tioning faith. That is not for a moment to be conceded. That which is extra-natural, is not of necessity incapable of proof. The question whether a dead man was, on a certain occasion, restored to life, is a question to be settled wholly by evidence and the investigation of reason. If the event did occur, clearly it was supernatural; the laws and forces of nature are not adequate to produce such a result. But did it occur? That is the real question; and it is a question which falls as clearly and fully within the range of rational investigation, and the laws of evidence, as any question in physical science. Let us take a given case, the raising of Lazarus from the grave. Two inquiries at once arise: 1. Are the facts as here stated? Did these things actually occur? Was the man dead, and was he subsequently restored to life, according to the statement? 2. If so, was the event miraculous! As to the latter, there can be no reasonable doubt. If the man Lazarus was actually raised from the dead, it was a supernatural event. It is not in the course of nature's operations for dead men to come out of their graves, and resume the functions of life. Her laws are not to that effect. It is well remarked by Dr. Taylor, that it is as much. a law of nature that a dead man shall stay dead, as that a living man shall die when pierced through the heart. As to the other point, it is clearly a question which admits of evidence, and must be settled just as all questions concerning matters of fact are settled, to wit, by the testimony of credible witnesses. But hold, says Mr. Powell; no testimony is sufficient to prove what is contrary to the course and order of nature. We take issue with him there. The testimony of competent and credible witnesses is capable of proving any matter of fact, any occurrence or event; as also of disproving it. The question being: Did this thing really occur; did this man, after he had lain three days in his grave, actually come out of it, at the word of command, and return to his home a living man? The testimony of witnesses is adequate to decide that point. The question is not now as to the cause of the event. how it happened, but did it happen at all? And this is a question which men of common powers of observation, and common honesty, are capable of answering. So of the other miracles of scripture. If the facts occurred as there stated, they are, in many cases at least, such as to leave no doubt of their being supernatural occurrences; and they are, moreover, such things as make it easy to decide whether they did, or did not, really occur. But the so-called miracles, we are told, are, after all, mere myths, fables, illusions. They never, in fact, occurred as narrated. The witnesses are, if not imposing on others, at least themselves imposed upon. So Strauss. This is, of course, supposable; but is it probable? That the witnesses should invent a story utterly without foundation, and palm it off as reality upon those who must have known whether the events in question occurred or not, and who would at once have contradicted the statement had it been untrue, this, surely, is out of the question. On the other hand, that the witnesses, in common with all who were spectators of the scene, were deceived and imposed upon by mere illusions of the senses, is hardly more credible. For the acts. were performed publicly, in open day, and before the most prejudiced eyes. They were of such a nature that nothing would have been easier than to detect the imposition, if there were any. Take, for example, the raising of Lazarus, or the healing of the lame man, at the temple gate, by Peter and John. The observers must have known whether such things really occurred or not; whether they were facts or illusions. They were not predisposed to believe, but on the contrary to reject, the evidence of anything supernatural in the case. They had every motive to do so, but were unable. "What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it," said the sorely perplexed rulers. If there had been any reason to suspect imposition, or jugglery, strange that such men should not have made the most of it.1 1 The theory of Strauss, it should be remarked, presupposes that the narra - Evidently two courses, and only two, are open to him who undertakes to discredit or disprove the miracles of scripture. He must show that the events narrated did not take place; or else that they were not miraculous. The first is simply a question of fact — did such and such things happen? Was the man really dead, or really a cripple, and was he really restored in the manner stated? Now we maintain that on any question of fact, of this nature, the testimony of good and reliable witnesses, honest men, possessing ordinary powers of observation, and placed in such circumstances as to be able to observe whatever occurred, is perfectly valid evidence. The question for them to decide is, not whether the thing is a miracle, that is a matter of judgment which every man must decide for himself, but did the thing actually happen? This it may not always be easy to determine. But when the acts in question are performed publicly, in the sight of all men, without attempt at secrecy or jugglery; when they are of such a nature, moreover, as renders imposition and deception out of the question, in the case of Lazarus, of the widow's son, of the lame man at the temple gate, of the man born blind, and a multitude of other cases, it is easy for any man on the spot to satisfy himself whether such things were or were not done. And if he be a man of good character for honesty and veracity, his testimony as to the simple matter of fact, what he saw and heard, what he knew of the previous condition of the person thus restored, and of the change in that condition, and the manner in which that change occurred, is perfectly valid testimony, and would be so taken in any court of justice in the world. as The case is still stronger when we can summon upon the stand, as witnesses of the fact, men who have the deepest interest in denying the whole transaction, if it were possible tives are not authentic, If the miracles are myths, fables, the inventions of romance, then the Gospels are the invention of some later period, and not reliable historic narratives. But it is not the Gospels alone which narrate the occurrence of miracles. The Acts of the Apostles are full of them. So are the hooks of Moses. To make out the myth theory we must, in fact, reject not merely the credibility, but the authenticity, of the greater part of scripture. for them to do so; but whose reluctant testimony goes to confirm the actual occurrence of the events in question. And this is precisely the case in many instances with regard to the miracles of scripture. We hear much of the fallibility of human testimony. You cannot rely upon it, says Hume. Men often deceive, are often mistaken and incorrect in their statements. It is more reasonable that something of this sort has happened, in any given case, than that the laws of nature are reversed, or her uniformity disturbed. That, we reply, depends on circumstances. In the cases now under consideration, it is certainly more reasonable to suppose that the facts occurred as stated, than that so many men should testify to their occurrence under their own observation, and that too when, in many cases, they had the strongest motive for denying and contradicting the whole story, and yet all prove to be either false or incorrect in the statements. Laplace has shown, indeed, that evidence diminishes rapidly in passing through successive hands; so that even supposing each witness to speak the truth nine times out of ten, by the time it has passed through twenty hands, the chances that the last or twentieth witness speaks the truth, are less than one in eight. To this it is sufficient to reply that as regards the cases under consideration, — and the same may be said of the scripture miracles generally, — we have our testimony, not from the twentieth hand,'or even at second hand, but from eye-witnesses themselves, who speak what they do know, and testify what they have seen. And here we cannot but inquire, whether the case would be, on the whole, materially altered, if in place of the testimony of others to the occurrence of a miracle, under circumstances the most favorable to honesty, and also to accuracy on the part of the witness, we had the testimony of our own senses. Suppose we ourselves were observers of the whole transaction,-the question being still, as before, not Was the affair a miracle? but only: Did such and such a thing take place?- Was the dead man restored to life? Was the lame man healed? - have we now the means of deciding this question with any more certainty than before? True, we have now the testimony of our own eyes, instead of those of others. But are we less liable to be mistaken or deceived in regard to a simple matter of observation than are other people under the same circumstances? Are our eyes more reliable than other eyes, our senses than other men's senses, our judgment as to what it is that we see and hear than other people's judgments as to the same thing? Have we never found ourselves mistaken as to what we thought we had observed? Would our testimony that we had ourselves seen and heard such and such things pass for more, in a court of justice, than the same testimony from any other honest and competent witness in the same circumstances? Indeed, Mr. Powell admits that the evidence of our own senses can no more prove a miracle than the testimony of other witnesses. "The essential question of miracles stands quite apart from any consideration of testimony; the question would remain the same if we had the evidence of our own senses to an alleged miracle, that is, to an extraordinary or inexplicable fact. It is not the mere fact, but the cause or explanation of it, which is the point at issue." I True, we reply, the cause or explanation of the fact is a point at issue; but so, also, is the fact itself,-that first and chiefly; and till that is settled, the other is of no consequence. Did this event really occur, is our first question; once satisfied of that, we may then inquire: Was the thing a miracle? Now it is to the decision of this first question that we call in the testimony of competent and reliable witnesses as a perfectly valid source of evidence; and we maintain that a case may easily be conceived, in which such testimony shall be equally conclusive of the fact with our own personal observation. It is worthy of remark that the two questions: Did the thing actually occur? and if so, was it a miracle? - stand to each other in a certain fixed relation. The more extraordinary and improbable the event, and therefore the more unlikely to have occurred, the greater the probability that if Recent Inquiries, p. 159. |