No man can say there was not something at the bottom of the Christian “miracles,” and of witchcrafts and possessions; I doubt not something not yet fully understood; but to suppose, on such evidence, that God departed from the usual law of the world, in these cases, is not very rational, to say the least; to make such a belief essential to Christianity is without warrant in the words of Christ.
But now admitting in argument that Jesus wrought all the miracles alleged; that his birth and resurrection were both miraculous; that he was the only person endowed with such miraculous power—it does not thence follow that he would teach true doctrine. Must a revealer of transient miracles to the sense necessarily be a revealer of eternal truth to the soul? It follows no more than the reverse. But admit it in argument. Then he must never be mistaken in the smallest particular. But this is contrary to fact; for if we may trust the record, he taught that he should appear again after his alleged ascension, and the world would end in that age.
Practically speaking, a miracle is a most dubious thing; in this case its proof the most uncertain. But on the supposition that our conviction of the truth of Religion must rest wholly or mainly on the fact, that Jesus wrought the alleged miracles, then is Religion itself a most uncertain thing, and we in this age can never be sure thereof, though our soul testify to its truth, as the old Jews, who rejected him, and yet had their senses to testify to the miracles. If the proof of Religion be the sensations of the evangelists, then we can be no more certain of its truth than of the fact that Jesus had no human father!
But this question of miracles, whether true or false, is of no religious significance. When Mr Locke said the doctrine proved the miracles, not the miracles the doctrine, he silently admitted their worthlessness. They can be useful only to such as deny our internal power of discerning truth.[1] Now the doctrine of Religion is eternally
- ↑ “Let us see how far inspiration can enforce on the mind any opinion concerning God or his worship, when accompanied with a power to do a miracle, and here too, I say, the last determination must be that of reason. 1. Because
connected with what is called “Spiritualism,” already so copious, especially the works of Edmunds, Rogers, Ballou, Bell, and Hare. The writings of A. J. Davis seem to be one of the most remarkable literary phenomena in the world, but it would be absurd to call them miraculous.
