Part 11

If men concentrate their thought upon the lower forces of the universe, and explain the functions of life, and even such powers as affection, will, reason, and conscience, as if they were modifications of mere physical powers, and ignore a higher Will, and an all-controlling Mind, and a personal superintending Providence, what wonder if they are indisposed to receive any such direct manifestation of God as the Resurrection of Jesus, for the Resurrection of Jesus is the pledge of a righteous Judgment and Retribution which, however it takes place, will be the most astounding "anomaly" amidst the mere physical phenomena of the universe, whilst it will be the necessary completion of its moral order.

The proof of miracles is then, as I said, a matter of evidence. When Hume asserts that "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature," we meet him with the counter-assertion that it is rather the new manifestation in this order of things of the oldest of powers, that which originally introduced life into a lifeless world.

When he says that "a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws," we say that science teaches us that there must have been epochs in the history of the world when new forces made their appearance on the scene, for it teaches us that the world was once incandescent, and so incapable of supporting any conceivable form of animal life, but that at a certain geological period life made its appearance.

Now, we believe that it is just as wonderful, and contrary to the experience of a lifeless world, that life should appear on that world, as that it is contrary to the experience of the present state of things, that a dead body should be raised.

When he asserts that a miraculous event is contrary to uniform experience, we can only reply that it is not contrary to the experience of the Evangelists, of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the other Apostles and companions of the Lord; that it was not contrary to the experience of the multitudes who were miraculously fed, and of the multitudes who were miraculously healed. When it is replied to this, that we have insufficient evidence of the fact that these persons witnessed miracles, we rejoin that there is far greater evidence, both in quality and amount, for these miracles, especially for the crowning one, than there is for any fact of profane history; but, if there was twice the evidence that there is, its reception must depend upon the state of mind of the recipient himself.

If a man, whilst professing to believe in "a God under whose beneficent government we know that all that is consistent with wise and omnipotent law is prospered and brought to perfection," yet has got himself to believe that such a God cannot introduce into any part of the universe a new power or force, as for instance that He is bound not to introduce vital force into a lifeless world, or mental power into a reasonless world, or moral power into a world of free agents, but must leave these forces to work themselves out of non-existence;--if it man, I say, has got himself to believe in such a Being, he will not, of course, believe in any testimony to miracles as accrediting a Revelation from Him, and so he will do his best to get rid of them after the fashion in which we have seen the author of "Supernatural Religion" attempt to get rid of the testimony of Justin Martyr to the use of the Four Gospels in his day.

SECTION XXI.

OBJECTIONS TO MIRACLES.

I will now briefly dispose of two or three of the collateral objections against miracles.

1. The author of "Supernatural Religion" makes much of the fact that the Scripture writers recognize that there may be, and have been, Satanic as well as Divine Miracles, and he argues that this destroys all the evidential value of a miracle. He writes:--

"Even taking the representation of miracles, therefore, which Divines themselves give, they are utterly incompetent to perform their contemplated functions. If they are super-human, they are not super-Satanic, and there is no sense in which they can be considered miraculously evidential of anything." (Vol. i. p. 25)

Now, this difficulty is the merest theoretical one,--a difficulty, as the saying is, on paper; and never can be a practical one to any sincere believer in the holiness of God and the reality of goodness. Take the miracle of miracles, the seal of all that is supernatural in our religion, the Resurrection of Christ. If there be a conflict now going on between God and Satan, can there be a doubt as to the side to which this miracle is to be assigned? It is given to prove the reality of a Redemption which all those who accept it know to be a Redemption from the power of Satan. It is given to confirm the sanctions of morality by the assurance of a judgment to come. If Satan had performed it, he would have been simply casting out himself. If this miracle of the Resurrection be granted, all else goes along with it, and the children of God are fortified against the influence, real or counterfeit, of any diabolical miracle whatsoever.

The miracles of the New Testament are not performed, as far as I can remember, in any single instance, to prove the truth of any one view of doctrinal Christianity as against another, but to evidence the reality of the Mission of the Divine Founder as the Son of God, and "the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil."

2. With respect to what are called ecclesiastical miracles, _i.e._ miracles performed after the Apostolic age, the author of "Supernatural Religion" recounts the notices of a considerable number, assumes that they are all false, and uses this assumed falsehood as a means of bringing odium on the accounts of the miracles of Christ.

More particularly he draws attention to certain miracles recorded in the works of St. Augustine, of one at least of which he (Augustine) declares he was an eye-witness.

Now, the difficulty raised upon these and similar accounts appears to me to be as purely theoretical as the one respecting Satanic miracles. If there be truth in the New Testament, it is evident that the Founder of Christianity not only worked miracles Himself, but gave power to His followers to do the same. When was this power of performing miracles withdrawn from the Church? Our Lord, when He gave the power, gave no intimation that it would ever be withdrawn, rather the contrary. However, even in Apostolic times, the performance of them seems to have become less frequent as the Church became a recognized power in the world. For instance, in the earlier Epistles of St. Paul the exercise of miraculous gifts seems to have been a recognized part of the Church's system, and in the later ones (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) they are scarcely noticed. [164:1] If we are to place any credence whatsoever in ecclesiastical history, the performance of miracles seems never to have ceased, though in later times very rare in comparison with what they must have been in the first age.

Now, if the miracles recorded by Augustine, or any of them, were true and real, the only inference is that the action of miraculous power continued in the Church to a far later date than some modern writers allow. If, on the contrary, they are false, then they take their place among hosts of other counterfeits of what is good and true. They no more go to prove the non-existence of the real miracles which they caricature, than any other counterfeit proves the non-existence of the thing of which it is the counterfeit. Nay, rather, the very fact that they are counterfeits proves the existence of that of which they are counterfeits. The Ecclesiastical miracles are clearly not independent miracles; true or false, they depend upon the miraculous powers of the early Church. If any of them are true, then these powers continued in the Church to a late date; if they are false accounts (whether wilfully or through mistake, makes no difference), their falsehood is one testimony out of many to the miraculous origin of the dispensation.

Those recorded by Augustine are in no sense evidential. Nothing came of them except the relief, real or supposed, granted to the sufferers. No message from God was supposed to be accredited by them. No attempt was made to spread the knowledge of them; indeed, so far from this, in one case at least, Augustine is "indignant at the apathy of the friends of one who had been miraculously cured of a cancer, that they allowed so great a miracle to be so little known." (Vol. ii. p. 171.) In every conceivable respect they stand in the greatest contrast to the Resurrection of Christ.

Each case of an Ecclesiastical miracle must be examined (if one cares to do so) apart, on its own merits. I can firmly believe in the reality of some, whilst the greater part are doubtful, and many are wicked impostures. These last, of course, give occasion to the enemy to disparage the whole system of which they are assumed to be a part, but they tell against Christianity only in the same sense in which all tolerated falsehood or evil in the Church obscures its witness to those eternal truths of which it is "the pillar and the ground."

Now, all this is equally applicable to Superstition generally in relation to the supernatural. As the counterfeit miracles of the later ages witness that there must have been true ones to account for the very existence of the counterfeit, so the universal existence of Superstition witnesses to the reality of those supernatural interpositions of which it is the distorted image. If Hume's doctrine be true, that a miracle, _i.e._ a supernatural interposition, is contrary to universal experience and so incredible--if from the first beginning of things there has been one continuous sequence of natural cause and effect, unbroken by the interposition of any superior power, how is it that mankind have ever formed a conception of a supernatural power? And yet the conception, in the shape of superstition at least, is absolutely universal. Tribes who have no idea of the existence of God, use charms and incantations to propitiate unseen powers.

Now, the distortion witnesses to the reality of that of which it is the distortion; the caricature to the existence of the feature caricatured. And so the universality of the existence of Superstition witnesses to the reality of these supernatural revelations and interpositions to which alone such a thing can be referred as its origin.

SECTION XXII.

JEWISH CREDULITY.

Another argument which the author of "Supernatural Religion" uses to discredit miracles, is the superstition of the Jews, especially in our Lord's time, and their readiness to believe any miraculous story. He seems to suppose that this superstition reached its extreme point in the age in which Christ lived, which he calls "the age of miracles." He also assumes that it was an age of strong religious feeling and excitement. He says:--

"During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age, and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the ever ready belief." (Vol. i. p. 98.)

He proceeds to devote above twenty pages to instances of the superstition and credulity of the Jews about the time of Christ. The contents of these pages would be amusing if they did not reveal such deep mental degradation in a race which Christians regard as sacred, because of God's dealings with their fathers.

Most readers, however, of these pages on the Demonology and Angelology of the Jews will, I think, be affected by them in a totally different way, and will draw a very different inference, from what the writer intends. The thoughtful reader will ask, "How could the Evangelical narratives be the outcome of such a hotbed of superstition as the author describes that time to have been?" It is quite impossible, it is incredible that the same natural cause, _i.e._ the prevalence of superstition, should have produced about the same time the Book of Enoch and the Gospel according to St. Matthew. And this is the more remarkable from the fact that the Gospels are in no sense more Sadducean than the Book of Enoch. The being and agency of good and evil spirits is as fully recognized in the inspired writings as in the Apocryphal, but with what a difference! I append in a note a part of the author's reproduction of the Book of Enoch, that the reader may see how necessary it is, on all principles of common sense, to look for some very different explanation of the origin of the Evangelical narratives than that given by the author of "Supernatural Religion." [168:1]

In the Evangelical narratives I need hardly say the angels are simply messengers, as their name imports, and absolutely nothing more. When one describes himself it is in the words, "I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad tidings."

On the credulity of the Jews in our Lord's time, I repeat the author's remarks:--

"During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age, and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the ever-ready belief." (Vol. i. p. 98.)

Now, if the records of our Lord's life in the Gospels are not a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end, this account of things is absolutely untrue. The miracles of Jesus awakened the greatest astonishment, betokening a time as unfamiliar with the actual performance of such things as our own.

For instance, after the first casting out of a devil recorded in St. Mark, it is said.--

"They were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him." (Mark i. 29.)

In the next chapter, after the account of the healing of the sick of the palsy, it is said:--

"They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion." (ii. 12.)

Again (St. Luke v. 26), after the casting out of a devil: "They were all amazed." Again, Luke ix. 43 (also after the casting out of a devil), "They were all amazed at the mighty power of God." [170:1]

From the account in St. John, the miracle of the opening of the eyes of the man born blind seems to have excited unbounded astonishment:--

"Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind." "Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" (John ix. 32, x. 21.)

But more than this. If there be any truth whatsoever in the Gospel narrative, the disciples themselves, instead of exhibiting anything approaching to the credulity with which the author of "Supernatural Religion" taxes the contemporaries of Christ, exhibited rather a spirit of unbelief. If they had transmitted to us "cunningly devised fables," they never would have recorded such instances of their own slowness of belief as is evinced by their conduct respecting the feeding of the four thousand following upon the feeding of the five thousand, when they ask the same question in the face of the same difficulty respecting the supply of food.

Above all, their slowness of belief in the Resurrection of Christ after their Master's direct assertion that He would rise again, is directly opposed to the idea suggested by the author of "Supernatural Religion," that they were ready to believe anything which seemed to favour His pretensions.

Now, it may be alleged that these instances of the slowness of belief on the part of our Lord's immediate followers, and the conduct of the multitudes who expressed such wonder at His miracles, are contrary to one another, but, they are not; for the astonishment of the multitudes did not arise from credulity in the least, but was the expression of that state of mind which must exist (no matter how carefully it is concealed), when some unlooked-for occurrence, totally inexplicable on any natural principles, presents itself. I cite it to show how utterly unfamiliar that age was with even the pretence of the exhibition of miraculous powers. If there be any substratum of truth whatsoever in the accounts of the slowness of belief on the part of the Apostles, it is a proof that our Lord's most familiar friends were anything but the superstitious persons which certain writers assume them to have been.

SECTION XXIII.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION.

The question of Demoniacal Possession now demands a passing notice.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" ascribes all such phenomena to imposture or delusion; and, inasmuch as these supposed miracles of casting out of evil spirits are associated with other miracles of Christ in the same narrative, he uses the odium with which this class of miracles is in this day regarded, for the purpose of discrediting the miracles of healing and the Resurrection of Jesus.

I cannot help expressing my surprise at the difficulty which some writers, who desire fully and faithfully to uphold the supernatural, seem to have respecting Demoniacal Possession. The difficulty seems to me to be not in the action of evil spirits in this or in that way, but in their existence. And yet the whole analogy of nature, and the state of man in this world, would lead us to believe, not only in the objective existence of a world of spirits, but in the separation of their characters into good and evil.

Those who deny the fact of an actually existing spiritual world of angels, if they are Atheists, must believe that man is the highest rational existence in the universe; but this is absurd, for the intellect of man in plainly very circumscribed, and he is slowly discovering laws which account for the phenomena which he sees, which laws were operative for ages before he discovered them, and imply infinitely more intellect in their invention, so to speak, and imposition and nice adjustment with one another, than he shows in their mere discovery. A student, for instance, has a problem put before him, say upon the adjustments of the forces of the heavenly bodies. The solution, if it evinces intelligence in him, must evince more and older intelligence in the man who sets him the problem; but if the conditions of the problem truly represent the acts of certain forces and their compensations, can we possibly deny that there is an intellect infinitely above ours who calculated beforehand their compensations and adjustments. All the laws of the universe must be assumed to be, even if they are not believed to be, the work of a personal intellect absolutely infinite, whose operations cannot be confined to this world, for it gives laws to all bodies, no matter how distant. The same reasoning, then, which shows that there is an intelligent will, because it can solve a problem, necessitates an infinitely higher Intelligence which can order the motions of distant worlds by laws of which our highest calculative processes are perhaps very clumsy representations.

Those who, like the author of "Supernatural Religion," are good enough to admit (with limitations) the existence of a Supreme Being, and yet deny the existence of a spiritual world above ours, seem to me to act still more absurdly. For the whole analogy of the world of nature would lead as to infer that, as there is a descending scale of animated beings below man reaching down to the lowest forms of life, so there is an ascending scale above him, between him and God. The deniers of the existence of such beings as angels undertake to assert that there are no beings between ourselves and the Supreme Being, because nature (meaning by nature certain lower brute forces, such as gravitation and electricity), "knows nothing" of them.

The Scriptures, on the contrary, would lead us to believe that just as in the natural world there are gradations of beings between ourselves and the lowest forms of life, so in the spiritual world (and we belong to both worlds) there are gradations of beings between ourselves and God Who created all things.

The Scriptures would lead us to believe that these beings are intelligent free agents, and, as such, have had their time of probation--that some fell under their trial, and are now the enemies of God as wicked men are, and that others stood in the time of trial and continue the willing servants of God.

The Scriptures reveal that good angels act as good men do; they endeavour, as far as lies in their power, to confirm others in goodness and in the service of God; and that evil angels act as evil men act, they endeavour to seduce others and to involve them in their own condemnation.

The Scriptures say nothing to satisfy our curiosity about these beings, as Apocryphal books do. They simply describe the one as sent on errands of mercy, and the other as delighting in tempting men and inflicting pain. The mystery of the fall of some of these angels, and their consequent opposition to God, is no difficulty in itself. It is simply the oldest form of that which is to those who believe in the reality of the holiness and goodness of God the great problem of the universe--the origin and continuance of evil. It is simply the counterpart amongst a world of free agents above us of what takes place according to the [so-called] natural order of things amongst ourselves.

That evil angels can tempt the souls of men, and in some cases injure their bodies, is not a whit more difficult than that evil men can do the same under the government of a God who exerts so universal a providence as is described in the Bible, and allowed to some extent by the author of "Supernatural Religion."

I confess that I cannot understand the difficulty which some Christian writers evidently feel respecting the existence of such a thing as Demoniacal _possession_, whilst they seem to feel, or at least they _express_ no difficulty, respecting Demoniacal _temptation_. Demoniacal possession is the infliction of a physical evil for which the man is not accountable, but demoniacal temptation is an attempt to deprive a man of that for the keeping of which he is accountable, viz. his own innocence. Demoniacal possession is a temporal evil. The yielding to demoniacal temptation may cast a man for ever out of the favour of God. And yet demoniacal temptation is perfectly analogous to human temptation. A human seducer has it in his power, if his suggestions are received, to corrupt innocence, render life miserable, undermine faith in God and in Christ, and destroy the hopes of eternity--and a diabolical seducer can do no more.