AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 461 



If that is not a matter about which evidence ought to be re- 

 quired, and not only legal but strict scientific proof demanded 

 by sane men who are asked to believe the story — what is ? Is a 

 reasonable being to be seriously asked to credit statements which, 

 to put the case gently, are not exactly probable, and on the 

 acceptance or rejection of which his whole view of life may de- 

 pend, without asking for as much " legal " proof as would send 

 an alleged pickpocket to jail, or as would suffice to prove the 

 validity of a disputed will ? 



" Infidel authors " (if, as I am assured, I may answer for them) 

 will decline to waste time on mere darkenings of counsel of this 

 sort ; but to those Anglicans who accept his premises, Dr. New- 

 man is a truly formidable antagonist. What, indeed, are they to 

 reply when he puts the very pertinent question : 



M whether persons who, not merely question, hut prejudge the ecclesiastical mira- 

 cles on the ground of their want of resemblance, whatever that be, to those con- 

 tained in Scripture — as if the Almighty could not do in the Christian church 

 what he had not already done at the time of its foundation, or under the Mosaic 

 covenant — whether such reasoners are not siding with the skeptic," 



and 



"whether it is not a happy inconsistency by which they continue to believe the 



Scriptures while they reject tbe Church " * (p. liii). 



Again, I invite Anglican orthodoxy to consider this passage : 



the narrative of the combats of St. Antony with evil spirits is a development 

 rather than a contradiction of revelation, viz., of such texts as speak of Satan 

 being cast out by prayer and fasting. To be shocked, then, at the miracles of 

 ecclesiastical history, or to ridicule them for their strangeness, is no part of a 

 scriptural philosophy (p. liii-liv). 



Further on, Dr. Newman declares that it has been admitted 



that a distinct line can be drawn in point of character and circumstance between 

 the miracles of Scripture and of church history ; but this is by no means the case 

 (p. Iv). . . . Specimens are not wanting in the history of the Church of miracles 

 as awful in their character and as momentous in their effects as those which are 

 recorded in Scripture. The fire interrupting the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, 

 and the death of Arius, are instances in ecclesiastical history of such solemn 

 events. On the other hand, difficult instances in the Scripture history are such 

 as these: the serpent in Eden, the ark, Jacob's vision for the multiplication of 

 his cattle, the speaking of Balaam's ass, the axe swimming at Elisha's word, the 

 miracle on the swine, and various instances of prayers or prophecies, in which, 

 as in that of Noah's blessing and curse, words which seem the result of private 

 feeling are expressly or virtually ascribed to a divine suggestion (p. lvi). 



"Who is to gainsay our ecclesiastical authority here ? " Infidel 

 authors" might be accused of a wish to ridicule the Scripture 



* Compare Tract 85, p. 110: "I am persuaded that were men but consistent who op- 

 pose the Church doctrines as being unscriptural, they would vindicate the Jews for reject- 

 ing the gospel." 



