26o NATURE AND MAN. 



bear on the study of the Gospel narratives, the same principles of 



criticism as guided the early Fathers in their construction of the 



Canon, with all the enlightenment which we derive from the 



subsequent history of Christianity, aided by that of other forms of 



religious belief. The early Christian Fathers were troubled with 



no doubts as to the reality of miracles in themselves ; and they 



testified to the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils, and 



even the raising of the dead, as well-known facts of their own 



time. But they rejected some current narratives of the miraculous 



which they did not regard as adequately authenticated, and others 



as considering them puerile. Looking at it not only as our right, 



but as our duty, to bring the higher critical enlightenment of the 



present day to bear upon the study of the Gospel records, I ask 



whether both past and contemporary history do not afford such a 



body of evidence of a prevalent tendency to exaggeration and 



distortion, in the representation of actual occurrences in which 



" supernatural" agencies are supposed to have been concerned, as 



entitles us, without attempting any detailed analysis, to believe 



that if we could know what really did happen, it would often prove 



to be something very different from what is narrated. 



By such a general admission, we may remove the serious diffi- 

 culties to which I alluded at the outset — difficulties which must, I 

 think, have been present to the mind of Locke, when he recorded, 

 in the Common-place Book published by Lord King, the remark- 

 able aphorism that " the doctrine proves the miracles, rather than 

 " the miracles the doctrine." 



