Essay
I. The Miracles of Scripture
Compared with those reported elsewhere,
as regards
Their Nature, Credibility, and Evidence
Introduction. On the Miracles of Scripture
{3} I PROPOSE
to attempt an extended comparison between the Miracles of Scripture
and those elsewhere related, as regards their nature, credibility, and
evidence. I shall divide my observations under the following heads:—
§ 1. On the Idea and Scope of a Miracle.
§ 2. On the antecedent Credibility of a Miracle,
considered as a Divine Interposition.
§ 3. On the Criterion of a Miracle, considered
as a Divine Interposition.
§ 4. On the direct Evidence for the Christian
Miracles. {4}
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Section 1. On the
Idea and Scope of a Miracle
{4} A MIRACLE
may be considered as an event inconsistent with the constitution of
nature, that is, with the established course of things in which it is
found. Or, again, an event in a given system which cannot be referred
to any law, or accounted for by the operation of any principle, in
that system. It does not necessarily imply a violation of nature, as
some have supposed,—merely the interposition of an external cause,
which, we shall hereafter show, can be no other than the agency of the
Deity. And the effect produced is that of unusual or increased action
in the parts of the system.
It is then a relative term, not only as it
presupposes an assemblage of laws from which it is a deviation, but
also as it has reference to some one particular system; for the same
event which is anomalous in one, may be quite regular when observed in
connexion with another. The Miracles of Scripture, for instance, are
irregularities in the economy of nature, but with {5} a moral end;
forming one instance out of many, of the providence of God, that is,
an instance of occurrences in the natural world with a final cause.
Thus, while they are exceptions to the laws of one system, they may
coincide with those of another. They profess to be the evidence of a
Revelation, the criterion of a divine message. To consider them as
mere exceptions to physical order, is to take a very incomplete view
of them. It is to degrade them from the station which they hold in the
plans and provisions of the Divine Mind, and to strip them of their
real use and dignity; for as naked and isolated facts they do but
deform an harmonious system.
From this account of a Miracle, it is evident
that it may often be difficult exactly to draw the line between
uncommon and strictly miraculous events. Thus the production of ice
might have seemed at first sight miraculous to the Siamese; for it was
a phenomenon referable to none of those laws of nature which are in
ordinary action in tropical climates. Such, again, might magnetic
attraction appear, in ages familiar only with the attraction of
gravity [Note 1]. On the other
hand, the extraordinary works of Moses or St. Paul appear miraculous,
even when referred to those simple and elementary principles of nature
which the widest experience has confirmed. As far as this affects the
discrimination of supernatural facts, it will be considered {6} in its
proper place; meanwhile let it suffice to state, that those events
only are connected with our present subject which have no assignable
second cause or antecedent, and which, on that account, are from the
nature of the case referred to the immediate agency of the Deity.
A Revelation, that is, a direct message from God
to man, itself bears in some degree a miraculous character; inasmuch
as it supposes the Deity actually to present Himself before His
creatures, and to interpose in the affairs of life in a way above the
reach of those settled arrangements of nature, to the existence of
which universal experience bears witness. And as a Revelation itself,
so again the evidences of a Revelation may all more or less be
considered miraculous. Prophecy is an evidence only so far as
foreseeing future events is above the known powers of the human mind,
or miraculous. In like manner, if the rapid extension of Christianity
be urged in favour of its divine origin, it is because such extension,
under such circumstances, is supposed to be inconsistent with the
known principles and capacity of human nature. And the pure morality
of the Gospel, as taught by illiterate fishermen of Galilee, is an
evidence, in proportion as the phenomenon disagrees with the
conclusions of general experience, which leads us to believe that a
high state of mental cultivation is ordinarily requisite for the
production of such moral teachers. It might {7} even be said that,
strictly speaking, no evidence of a Revelation is conceivable 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; or,
again, because no event which results entirely from the ordinary
operation of nature can be the criterion of one that is extraordinary
[Note 2].
In the present argument I confine myself to the
consideration of Miracles commonly so called; such events, that is,
for the most part, as are inconsistent with the constitution of the
physical world.
Miracles, thus defined, hold a very prominent
place in the evidence of the Jewish and Christian Revelations. They
are the most striking and conclusive evidence; because, the laws of
matter being better understood than those to which mind is conformed,
the transgression of them is more easily recognised. They are the most
simple and obvious; because, whereas the freedom of the human will
resists the imposition of undeviating laws, the material creation, on
the contrary, being strictly subjected to the regulation of its {8}
Maker, looks to Him alone for a change in its constitution. Yet
Miracles are but a branch of the evidences, and other branches have
their respective advantages. Prophecy, as has been often observed, is
a growing evidence, and appeals more forcibly than Miracles to those
who are acquainted with the Miracles only through testimony. A
philosophical mind will perhaps be most strongly affected by the fact
of the very existence of the Jewish polity, or of the revolution
effected by Christianity. While the beautiful moral teaching and
evident honesty of the New Testament writers is the most persuasive
argument to the unlearned but single-hearted inquirer. Nor must it be
forgotten that the evidences of Revelation are cumulative, that they
gain strength from each other; and that, in consequence, the argument
from Miracles is immensely stronger when viewed in conjunction with
the rest, than when considered separately, as in an inquiry of the
present nature.
As the relative force of the separate evidences
is different under different circumstances, so again has one class of
Miracles more or less weight than another, according to the accidental
change of times, places, and persons addressed. As our knowledge of
the system of nature, and of the circumstances of the particular case
varies, so of course varies our conviction. Walking on the sea, for
instance, or giving sight to one born blind, would to us perhaps be a
{9} Miracle even more astonishing than it was to the Jews; the laws of
nature being at the present day better understood than formerly, and
the fables concerning magical power being no longer credited. On the
other hand, stilling the wind and waves with a word may by all but
eye-witnesses be set down to accident or exaggeration without the
possibility of a full confutation; yet to eye-witnesses it would carry
with it an overpowering evidence of supernatural agency by the voice
and manner that accompanied the command, the violence of the wind at
the moment, the instantaneous effect produced, and other
circumstances, the force of which a narrative cannot fully convey. The
same remark applies to the Miracle of changing water into wine, to the
cure of demoniacal possessions, and of diseases generally. From a
variety of causes, then, it happens that Miracles which produced a
rational conviction at the time when they took place, have ever since
proved rather an objection to Revelation than an evidence for it, and
have depended on the rest for support; while others, which once were
of a dubious and perplexing character, have in succeeding ages come
forward in its defence. It is by a process similar to this that the
anomalous nature of the Mosaic polity, which might once be an obstacle
to its reception, is now justly alleged in proof of the very Miracles
by which it was then supported [Note 3].
It is important to keep this remark {10} in view, as it is no uncommon
practice with those who are ill-affected to the cause of Revealed
Religion to dwell upon such Miracles as at the present day rather
require than contribute evidence, as if they formed a part of the
present proof on which it rests its pretensions [Note
4].
In the foregoing remarks, the being of an
intelligent Maker has been throughout assumed; and, indeed, if the
peculiar object of a Miracle be to evidence a message from God, it is
plain that it implies the admission of the fundamental truth, and
demands assent to another beyond it. His particular interference it
directly proves, while it only reminds of His existence. It professes
to be the signature of God to a message delivered by human
instruments; and therefore supposes that signature in some degree
already known, from His ordinary works. It appeals to that moral sense
and that experience of human affairs which already bear witness to His
ordinary presence. Considered by itself, it is at most but the token
of a superhuman being. Hence, though an additional instance, it is not
a distinct species of {11} evidence for a Creator from that contained
in the general marks of order and design in the universe. A proof
drawn from an interruption in the course of nature is in the same line
of argument as one deduced from the existence of that course, and in
point of cogency is inferior to it. Were a being who had experience
only of a chaotic world suddenly introduced into this orderly system
of things, he would have an infinitely more powerful argument for the
existence of a designing Mind, than a mere interruption of that system
can afford. A Miracle is no argument to one who is deliberately, and
on principle, an atheist.
Yet, though not abstractedly the more convincing,
it is often so in effect, as being of a more striking and imposing
character. The mind, habituated to the regularity of nature, is
blunted to the overwhelming evidence it conveys; whereas by a Miracle
it may be roused to reflection, till mere conviction of a superhuman
being becomes the first step towards the acknowledgment of a Supreme
Power. While, moreover, it surveys nature as a whole, it is not
capacious enough to embrace its bearings, and to comprehend what it
implies. In miraculous displays of power the field of view is
narrowed; a detached portion of the divine operations is taken as an
instance, and the final cause is distinctly pointed out. A Miracle,
besides, is more striking, inasmuch as it displays the Deity in
action; evidence of which is not supplied in the {12} system of
nature. It may then accidentally bring conviction of an intelligent
Creator; for it voluntarily proffers a testimony which we have
ourselves to extort from the ordinary course of things, and forces
upon the attention a truth which otherwise is not discovered, except
upon examination.
And as it affords a more striking evidence of a
Creator than that conveyed in the order and established laws of the
Universe, still more so does it of a Moral Governor. For, while nature
attests the being of God more distinctly than it does His moral
government, a miraculous event, on the contrary, bears more directly
on the fact of His moral government, of which it is an immediate
instance, while it only implies His existence. Hence, besides
banishing ideas of Fate and Necessity, Miracles have a tendency to
rouse conscience, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, to remind of
duty, and to direct the attention to those marks of divine government
already contained in the ordinary course of events [Note
5].
Hitherto, however, I have spoken of solitary
Miracles; a system of miraculous interpositions, conducted with
reference to a final cause, supplies a still more beautiful and
convincing argument for the moral government of God.
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Notes
1. Campbell, On Miracles, Part i. Sec. 2.
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2.
Hence it is that in the Scripture accounts of Revelations to the
Prophets, etc., a sensible Miracle is so often asked and given; as if
the vision itself, which was the medium of the Revelation, was not a
sufficient evidence of it, as being perhaps resolvable into the
ordinary powers of an excited imagination; e.g., Judg. vi.
36-40, etc.
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3.
See Sumner's "Records of Creation," Vol. i.
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4.
See Hume, On Miracles: "Let us examine those Miracles related in
Scripture, and, not to lose ourselves in too wide a field, let
us confine ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch, etc.
It gives an account of the state of the world and of human nature
entirely different from the present; of our fall from that state; of
the age of man extended to near a thousand years," etc. See Berkeley's
"Minute Philosopher," Dial. vi. Sec. 30.
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5.
Farmer, On Miracles, Chap. i. Sec. 2.
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