The Lost Gospel and Its Contents Part 19

Again, the author says, "The mere superiority of man over lower forms of organic and inorganic matter does not lift him above physical laws."

Yes, it does, partially at least, for it enables him, in his sphere, to control the very forces whose action is limited by laws. The superiority of man is shown in his control of the powers of nature, and making them obey his will. All such inventions as the steam engine or the electric telegraph lift man above certain physical laws, by enabling him to control the forces with which those laws have to do.

Again, he writes: "The a.n.a.logy of every grade in nature forbids the presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt from their control." On the contrary, we a.s.sert that the a.n.a.logy of every grade in nature encourages the presumption that higher forms may exist which can control these forces of nature far more directly and perfectly than we can.

To proceed. In page 41 we read:--

"If in animated beings we have the solitary instance of an efficient cause acting among the forces of nature, and possessing the power of initiation, this efficient cause produces no disturbance of physical law."

I cite this place, in order to draw attention to what I suppose must have struck the careful reader, which is the application of the term "solitary instance" to the action of animated beings amongst the forces of nature. If there had been but one animated being in existence, such an epithet might not have been out of place; but when one considers that the world teems with such beings, and that by their every movement they modify or counteract, in their own case at least, the mightiest of all nature's forces, and that no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface owes its conformation to their action, we are astonished at finding all this characterized as the solitary instance of an efficient cause. But by a sentence at the bottom of this page we are enlightened as to the real reason for so strange a view of the place of vital powers in the universe. In the eyes of those who persist in, as far as possible, ignoring all laws except physical laws, even to the extent of endeavouring to prove that moral forces themselves are but mere developed forms of physical ones, all manifestations of powers other than those of electricity, gravitation, magnetism, and so forth are anomalous, and we have the very word "anomaly" applied to them. "The only anomaly," he writes, "is our ignorance of the nature of vital force. [158:1] But do we know much more of the physical?"

Men who thus concentrate their attention upon mere physical laws or phenomena, get to believe in no others. They are impatient of any things in the universe except what they can number, or measure, or weigh. They are in danger of regarding the Supreme Being Himself as an "anomaly."

They certainly seem to do so, when they take every pains to show that the universe can get on perfectly well without His superintending presence and control.

Whatever odium, then, may be attached to the violation of a natural _law_, cannot be attached to the action of a superior _force_, making itself felt amongst lower grades of natural forces.

If it be rejoined that this superior force must act according to law, we answer, certainly, but according to what law? Not, of course, according to the law of the force which it counteracts, but according to the law under which itself acts.

The question of miracles, then, is a matter of evidence; but we all know what a power human beings have of accepting or rejecting evidence according as they look for it or are prejudiced against it.

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 G.o.d 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 a.s.serts that "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature," we meet him with the counter-a.s.sertion 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 a.s.serts 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 mult.i.tudes who were miraculously fed, and of the mult.i.tudes 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d and Satan, can there be a doubt as to the side to which this miracle is to be a.s.signed? 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 a.s.surance 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and "the Son of G.o.d 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, a.s.sumes that they are all false, and uses this a.s.sumed 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 t.i.tus) 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sumed 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 Superst.i.tion 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 Superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tion at least, is absolutely universal. Tribes who have no idea of the existence of G.o.d, 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 Superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tion of the Jews, especially in our Lord's time, and their readiness to believe any miraculous story. He seems to suppose that this superst.i.tion reached its extreme point in the age in which Christ lived, which he calls "the age of miracles." He also a.s.sumes 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 superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tion 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 G.o.d'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 superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tion, 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 G.o.d, 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 superst.i.tion 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.)