n be no question of ease or difficulty. The performer
would be requested to repeat the operation under other circumstances
upon other bodies; and if he succeeded on every occasion, two points
would be established: first, that there may be in this world such things
as supernatural operations; and, secondly, that the power to perform
them is delegated to, or belongs to, particular persons. But who does
not perceive that no miracle was ever performed under such conditions as
these?'

We have quoted this passage because it expresses with extreme precision
and clearness the common-sense principle which we apply to all
supernatural stories of our own time, which Protestant theologians
employ against the whole cycle of Catholic miracles, and which M. Renan
is only carrying to its logical conclusions in applying to the history
of our Lord, if the Gospels are tried by the mere tests of historical
criticism. The Gospels themselves tell us why M. Renan's conditions were
never satisfied. Miracles were not displayed in the presence of sceptics
to establish scientific truths. When the adulterous generation sought
after a sign, the sign was not given; nay, it is even said that in the
presence of unbelief, our Lord was not able to work miracles. But
science has less respect for that undoubting and submissive willingness
to believe; and it is quite certain that if we attempt to establish the
truth of the New Testament on the principles of Paley--if with Professor
Jowett 'we interpret the Bible as any other book,' the element of
miracle which has evaporated from the entire surface of human history
will not maintain itself in the sacred ground of the Gospels, and the
facts of Christianity will melt in our hands like a snowball.

Nothing less than a miraculous history can sustain the credibility of
miracles, and nothing could be more likely, if revelation be a reality
and not a dream, than that the history containing it should be saved in
its composition from the intermixture of human infirmity. This is the
position in which instinct long ago taught Protestants to entrench
themselves, and where alone they can hope to hold their ground: once
established in these lines, they were safe and unassailable, unless it
could be demonstrated that any fact or facts related in the Bible were
certainly untrue.

Nor would it be necessary to say any more upon the subject. Those who
believed Christianity would admit the assumption; those who disbelieved