efence of miracles? Is the question of their
truth or falsehood an irrelevant one to him? Is his faith secure
if they are disproved? By no means; if miracles were, although
only at the commencement, necessary to Christianity, and were
actually wrought, and therefore form part of the Gospel record and
are bound up with the Gospel scheme and doctrines, this part of
the structure cannot be abandoned without the sacrifice of the
other too. To shake the authority of one-half of this body of
statement is to shake the authority of the whole. Whether or not
the individual makes _use_ of them for the support of his own
faith, the miracles are there; and if they are there they must be
there either as true miracles or as false ones. If he does not
avail himself of their evidence, his belief is still affected by
their refutation. Accepting, as he does, the supernatural truths
of Christianity and its miracles upon the same report from the
same witnesses, upon the authority of the same documents, he
cannot help having at any rate this negative interest in them. For
if those witnesses and documents deceive us with regard to the
miracles, how can we trust them with regard to the doctrines? If
they are wrong upon the evidences of a revelation, how can we
depend upon their being right as to the nature of that revelation?
If their account of visible facts is to be received with an
explanation, is not their account of doctrines liable to a like
explanation? Revelation, then, even if it does not need the truth
of miracles for the benefit of their proof, still requires it in
order not to be crushed under the weight of their falsehood....
Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Christianity must
stand or fall together. These two questions--the _nature_ of the
revelation, and the _evidence_ of the revelation--cannot be
disjoined. Christianity as a dispensation undiscoverable by human
reason, and Christianity as a dispensation authenticated by
miracles--these two are in necessary combination. If any do not
include the supernatural character of Christianity in their
definition of it, regarding the former only as one interpretation
of it or one particular traditional form of it, which is separable
from the essence--for Christianity as thus defined the support of
miracles is not wanted, because the m