MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES 



105 



is not its cause. Thus, also, when we 

 seek the cause of the diffusion of a religion 

 whether it be due to miracles or to 

 the spiritual force of its founders we 

 exclude the miracles, and, finding the 

 result unchanged, we infer that miracles 

 are not the effective cause. This impor- 

 tant experiment Mohammedanism 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 miracles is, I think, more 

 than they can bear. In consistency 

 with his principles, it is difficult to see 

 how he is to draw from the miracles of 

 Christ any certain conclusion 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 knock- 

 ing the breath out of it. Experience, he 

 urges, can only deal with the past ; and 

 the moment we attempt to project expe- 

 rience 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 super- 

 human 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 impos- 

 sible to man. But how does he know 

 that the miracles of the New Testament 

 are impossible to man ? Seek as he may, 

 he has absolutely 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 pronounce unlawful." 

 Then a period may come when man will 

 be able to raise the dead. If this be 

 conceded and I do not see how Mr. 

 Mozley can avoid the concession it 

 destroys the necessity of inferring Christ's 

 Divinity from His miracles. He, it may 

 be contended, antedated the humanity 

 of the future ; as a mighty tidal wave 

 leaves high upon the beach a mark which 

 by-and-by becomes the general level of 

 the ocean. Turn the matter as you will, 

 no other warrant will be found for -the 

 all-important conclusion that Christ's 

 miracles demonstrate Divine power than 

 an argument which has been stigmatised 

 by Mr. Mozley as a " rope of sand " the 

 argument from experience. 



The learned Bampton Lecturer would 

 be in this position, even had he seen 

 with his own eyes every miracle recorded 

 in the New Testament. But he has not 

 seen these miracles ; and his intellectual 

 plight is, therefore, worse. He accepts 

 these miracles on testimony. Why does 

 he believe that testimony? How does 

 he know that it is not delusion ; how is 

 he sure that it is not even fraud ? He 

 will answer that the writing bears the 

 marks of sobriety and truth ; and that in 

 many cases the bearers of this message 

 to mankind sealed it with their blood. 

 Granted with all my heart ; but whence 

 the value of all this? Is it not solely 

 derived from the fact that men, as ive 

 know them, do not sacrifice their lives in 

 the attestation of that which they know 

 to be untrue ? Does not the entire value 

 of the testimony of the Apostles depend 

 ultimately upon our experience of human 

 nature ? It appears, then, that those said 

 to have seen the miracles based their 

 inferences from what they saw on the 

 argument from experience, and that Mr. 

 Mozley bases his belief in their testimony 

 on the same argument. The weakness 

 of his conclusion is quadrupled by this 

 double insertion of a principle of belief 

 to which he flatly denies rationality. His 



