never thinks of rejecting the whole work along with them, though this is precisely the manner in which Strauss and other infidels would have us act.

But we go much farther. If all the conditions just mentioned are fulfilled, and if the account of the miraculous occurrence is by an eyewitness, his narrative of this very event must also be accepted, even if we admit that miracles are inexplicable. The occurrence is complex, embracing several events. He testifies only to the outward facts, to what he heard and saw; and these facts are not impossible. The miracle consists in the connection of cause and effect between these facts, and this connection is not a matter cognizable by the senses, but is an inference of the understanding. It may be the narrator's inference, that is, he may declare his belief in the miracle; but this belief forms no proper part of his testimony as to the outward facts, and therefore must not cause the rejection of that testimony. The inference may even appear to all reasonable persons to be quite irresistible, — that is, they cannot see how such events should happen, unless they were related to each other as cause and effect; but they can easily believe that the mere events themselves did happen. If you tell me, that you cannot see how a word, uttered even by divine power, should open the eyes of the blind, perhaps I may agree with you ; but if, when many credible persons seriously declare that a man blind at one moment had good use of his eyes at the next, and that they were present at the time and saw the change, you say further that you will not believe them, I shall have no great respect for the soundness of your judgment. To take another case; it is perfectly credible that a violent storm at sea should be suddenly followed by an entire calm, and that one of the passengers on board a ship should be speaking just at the time when the wind lulled. If one of the other passengers, a sober and truthful person, seriously informs us that this actually happened, we admit the possibility of it, and believe him without hesitation. After we have made this admission, he informs us for the first time, that the words spoken at the critical moment were these: "Peace! be still." Is our knowledge of this additional particular to destroy our belief of the other events, which we have just declared to be perfectly credible and is it not just as possible, in the nature of things, that the passenger should have uttered these words as any other?

But as many persons are perplexed in the attempt to distinguish between the action of the understanding and the testimony of the senses in the case of an alleged miracle, another illustration may help to remove the difficulty. It has so happened that we have never seen the automaton chess-player; but several of our friends, whose veracity it would be foolish to question, have assured us that there is such a figure, that they have repeatedly seen it, and examined it closely enough to satisfy themselves that it was a mere piece of machinery, a collection of springs, wheels, and drawers, which had no connection with the floor or with any other portion of the apartment in which it is placed; and that they have often seen this wooden figure play long games of chess, and win them, too, against some of the most accomplished players in the country. We have accepted their testimony, and fully believe that the facts are as they state; but we also believe, -and it is an opinion which fire will not melt out of us, that mere machinery cannot be made to play successfully the intricate and difficult game of chess, in which the number of possible moves is at least so near infinity as wholly to transcend the powers of the numeration-table. It is true that mechanical invention has made vast progress in these modern times, and it is difficult to say where it will stop; but we can more easily believe that in some future age it will succeed in building a railroad from this earth to the sun, than that it will ever be able to construct a wooden figure which will play a good game of chess.

Now, suppose that some acute critic, like Dr. Strauss, who maintains that the narration of an event deemed to be incredible ought to destroy the credit of the narrator, should undertake to rebuke us for the inconsistency of our opinions. He would say it was absurd to admit the narration to be veracious, and the event to be impossible, at the same time; and that we ought at least to show how it was possible, even if the way was not probable, for the thing to be done. We that we did not say the event was impossible," but only that it was "deemed to be incredible"; and this is all which can be affirmed of the solar railroad, the wooden chess-player, or a miracle; and in this unauthorized substitution of one phrase for another consists the worthy critic's whole difficulty. And we answer, secondly, that we are not bound to show How it was done, but only to produce good

answer,

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reasons for our belief in it. This we have succeeded in doing in the present instance, for Strauss himself will not deny that the account of the automaton is true. To try to limit the confidence reposed in reputable witnesses, or to deny the credibility, in certain cases, of any amount of testimony, not merely by our narrow views of what is possible, but by our power of devising a satisfactory explanation of the modus operandi, or of showing how the thing is done, is a foolish and groundless assumption. In the case of the chess-player, the judicious observer frankly confesses his ignorance of the mode in which the effect is produced; but he acknowledges at the same time that the inventor of this curious machine has more mechanical skill and ingenuity than himself. As we are not now addressing atheists, we may add, that it becomes the objector to the credibility of narratives containing records of miraculous events to imitate this humility, and to acknowledge that the supposed author of miracles is one whose wisdom is inscrutable, and whose ways are past finding out.*

Some of our readers might feel more confidence in the propriety of relying upon human testimony to this extent, if they could see a very able statement of the point, and a legal opinion in favor of its sufficiency in court, pronounced by a sound old lawyer. We will therefore hear Professor Greenleaf.

"In almost every miracle related by the evangelists, the facts, separately taken, were plain, intelligible, transpiring in public, and about which no person of ordinary observation would be

The point of the argument here, it will be seen, is not to prove the credibility of miracles in the abstract, but merely to show that histories perfectly well attested, and credible in every other respect, are not to be rejected solely because they contain accounts of inexplicable events. Certainly, we are very far from placing the instance of miracles on a par with that of the automaton, which every one knows to be a cheat, though an inexplicable one. We are only illustrating a law of belief, which the sophism of Hume, and the credulity of writers like Strauss, has too much kept out of sight. We admit that more testimony is required; the history needs to be better authenticated than if it recorded only simple and natural occurrences. Before the chess-player was exhibited in Europe, if we had seen only an anonymous statement in a newspaper, that such a machine had been invented and exhibited in India, we should not have believed it. But when the testimony of several eyewitnesses, whose veracity is perfectly well known, is added, assent is yielded without any difficulty.

likely to mistake. Persons blind or crippled, who applied to Jesus for relief, were known to have been crippled or blind for many years; they came to be cured; he spake to them; they went away whole. Lazarus had been dead and buried four days; Jesus called him to come forth from the grave; he immediately came forth, and was seen alive for a long time afterwards. In every case of healing, the previous condition of the sufferer was known to all; all saw his instantaneous restoration; and all witnessed the act of Jesus in touching him, and heard his words. All these, separately considered, were facts plain and simple in their nature, easily seen and fully comprehended by persons of common capacity and observation. If they were separately testified to, by witnesses of ordinary intelligence and integrity, in any court of justice, the jury would be bound to believe them; and a verdict, rendered contrary to the uncontradicted testimony of credible witnesses to any one of these plain facts, separately taken, would be liable to be set aside, as a verdict against evidence. If one credible witness testified to the fact, that Bartimeus was blind, according to the uniform course of administering justice, this fact would be taken as satisfactorily proved. So also, if his subsequent restoration to sight were the sole fact in question, this also would be deemed established, by the like evidence. Nor would the rule of evidence be at all different, if the fact to be proved were the declaration of Jesus, immediately preceding his restoration to sight, that his faith had made him whole. In each of these cases, each isolated fact was capable of being accurately observed and certainly known; and the evidence demands our assent, precisely as the like evidence upon any other indifferent subject. The connection of the word or the act of Jesus with the restoration of the blind, lame, and dead, to sight, and health, and life, as cause and effect, is a conclusion which our reason is compelled to admit, from the uniformity of their concurrence, in such a multitude of instances, as well as from the universal conviction of all, whether friends or foes, who beheld the miracles which he wrought." - pp. 61, 62.

We have not yet touched the general question respecting the intrinsic possibility of a miracle. But it has been shown, if we mistake not, that, whatever may be the opinion of the inquirer on this point, he is bound to accept our four Gospels as they are, with their accounts of supposed miracles and all, as truthful records of what actually happened. The facts that are narrated respecting the origin of our religion he must believe; he may place what interpretation upon them he pleases. And here we might fairly leave the whole sub

ject, having carried the inquiry quite as far as the legitimate boundaries of the human understanding will permit. There is a blindness of the heart as well as of the intellect; logic may cure the latter, but it will have no more effect on the former than on the nether millstone. Any one who can believe that the writings of the four Evangelists constitute a faithful and true history in all their parts, and still deny the divine origin of the Christian religion, on the ground of mystical speculations and metaphysical subtilties, labors under an incurable disease in his moral constitution and sympathies, and is beyond the reach of argument. But as waiving the discussion of this last point might seem like an implied admission that there was an insuperable difficulty in the case, and this might affect the convictions even of those who did not know what the difficulty was, we shall attempt to prove, not only that there is no valid presumption against the occurrence of miracles, but, when the proper conditions are fulfilled, that there is a strong antecedent probability in their favor. But the reasoning will be addressed only to theists; for those who deny the being of a God will of course reject any evidence of extraordinary manifestations of divine power.

The question now is, Whether miracles properly so called, under all circumstances, are so improbable, that any belief in their occurrence is unphilosophical and wrong? We do not ask whether they are "impossible," because a theist acknowledges the omnipotence of God, and if the question were put in this form, he must answer it in the negative. Neither shall we insist on the foolish and intolerable assumption of being able so far to pry into the divine counsels as to declare it to be in the highest degree improbable that the Deity will ever manifest his power by extraordinary means. There is no need here of having recourse to the argument ad invidiam; the case is strong enough without it.

It is not easy to frame a definition of a miracle which shall not be open to cavilling. Every one knows what is meant by it, though he may find it difficult to express his idea of it with philosophical precision. It is a temporary interruption of what are called "the laws of nature," — a departure from what has been for a longer or shorter period the usual mode of divine action, made with the intent, and for the sole purpose, of accomplishing some great end, com