Another objection, urged by Spinoza, and repeated in various forms by subsequent writers, may be stated as follows :—The laws of nature are the decrees of God, and follow necessarily from the perfection of the divine nature ; they must, therefore, be eternal and immutable, and must extend to all possible events. Therefore, to admit an exception to these laws, is to suppose that God's order is broken, and that the divine work is but an imperfect expression of the divine will. This ob jection is perfectly intelligible in the mouth of a Pantheist, with whom God and nature are conver tible terms, and a divine supernatural act is a self. contradiction ; but it is untenable in any system which admits a personal God distinct from nature, and only partially manifested in it. In such a system, nature is not infinite, as Spinoza makes it, but finite. There is a distinction between the actual and the possible ; between the visible world as a limited system, with limited laws, and the whole mind of God, embracing all possible systems as well as the present. From this point of view, nature, as actually existing, does express a portion, and a portion only, of the divine purpose ; the miracle expresses another portion belonging to a different and more comprehensive system. But in addition to this consideration, even the actual world furnishes us with an answer to the objection. God's order, we have too much reason to know, actually is broken. His will is not carried out. Unless we make God the author of evil, we must admit that sin is a violation of his will, a breach made in his natural order, however impossible it may be to give an account of its origin. The Pantheist evades the difficulty by denying that evil has any real existence ; but to the Theist, who admits the existence, it is conclusive evidence that, as a fact, however little we may understand how it can be, the world, as it exists, is not a perfect ex pression of God's law and will. The miracle, as thus viewed, belongs to a spiritual system appointed to remedy the disorders of the natural system ; and against the self-complacent theory, which tells us that disorders in the natural system are impossible, we have the witness of a melancholy experience, which tells us that they are actually there. Thus viewed, the miracle is in one sense natural, in another supernatural. It is natural as forming a part of the higher or spiritual system ; it is super natural as not forming a part of the lower or mate rial system. • The same considerations may serve to obviate another form of the same objection—a form in which it is likewise suggested by Spinoza, though developed by other writers in a form more adapted to the language of theism. We are told that it is more worthy of God to arrange a plan which shall provide by its original laws for all possible contin gencies, than one which requires a special inter position to meet a special emergency. We know so little about the process of creating and govern ing a world, that it is difficult for us to judge what method of doing so is most worthy of God ; but this whole objection proceeds on the gratuitous assumption that the plan of the world, as it exists in the counsels of God, must be identical with the plan of the world as it is contemplated by man in relation to physical laws. Doubtless the miracle, like any other event, was foreseen by God from the beginning, and formed part of his eternal pur pose ; but it does not therefore follow that it is included within that very limited portion of his purpose which is apprehended by man as a system of physical laws. To Omnipotence, no one event is more difficult than another ; to Omniscience, no one event is more wonderful than another. The distinction between miracles and ordinary events, as has been already observed, is a distinction, not in relation to God, but in relation to man. More over, even from the human point of view, the miracle is not wrought for a physical, but for a moral purpose ; it is not an interposition to adjust the machinery of the material world, but one to promote the spiritual welfare of mankind. The very conception of a revealed, as distinguished from a natural religion, implies a manifestation of God different in kind from that which is exhibited by the ordinary course of nature ; and the question of the probability of a miraculous interposition is simply that of the probability of a revelation being given at all.
But we are sometimes told that if miracles are not impossible in theory, they are at least incredible in fact : that the antecedent improbability of a miracle taking place must always outweigh that of the testimony in its favour being false ; and thus that the occurrence of a miracle, if not impossible, is at least incapable of satisfactory proof. Such is in the main the argument of Hume, which has recently been revived and assumed as an axiomatic principle by M. Renan. The fallacy of this objec tion consists in the circumstance that it estimates the opposed probabilities solely on empirical grounds ; i. e., on the more or less frequent occur rence of miraculous events as compared with false testimony. If it is ever possible that an event of comparatively rare occurrence may, in a given case and under certain circumstances, be more credible than one of more ordinary occurrence, the entire argument falls to the ground in reference to such cases. And such a case is actually presented by the Christian miracles. The redemption of the world is an event unique in the world's history : it is therefore natural to expect that the circum stances accompanying it should be unique also. The importance of that redemption furnishes a distinct particular reason' for miracles, if the divine purpose can be furthered by them. Under these circumstances the antecedent probability is for the miracles, not against them, and cannot be outweighed by empirical inductions drawn from totally different data, relating to the physical, not to the religious condition of the world.
It must, however, be always remembered that abstract and general considerations like the above, though necessary to meet the unbelieving objec tions which are unhappily rife on this subject, do not constitute the grounds of our belief in the miracles of Scripture, especially those of Christ. The abstract argument is the stronghold of scepti cism, and to deal with it at all it is necessary to meet it on its own ground. On the other hand,
the strength of the Christian argument rests mainly on the special contents of the gospel-narrative, par ticularly as regards the character of the Saviour portrayed in it, and the distinctive nature of his miracles as connected with his character, and on the subsequent history of the Christian church. It is far easier to talk in general terms about thq laws of nature and the impossibility of their viola tion, than to go through the actual contents of the gospels in detail, and show how it is possible that such a narrative could have been written, and how the events described in it could have influenced, as they have, the subsequent history of the world, on any other supposition than that of its being a true narrative of real events. And accordingly we find that, while the several attacks on the gospel miracles in particular, with whatever ability they may have been conducted, and whatever tempo rary popularity they may have obtained, seem uni versally destined to a speedy extinction beyond the possibility of revival, the general a priori objection still retains its hold on men's minds, and is revived from time to time, after repeated refutations, as often as the changing aspects of scientific progress appear to offer the opportunity of a plausible dis guise of an old sophism in new drapery. The minute criticisms of Woolston and Paulus, on the details of the gospel history, are utterly dead and buried out of sight ; and those of Strauss show plain indications of being doomed to the same fate, though supported for a while by a spurious alliance with a popular philosophy. And the failure which is manifest in such writers, even while they confine themselves to the merely negative task of criticising the gospel narrative, becomes still more conspicu ous when they proceed to account for the origin of Christianity by positive theories of their own. The naturalistic theory of Paulus breaks down tinder the sheer weight of its own accumulation of cum brous and awkward explanations ; while the mythi cal hypothesis of Strauss is found guilty of the logical absurdity of deducing the premise from the conclusion : it assumes that men invented an imaginary life of Jesus because they believed him to be the Messiah, when the very supposition that the life is imaginary leaves the belief in the Messiah ship unexplained and inexplicable. On the other hand, the a priori reasonings of Spinoza and Hume exhibit a vitality which is certainly not due to their logical conclusiveness, but which has enabled them in various disguises to perplex the intellects and unsettle the faith of a different generation from that for which they were first written. And hence it is, that a writer who is required, by the exigen cies of his own day, to consider the question of miracles from an apologetic point of view, finds himself compelled to dwell mainly on the abstract argument concerning miracles in general, rather than on the distinctive features which characterise the Christian miracles in particular. The latter are the more pleasant and the more useful theme, when the ob;ect is the edification of the believer ; the former is indispensable when it is requisite to controvert the positions of the unbeliever. There is, however, one phase of the sceptical argument which may be met by considerations of the special rather than of the general kind. It has been objected that no testimony can prove a miracle as such. Testimony,' we are told, can apply only to apparent sensible facts ; testimony can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps inex plicable occurrence or phenomenon ; that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumptions of the parties.' Whatever may be the value of this objection as applied to a hypothetical case, in which the objec tor may select such occurrences and such testi monies as suit his purpose, it is singularly inappli cable to the works actually recorded as having been done by Christ and his apostles. It may, with certain exceptions, be applicable to a case in which the assertion of a supernatural cause rests solely on the testimony of the spectator of the fact ; but it is not applicable to those in which the cause is de clared by the performer. Let us accept, if we please, merely as a narrative of apparent sensible facts,' the history of the cure of the blind and dumb demoniac, or of the lame man at the Beau tiful Gate ; but we cannot place the same restric tion upon the words of our Lord and of St. Peter, which expressly assign the supernatural cause—' If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.' By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth doth this man stand here before you whole.' We have here, at least, a testimony reaching to the supernatural ; and if that testimony be admitted in these cases, the same cause becomes the most reasonable and probable that can be assigned to the other wonder ful works performed by the same persons. For if it be admitted that our Lord exercised a supernatural power at all, there is, to use the words of Bishop Butler, no more presumption worth mentioning against his having exerted this miraculous power in a certain degree greater, than in a certain degree less ; in one or two more instances, than in one or two fewer.' And this brings us to the consideration on which the most important part of this controversy must ultimately rest ; namely, that the true evidence on behalf of the Christian miracles is to be estimated, not by the force of testimony in general, as pared with antecedent improbability, but by the force of the peculiar testimony by which the Chris tian miracles are supported, as compared with the antecedent probability or improbability that a reli gion of sudh a character should have been first in troduced into the world by superhuman agency. The miracles of Christ, and, as the chief of them all, that great crowning miracle of his resurrection, are supported by all the testimony which they derive from his own positive declarations concern ing them, taken in conjunction with the record of his life, and the subsequent history of the Christian religion. The alternative lies between accepting that testimony, as it is given, or regarding the gos pels as a fiction, and the Christian faith as founded on imposture.