(c) On this point, see Chalmers, Christian Revelation, 3:70; Starkie on Evidence, 739; De Quincey, Theological Essays, 1:162-188; Thornton, Old-fashioned Ethics, 143-153; Campbell on Miracles. South's sermon on The Certainty of our Savior's Resurrection had stated and answered this objection long before Hume propounded it.
5. Evidential force of Miracles.
(a) Miracles are the natural accompaniments and attestations of new communications from God. The great epochs of miracles—represented by Moses, the prophets, the first and second comings of Christ—are coincident with the great epochs of revelation. Miracles serve to draw attention to new truth, and cease when this truth has gained currency and foothold.
Miracles are not scattered evenly over the whole course of history. Few miracles are recorded during the 2500 years from Adam to Moses. When the N. T. Canon is completed and the internal evidence of Scripture has attained its greatest strength, the external attestations by miracle are either wholly withdrawn or begin to disappear. The spiritual wonders of regeneration remain, and for these the way has been prepared by the long progress from the miracles of power wrought by Moses to the miracles of grace wrought by Christ. Miracles disappeared because newer and higher proofs rendered them unnecessary. Better things than these are now in evidence. Thomas Fuller: “Miracles are the swaddling-clothes of the infant church.” John Foster: “Miracles are the great bell of the universe, which draws men to God's sermon.”Henry Ward Beecher: “Miracles are the midwives of great moral truths; candles lit before the dawn but put out after the sun has risen.” Illingworth, in Lux Mundi, 210—“When we are told that miracles contradict experience, we point to the daily occurrence of the spiritual miracle of regeneration and ask: ‘Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise and walk?’ (Mat. 9:5).”
Miracles and inspiration go together; if the former remain in the church, the latter should remain also; see Marsh, in Bap. Quar. Rev., 1887:225-242. On the cessation of miracles in the early church, see Henderson, Inspiration, 443-490; Bückmann, in Zeitsch. f. luth. Theol. u. Kirche, 1878:216. On miracles in the second century, see Barnard, Literature of the Second Century, 139-180. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 167—“The apostles were commissioned to speak for Christ till the N. T. Scriptures, his authoritative voice, were completed. In the apostolate we have a provisional inspiration; in the N. T. a stereotyped inspiration; the first being endowed with authority ad interim to forgive sins, and the second having this authority in perpetuo.” Dr. Gordon draws an analogy between coal, which is fossil sunlight, and the New Testament, which is fossil inspiration. Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 74—“The Bible is very free from the senseless prodigies of oriental mythology. The great prophets, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work no miracles. Jesus' temptation in the wilderness is a victory of the moral consciousness over the religion of mere physical prodigy.”Trench says that miracles cluster about the foundation of the theocratic kingdom [pg 129]under Moses and Joshua, and about the restoration of that kingdom under Elijah and Elisha. In the O. T., miracles confute the gods of Egypt under Moses, the Phœnician Baal under Elijah and Elisha, and the gods of Babylon under Daniel. See Diman, Theistic Argument, 376, and art.: Miracle, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.
(b) Miracles generally certify to the truth of doctrine, not directly, but indirectly; otherwise a new miracle must needs accompany each new doctrine taught. Miracles primarily and directly certify to the divine commission and authority of a religious teacher, and therefore warrant acceptance of his doctrines and obedience to his commands as the doctrines and commands of God, whether these be communicated at intervals or all together, orally or in written documents.
The exceptions to the above statement are very few, and are found only in cases where the whole commission and authority of Christ, and not some fragmentary doctrine, are involved. Jesus appeals to his miracles as proof of the truth of his teaching in Mat. 9:5, 6—“Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, and take up thy bed, and go unto thy house”; 12:28—“if I by the spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.” So Paul in Rom. 1:4, says that Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God with power, ... by the resurrection from the dead.” Mair, Christian Evidences, 223, quotes from Natural Religion, 181—“It is said that the theo-philanthropist Larévellière-Lépeaux once confided to Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill success of his attempt to bring into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a sort of benevolent rationalism which he had invented to meet the wants of a benevolent age. ‘His propaganda made no way,’ he said. ‘What was he to do?’ he asked. The ex-bishop Talleyrand politely condoled with him, feared it was a difficult task to found a new religion, more difficult than he had imagined, so difficult that he hardly knew what to advise. ‘Still,’—so he went on after a moment's reflection,—‘there is one plan which you might at least try: I should recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third day.’ ” See also Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 147-167; Farrar, Life of Christ, 1:168-172.
(c) Miracles, therefore, do not stand alone as evidences. Power alone cannot prove a divine commission. Purity of life and doctrine must go with the miracles to assure us that a religious teacher has come from God. The miracles and the doctrine in this manner mutually support each other, and form parts of one whole. The internal evidence for the Christian system may have greater power over certain minds and over certain ages than the external evidence.
Pascal's aphorism that “doctrines must be judged by miracles, miracles by doctrine,”needs to be supplemented by Mozley's statement that “a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural doctrine, while a supernatural doctrine is not the proper proof of a supernatural fact.” E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 107, would “defend miracles, but would not buttress up Christianity by them.... No amount of miracles could convince a good man of the divine commission of a known bad man; nor, on the other hand, could any degree of miraculous power suffice to silence the doubts of an evil-minded man.... The miracle is a certification only to him who can perceive its significance.... The Christian church has the resurrection written all over it. Its very existence is proof of the resurrection. Twelve men could never have founded the church, if Christ had remained in the tomb. The living church is the burning bush that is not consumed.” Gore, Incarnation, 57—“Jesus did not appear after his resurrection to unbelievers, but to believers only,—which means that this crowning miracle was meant to confirm an existing faith, not to create one where it did not exist.”