; but unless
some kind of argument could have been drawn from them at the time the
Gospel was written, from traditional interpretations of their sense,
we can scarcely account for St. Matthew's introducing them. The
question is, has there been a loss of what was evidence formerly, (as
is often the case,) or did St. Matthew bring forward as a prophetical
evidence what was manifestly not so, as if to hurt the effect of those
other passages, as ch. xxvii. 35, which have every appearance of being
real predictions? It has been observed, that Prophecy in general must
be obscure, in order that the events spoken of may not be understood
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