in a religious point of view."(1) Similarly, a recent Hulsean lecturer, Dr. Farrar, has said: "However skilfully the modern ingenuity of semi-belief may have tampered with supernatural interpositions, it is clear to every honest and unsophisticated mind that, if miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy;... If the Resurrection be merely a spiritual idea, or a mythicized hallucination, then our religion has been founded on an error...." (2)
It has been necessary clearly to point out this indissoluble connection between ecclesiastical Christianity and the supernatural, in order that the paramount importance of the question as to the credibility of miracles should be duly appreciated. Our inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation, then, whether we consider its contents or its evidence, practically reduces itself to the very simple issue: Are miracles antecedently credible? Did they ever really take place? We do not intend to confine ourselves merely to a discussion of the abstract question, but shall also endeavour to form a correct estimate of the value of the specific allegations which are advanced.
2.
Having then ascertained that miracles are absolutely necessary to attest the reality of Divine Revelation we may proceed to examine them more closely, and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the representations of these phenomena which are given in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament the doctrine is inculcated
that supernatural communications must have supernatural attestation. God is described as arming his servants with power to perform wonders, in order that they may thus be accredited as his special messengers. The Patriarchs and the people of Israel generally are represented as demanding "a sign" of the reality of communications said to come from God, without which, we are led to suppose, they not only would not have believed, but would have been justified in disbelieving, that the message actually came from him. Thus Gideon(1) asks for a sign that the Lord talked with him, and Hezekiah(2) demands proof of the truth of Isaiah's prophecy that he should be restored to health. It is, however, unnecessary to refer to instances, for it may be affirmed that upon all occasions miraculous evidence of an alleged divine mission is stated to have been required and accorded.
The startling information is at the same time given, however, that miracles may be wrought to attest what is false as well as to accredit what is true. In one place,(3) it is declared that if a prophet actually gives a sign or wonder and it comes to pass, but teaches the people, on the strength of it, to follow other gods, they are not to hearken to him, and the prophet is to be put to death. The false miracle is, here,(4) attributed to God himself: "For the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." In the book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the case is stated in a still stronger way, and God is represented as directly deceiving the prophet: "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will
stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."(1) God, in fact, is represented as exerting his almighty power to deceive a man and then as destroying him for being deceived. In the same spirit is the passage(2) in which Micaiah describes the Lord as putting a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets who incited Ahab to go to Ramoth-Gilead. Elsewhere,(3) and notably in the New Testament, we find an ascription of real signs and wonders to another power than God. Jesus himself is represented as warning his disciples against false prophets, who work signs and wonders: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" of whom he should say: "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."(4) And again in another place: "For false prophets shall arise, and shall work signs and wonders [——]—] to seduce, if it were possible, the elect."(5) Also, when the Pharisees accuse him of casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils, Jesus asks: "By whom do your children cast them out?"(6) a reply which would lose all its point if they were not admitted to be able to cast out devils. In another passage John is described as saying: "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbad him."(7) Without multiplying instances, however, there can be no doubt of the fact