The Supernatural in the New Testament, Possible, Credible, and Historical Or, An Examination of the Validity of Some Recent Objections Against Christianity as a Divine Revelation

This subject is an extremely extensive one. The utmost, therefore, that I can do is to notice a few of the most important points which bear on the argument. I have already shown...

Under this head are included the whole of that class of objections which extend from the direct assertion of the impossibility of miracles to the affirmation that even if their...

I have in the preceding chapter drawn attention to the chief principles of historical evidence, and to the importance of certain classes of historical documents; also to the imp...

The proof on _à priori_ grounds that an event is either possible or probable, cannot establish that it has actually occurred. This must rest on its own particular evidence. To p...

The symptoms which are alleged to have accompanied it present many of the usual phenomena of madness. No possession is believed to take place now, but such phenomena are attribu...

Having considered the direct assertions in the New Testament in reference to the supernatural, it will be necessary to take a brief view of the question in relation to modern di...

3. That the Churches holding this belief were separated from each other by a wide geographical area, and consisted of a great diversity of character, thereby affording the great...

It has been urged by opponents, that the defenders of historical Christianity rest content with endeavouring to prove that miracles are possible or probable; but that they negle...

I have proved in the last chapter that St. Paul and those to whom he wrote his Epistles firmly believed that a number of supernatural manifestations were displaying themselves i...

Hume’s position, which affirmed that it is impossible to prove the truth of a supernatural event by any amount of testimony however strong, is certainly one of the most plausibl...

Although every portion of the Bible is vehemently assailed by the various forms of modern Scepticism, it is clear that the real turning point of the controversy between those wh...

It has been objected that the admission which the New Testament is alleged to make as to the reality of demoniacal miracles weakens, if it does not destroy, the value of miracle...

The allegation that the followers of Jesus, and the early Christians generally, were a body of intensely credulous and superstitious people, may be considered as not only the st...

Nothing has more contributed to import an almost hopeless confusion of thought into the entire controversy about miracles than the ambiguous senses in which the most important t...

While considering this subject, it will be necessary to keep steadily in view that miracles are not alleged in the New Testament to have been performed to prove the truth of doc...

I have proved in the preceding chapters that one of the miracles recorded in the Gospels is substantiated by the highest form of historical testimony, on evidence quite independ...

It has been objected that the very idea of such a revelation as that of Christianity implies a defect on the part of the Creator in the original construction of the Universe, an...

I now proceed to the consideration of the remaining alternative, the truth of which the form of the narrative seems most to favour, viz., that our Lord accepted the distinction...

There can be no doubt that there is an enormous mass of supernatural beliefs which we feel at once justified in rejecting without troubling ourselves to inquire into the evidenc...

Before entering on the general question of miracles, it is only reasonable to inquire of the writers of the New Testament what they have to say on the subject. Their opinion of...

I fully admit that a difficulty is involved in the idea that a being like Satan is permitted to perform actions which bear even a remote analogy to divine miracles. I have alrea...

It has been objected that the love of the marvellous has in every age constituted so remarkable a phase of human nature as greatly to weaken, if not entirely to invalidate the t...

Having undertaken to compose this work at your request, I beg permission to dedicate it to you. In doing so I feel that it is a duty which I owe both to you and to myself that I...