Let me illustrate this subject by a few examples. We believe the assertions of Dr. Livingstone about the interior of Africa, although we have no means of verifying them by ocular observation, because we know that he has travelled there, and we are persuaded that he is a veracious witness. We accept the higher truths of astronomy, not because we have studied them, or are even able to appreciate the nature of the processes by which they have been arrived at, but because they are affirmed by persons who have afforded evidence that they possess a high order of knowledge on that subject. The same is true throughout the whole of the higher departments of science. We may call this an act of faith if we like, but it is also an act of our reason. The same thing is true throughout every department of human knowledge. It is astonishing how small a part of it is the result of our own personal observation. It follows therefore that the attempts [pg 082] which are so constantly made to separate faith and reason, and to erect an impassable wall between them, are suicidal alike both to faith and reason.

As therefore we accept the affirmations of others on subjects within the limits of their own knowledge, although we ourselves are ignorant of the processes by which it has been arrived at, so we accept the affirmations of such a person as the Jesus of the Evangelists on those subjects on which he affirms that he possesses the fullest knowledge.

But it will be objected that some of these assertions are made respecting high mysteries incomprehensible to the human intellect. Can we accept such truths?

I answer that we are only capable of accepting propositions the two terms of which we are able to comprehend with more or less distinctness. Nothing has been the subject of greater abuse than the word “mystery” in connection with revelation. It is frequently represented as denoting something which from end to end is utterly incomprehensible, like the unknowable God of a certain system of philosophy. In the New Testament the meaning of the word “mystery” is not an incomprehensible proposition, but a truth which once was hidden in the divine counsels, and has been revealed by the Gospel. That which is actually unthinkable is incapable of affirmation or denial. None of the affirmations of Jesus Christ partake of this character. They are mysteries only in the sense that they ran up into spheres of thought which transcend the limits of human knowledge. But this is done by all ultimate philosophical and scientific truths. If it be urged that some of them are difficult or incapable of definition, the same is true of not a few of the conceptions of science. It is also true that they respect truths with which we could not be acquainted apart from [pg 083] such a revelation as that made in the person of Jesus Christ; but this is true of the phenomena of Creation likewise. We do not acquire a knowledge of its phenomena by reasoning, but by observation, or from the statements of others when they lie beyond the limits of our own observation. The Incarnation, including as it does the divine actions and the teaching of Jesus Christ, is not the revelation of a dogma, but the manifestation of a new fact. This fact, like all other phenomena, although undiscoverable by our reasoning powers without the exercise of observation, becomes after observation a fact on which reason may justly exercise its powers. If he be really what he professed to be, then his statements about himself give as an account of his previous history, before he came under human observation.

Let me now consider the relation in which miracles stand to the affirmations of those who claimed a commission from Jesus Christ to publish his religion in the world, and to lay the foundation of the Church.

I must here also adhere to my original position that miraculous powers are never described in the New Testament as being used for the direct proof of dogmas, but for the proof of the Messianic character of Jesus Christ, or of the divine commission of those who wrought them. The truth of the assertions of its writers rests on no other foundation than the fulness of their knowledge of the subjects on which they spake, whether acquired by ordinary or by supernatural means, and on their veracity, when they affirm that particular truths were within the limits of their knowledge. Thus St. Paul claims acceptance for the things which he asserted because he had been taught them by Revelation from Jesus Christ, not because he had proved their truth, by working miracles in confirmation of them. [pg 084] This course is uniformly adopted by him throughout his epistles. The object of the mighty works that were wrought by him was to prove his own apostleship or the fact of the resurrection.

I must not allow myself to enter on the question of inspiration, its nature and limitations, or the degree of supernatural guidance afforded to the apostles and their followers. Such an inquiry would be foreign to the present subject, which is strictly historical. It is of course a direct and necessary inference that when the miracles proved the reality of the commission of those who performed them, they also proved that they were fully instructed in its terms, and entitled to credit within its limits. But the extent of their enlightenment can only be inferred from the nature of the commission itself, and from the facts and phenomena of the New Testament. It has been an idea widely spread that inspiration must confer a general infallibility. The inference that a man is rendered infallible in general matters because he is invested with a limited and definite commission, and with endowments adequate to render him competent to fulfil the purposes of his mission, is one which the premises will not justify. The utmost that the possession of such a commission can prove is that its possessor is enlightened up to its subject matter, but no further.

But in the present discussion I need not go beyond the affirmations of the New Testament. The actions performed by Jesus Christ proved him to be the Messiah. The miracles wrought by the apostles, were performed either to prove the fact of his resurrection, i.e. that he was the Messiah, or their own divine mission, which was dependent on its truth, or to draw attention to their message. The supernatural gifts so frequently referred to in the epistles, are affirmed to [pg 085] have been designed for the building up of the Church into a distinct community, and when that purpose was accomplished they were to cease. Being functional, the enlightenment communicated by them was necessarily limited to the special subject matter on which they were exercised. In this point of view miracles may be viewed as attestations of the veracity of the persons who performed them, and of the sufficiency of their knowledge on the subjects they were specially commissioned to communicate.

But the question still remains for consideration, Can miracles prove moral truths?

I answer emphatically in the negative. If dogmas, which may be viewed as intellectual truths, are incapable of a direct proof by miracles, still more so are moral truths. Such truths can rest only on a moral basis. With respect to the miracles recorded in the New Testament, the question is nugatory, for it nowhere affirms that its miracles were wrought for such a purpose. It is true that Jesus Christ, as the great legislator of the kingdom of heaven, gave an authoritative utterance to many moral precepts as the laws of his kingdom. This royal right of legislation was inherent in his Messiahship. But to give utterance to moral truths in a legislative capacity, has no connection with attempting to prove them by authority. Ordinary human legislation has its authoritative utterances. But when it does this, it does not rest the truths themselves on authority, or base them on adventitious testimony. Our Lord and his apostles uniformly appealed to the internal perceptions of our moral and spiritual nature as the only ground on which moral obligation rests.