e for the later is just as good as the evidence for the earlier
wonders. If the one set are certified by contemporaneous witnesses of
high repute, so are the other; and, in point of probability, there is
not a pin to choose between the two. That is the solid and irrefragable
result of Middleton's contribution to the subject. But the Free
Inquirer's freedom had its limits; and he draws a sharp line of
demarcation between the patristic and the New Testament miracles--on the
professed ground that the accounts of the latter, being inspired, are
out of the reach of criticism.

A century later, the question was taken up by another divine,
Middleton's equal in learning and acuteness, and far his superior in
subtlety and dialectic skill; who, though an Anglican, scorned the name
of Protestant; and, while yet a Churchman, made it his business, to
parade, with infinite skill, the utter hollowness of the arguments of
those of his brother Churchmen who dreamed that they could be both
Anglicans and Protestants. The argument of the "Essay on the Miracles
recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of the Early Ages" [60] by the
present [1889] Roman Cardinal, but then Anglican Doctor, John Henry
Newman, is compendiously stated by himself in the following passage:--

If the miracles of Church history cannot be defended by the
arguments of Leslie, Lyttelton, Paley, or Douglas, how many of the
Scripture miracles satisfy their conditions? (P. cvii.)

And, although the answer is not given in so many words, little doubt is
left on the mind of the reader, that in the mind of the writer, it is:
None. In fact, this conclusion is one which cannot be resisted, if the
argument in favour of the Scripture miracles is based upon that which
laymen, whether lawyers, or men of science, or historians, or ordinary
men of affairs, call evidence. But there is something really impressive
in the magnificent contempt with which, at times, Dr. Newman sweeps
aside alike those who offer and those who demand such evidence.

Some infidel authors advise us to accept no miracles which would
not have a verdict in their favour in a court of justice; that is,
they employ against Scripture a weapon which Protestants would
confine to attacks upon the Church; as if moral and religious
questions required legal proof, and evidence were the test of
truth[61] (p. cvii).

"As if evidence were the test of truth!"--although the truth i