THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SCIENCR AND RELIGION, ETC. 27^ 



work as that of St. Matthew, in the fourth chapter, that "Jesus 

 went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and healing 

 all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the 

 people. And his fame went throughout all Syria, and they 

 brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers 

 diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with 

 devils and those which were lunatic and those that had the 

 palsy, and He healed them." What the Gospels attribute to 

 our Lord is not merely the performance of tlie few miracles 

 specitically described, but a general miraculous power, mani- 

 fested in the healing of all sick people who were brought before 

 Him. A denial of miraculous action is therefore a denial of the 

 general trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives. This is, 

 indeed, practically involved in a denial of the Virgin Birth ; for 

 if the first two chapters of St. Luke are not to be trusted in 

 their solemn account of the momentous circumstances they 

 record, the whole credit of the Evangelist is fatally shaken. 

 But it should be realised what is the nature of the testimony 

 which is thus rejected. It is the testimony of Books, and of the 

 authors of Books, which are bound up indissolubly with the 

 greatest blaze of moral truth and spiritual life which has ever 

 been exhibited among mankind. You cannot produce, within 

 the same compass, such a manifestation of righteousness and 

 truth, and of witness to all that is highest and most sacred in 

 human nature, as is comprised within the Gospels and Epistles. 

 It is true there are some who deny this, but I think they are in 

 a small minority, and we may confidently appeal in support o£ 

 it to the general verdict of men and women in Christian- 

 countries. But so far as it is true, it gives the weight of aiL 

 intensely truthful character to the general credibility of the- 

 Gospel narratives. 



The evidence, in other words, is not to be coldly estimated as 

 the bare testimony of half a dozen eye-witnesses. They are the' 

 associates, the representatives, of a community of men and women 

 who were the actors in the greatest movement for the assertion 

 of truth and righteousness which the world has ever seen. In 

 point of mere historical accuracy, their narratives in other points, 

 have stood the severest tests, and in spiritual force they are 

 unrivalled. Would not the falsity of such testimony be a more 

 amazing thing than the wonderful events to which it testifies ? 

 I believe, as a matter of fact, that this is the ground on which 

 the general belief in the Gospel story rests. Christians in 

 general feel that they are confronted, in the Gospels and Epistles^ 

 by testimony which is associated with all that is truest and 



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