MIEACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 19 



periment Mahometanism has made for us. It has lived 

 and spread without miracles ; and to assert, in the face of 

 this, that Christianity has spread because of miracles, is, I 

 submit, opposed both to the spirit of science and the 

 common sense of mankind. 



The incongruity of inferring moral goodness from 

 miraculous power has been dwelt upon above ; in another 

 particular also the strain put by Mr. Mozley upon mira- 

 cles is, I think, more than they can bear. In consis- 

 tency with his principles, it is difficult to see how he is 

 to draw from the miracles of Christ any certain conclu- 

 sion as to His Divine nature. He dwells very forcibly 

 on what he calls ' the argument from experience,' in the 

 demolition of which he takes obvious delight. He 

 destroys the argument, and repeats it, for the mere 

 pleasure of again and again knocking the breath out of 

 it. Experience, he urges, can only deal with the past ; 

 and the moment we attempt to project experience a 

 hair's-breadth beyond the point it has at any moment 

 reached, we are condemned by reason. It appears to 

 me that when he infers from Christ's miracles a Divine 

 and altogether superhuman energy, Mr. Mozley places 

 himself precisely under this condemnation. For what 

 is his logical ground for concluding that the miracles of 

 the New Testament illustrate Divine power ? May they 

 not be the result of expanded human power ? A miracle 

 , he defines as something impossible to man. But how 

 does he know that the miracles of the New Testament 

 are impossible to man ? Seek as he may, he has ab- 

 solutely no reason to adduce save this that man has 

 never hitherto accomplished such things. But does the 

 fact that man has never raised the dead prove that he 

 can never raise the dead ? ' Assuredly not,' must be 

 Mr. Mozley's reply ; * for this would be pushing ex- 

 perience beyond the limit it has now reached which I 





