Chapter 11. — Miracles — the Character Of Their Testimony.

CHAPTER 11. — MIRACLES — THE CHARACTER OF

THEIR TESTIMONY.

IN the preceding chapter we so far advanced in the discussion of the subject of miracles as to show that they are susceptible of proof from human testimony, whether that testimony be derived through the medium of our own senses or the affirmations of others who profess to have witnessed them. We now proceed to examine the connection between the truth of a real miracle and the truth of that system or doctrine in whose support it has been performed.

In reference to the question now proposed, there are three distinct theories which have each been advocated by some of our ablest theologians. The first is: That real miracles, when certainly performed, are an absolute and indubitable evidence of the truth of the doctrines and testimony of those who perform them, without taking into consideration the nature of the doctrine or of the testimony to be confirmed.

The second theory is: That miracles are only conclusive evidence when the doctrines of whose truth they are given as tests do not inculcate as virtues, cruelty, deceit, or licentiousness, or what we know to be wrong; or proclaim as truths that which we certainly know to be historical or mathematical falsehoods; but, on the other hand, are characterized throughout by a pure and unchanging morality and a sacred regard for truth.

A third theory, claiming Dr. Chalmers as its patron, occupies a middle ground between the two already stated. It takes the position, that a miracle is not in all cases the seal of an attestation from God, but is only so when the doctrines it is used to confirm are free from all immorality and falsehood. This view differs from the second theory given only by requiring in the doctrines to be confirmed no affirmative moral characteristics whatever in order to give validity to their proof by miracles. The second theory not only requires the doctrines in question to be freed from immorality and falsehood, but also to present an affirmative exhibition of pure morality.

Dr. Chalmers has been the principal defender of the third scheme. He contends that all that is indispensable is, that the positive defects of immorality and falsehood be removed, and then, but not till then, miracles are a valid proof of the truth of the doctrines. His own words are: “We cannot, on the one hand, defer to the claims of a professed revelation, even though offered on the sanction of miracles, to have God for its author, if malignity and falsehood be graven upon its pages; and why? Because all our preconceptions of the Deity are on the side of his benignity and his faithfulness. We, on the other hand, could most readily surrender to it our faith and our obedience, if after having witnessed or been convinced of its miracles, we saw that through all its passages it was instinct with the purest morality; and why? Because if the discordancy between its characteristics and our previous notions of the character of God led us to reject the first, even in spite of the miracles that accompanied it, so the accordancy between its characteristics and these previous notions of the divine character lifts, as it were, the burden of this deduction off from the miracles, and leaves to them all that force and authority which properly belong to them. A revelation might be imagined which offered to our notice no moral characteristics whatever — which touched not at all on an ethical subject or principle of any kind — which confined itself to the bare announcement, we shall suppose, of facts relative to the existence of things that lay without the sphere of our own previous observation or knowledge, but withal having miracles to which it could appeal as the vouchers for its authenticity. Would miracles alone, it might be asked, having neither an evil morality in their message to overcast their authority nor a good morality to confirm it — would these alone substantiate the claims of a professed revelation? We hold that they would.” Again he adds: “We would reject a professed revelation charged either with obvious immorality or falsehood, even though in the face of undoubted miracles. Let the doctrine have immorality or obvious falsehood attached to it, and then it is insusceptible of being proved by miraculous evidence to have come from God. We require the immorality and falsehood to be removed from the doctrine — not to prove it, but to give it the susceptibility of being proved.”

The only part of this view of Dr. Chalmers from which we are compelled to dissent is this, that we should reject the testimony of miracles unless we first satisfy ourselves that the doctrines it is used to confirm do not embody immorality or falsehood. In the brief extracts we have made from his writings, this idea, with slight change of phraseology, is several times expressed. We can see very little difference between the theory of Dr. Chalmers and the second one, as given just previously. They both require an investigation of the doctrines which miracles are to test before we can determine whether they are susceptible of proof by miracles or not. It is true that the examination required by the position of Dr. Chalmers seems not so extended as that demanded by the second theory. The doctrines, according to Dr. Chalmers, are only to be examined negatively, to see that they teach no immorality or falsehoods. According to the other theory, they must be scrutinized both negatively and affirmatively to see that they are not only free from the defects specified but that they are characterized by positive excellences worthy of the perfections of God. Now, it seems to us that the same investigation which would enable us to find out whether or not the revelation were encumbered by the “disturbing force” of the defects would also evince whether or not it contained the requisite excellences. If the one scheme proves the miracles by the doctrines and the doctrines by the miracles, so does the other. In each case the argument runs in the same “circle,” and this objection to it cannot be evaded. The objections to both these theories are substantially the same. In order to render miracles a proof of revelation, they require man to possess more exalted powers than belong to his nature. He must know, according to these theories, what a divine revelation ought to be before he can decide from any evidence of miracles that it has been given. He must first examine it, not in part only, or in gross, but in whole and in minutia; for if it contains “immorality or falsehood,” it is “not susceptible of proof from miracles.” Should this revelation contain ten thousand chapters, and we carefully examine ninety-nine hundred and ninety-nine, and leave but one chapter unexamined, we cannot admit the proof of miracles; for though in our whole examination we may not have been able to detect a single “immorality or falsehood,” yet how can we know what may be in that single chapter which we have not examined? A single defect may lurk therein which, when once discovered, will completely nullify all that miraculous testimony on which we had confidently relied. And farther yet, though we had examined every chapter of the revelation, finding none of the specified defects, still we could not be sure that we ought to admit the proof of miracles; for in a second examination we might discover what would then strike us as very obvious defects, such as it is urged would be “barriers” to the testimony of miracles, but which, in the first examination, had escaped our notice. And farther still, if these theories be true, after we have gone through several examinations with our utmost care, detecting no “immorality or falsehood,” we must still be left in doubt — for we are not infallible, we are weak and ignorant, poorly capable, independent of revelation, of deciding what morality or truth is. What will appear to one man as all right and true, often appears to another to bear the marks of “obvious immorality or falsehood.”

Apply this principle of testing the force of miraculous testimony by the character of the doctrines it is intended to confirm to some of the Scripture miracles, and it may easily be seen how it divests all those “mighty works” of Christ and his apostles, and of those “holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” of all their native dignity and power. The sea is divided by the stretching forth of a rod; the flinty rock is smitten in the parched desert, and the waters gushed forth; Elijah prays, and fire from heaven falls upon his sacrifice; Daniel bows in supplication to God, and the lions’ mouths are stopped; the Saviour speaks the word, and a dead Lazarus comes forth from the tomb; the apostles pray at Pentecost, and the Holy Ghost descends in his miraculous gifts. Now all these obvious miracles were calculated to arrest the attention and to strike instant conviction to the minds of all who witnessed them that they were wrought by the “finger of God.” But, according to Dr. Chalmers, these miracles are no proofs of the manifestation of the divine power, unless the doctrines taught by those who perform them are free from “the disturbing force of obvious immorality and falsehood.” Then, after having witnessed the wonderful miracles of Moses with our own eyes, we must suspend our faith till we examine his doctrines, in all their minute details, before we can accredit his miraculous doings as tests of his divine commission; we must attend carefully to the matter of Elijah’s bold reproofs and startling appeals before we can distinguish the works of “Elijah’s God” from those of an evil spirit; we must study and learn the character of Daniel’s predictions ere we can tell whether he was delivered from the lions by an evil spirit or by the interposition of the “Lord God whom he served;” we must first sit in judgment on the Saviour’s teachings, from first to last, before we can know whether it was through the “Father who sent him” or through Beelzebub that he controlled the powers of nature; and we must acquaint ourselves with all the apostles’ doctrine before we can know whether their commission was from above or from beneath.

It need not be argued that these revolting consequences do not follow from the theories we are here opposing. We know they did not in the minds of the advocates of these schemes, and would not be admitted by them as legitimate consequences; yet we contend that their position necessarily involves them. Miracles are either direct, immediate, and infallible proofs of the divine interposition, or they are not. If they are, then, so soon as we are certainly assured of their reality, their testimony is complete, and we are bound to receive as divine revelation all those things in confirmation of which they were performed; but if they are not, then the validity of miracles as a proof is suspended in doubt until the doctrines which they were given to confirm are understood. Unless these doctrines are understood, how can it be known whether the testimony of miracles is neutralized by the “disturbing force” of “obvious immorality or falsehood,” or canonized by the absence of any such “barriers”? The system of Dr. Chalmers, as expressed in his own words. “instead of holding all religion as suspended on the miraculous evidence,” represents “this evidence itself standing at the bar of an anterior principle, and there waiting for its authentication.”

We are convinced of the truth of the position given in the first theory cited, “That real miracles, when certainly performed, are an absolute and indubitable evidence of the truth of the doctrines and testimony of those who perform them, without taking into consideration the nature of the doctrine or the testimony to be confirmed.” If we be asked, But what if those doctrines teach palpable immoralities or falsehood? We reply, That is utterly impossible! In Dr. Chalmers’s own words: “It is enough to cut short this perplexity, that God cannot lie, and that we should not waste our intellects on the impossibilities of an airy and hypothetical region.” Let real miracles, in all cases, when once we are satisfied that they have actually been performed, be regarded as the distinct utterances of God exhibited in the omnipotent doings of his manifested hand, and we will fully accredit their testimony at once, having no more apprehension that they may be used in testimony of “immorality or falsehood” than that the voice of God himself, addressing us from out a burning bush, or direct from the opening heavens, should assert what is false, or command what is wrong. It yet remains to bring the question we have been here discussing to the test of the Scriptures. Those who depreciate the testimony of miracles, considering it in the abstract, not absolute and unequivocal, generally endeavor to strengthen their position by appealing to the Bible record concerning the Egyptian magicians in the days of Moses, the demoniacal possessions of the New Testament, the raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor, and one or two other texts from which it is inferred that other agencies beside that of God may sometimes perform miracles. As to the Egyptian magicians who attempted to imitate the miracles of Moses, it is sufficiently clear that they wrought no real miracles. Whether their feats were performed by mere sleight of hand, accompanied by magical incantation, or by satanic agency, or by a combination of both, is not important for us to determine. The terms used in describing their efforts do not imply, as some suppose they do, that the magicians did the thing which Moses did, but merely that they did so; that is, something of like sort, or resembling what Moses had done. This will be more evident when we remember that the same expression is used when the failure of their attempted imitation is described: “They did so to bring forth lice, but they could not.” That all the performances of the magicians were but deceptive imitations, is farther evident from the fact that they were so soon baffled in their attempts, and constrained to confess “the finger of God.” If they could perform one miracle, why not another? or why desist their effort so suddenly, and confess their defeat? The solution is, that Moses had performed a miracle which their arts of deception were unable to counterfeit. Had they been real miracle-workers, surely it was no greater miracle to produce the lice than to produce the frogs or the blood, but their deceptive arts could not so well practice with the one as with the other.

As to the raising of the spirit of Samuel by the Witch of Endor, we must admit that a notable miracle was here performed. But by whom? Not by the Witch of Endor, but by the Lord Jehovah. The witch was alarmed when Samuel appeared. God saw proper just at that juncture to perform a miracle to the overwhelming of the enchantress with confusion, and for the purpose of reproving the wickedness of King Saul.

In the case of Job, and of the demoniacal possessions of the New Testament, we see no evidence whatever that miracles were performed, or even attempted, by any of these evil spirits. Satan was allowed, it is true, grievously to afflict Job, but it was by special permit from Heaven. He possessed not even that power of himself. He could only go the length of his chain.

The evil spirits spoken of in the New Testament, of whom numbers in that day were said to be possessed, like Satan in the case of Job, were allowed greatly to torment the bodies of their unhappy victims. They could cause them to foam at the mouth, and tear their clothes and their flesh through madness. But there is nothing miraculous in such things as these. They perform no startling wonders. They never healed the sick or raised the dead. Indeed, they had no power to enter a human body except as given them by the Almighty, nor could they so much as enter the Gadarene swine without express and formal permission.

Again, some have thought that from the prediction of our Saviour in reference to the coming of “false Christs and false prophets,” they may legitimately infer that these wicked impostors would wield miracle-working power; but this is a most unwarrantable inference. The language of the Saviour is: “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect.” Now, we venture to affirm that the only miracle that can be established on this subject is that performed by the Saviour in uttering the prediction. What are these “signs and wonders” which “false Christs and false prophets” are to exhibit? Are they real miracles? If so, what were they? where and when were they performed? and show us the evidences of their authentication. One of them promised to divide the Jordan, but was slain by the Roman soldiers ere he had performed the task. Another promised that the walls of Jerusalem should fall down, but his followers were soon put to the sword by the Roman Governor. Another promised to divide the sea, and, having led many of his deluded followers to death, hid himself through shame and fear. And these are the “wonders” quoted to prove that miracles are not absolute tests of the divine power. Their “signs and wonders” were not miracles, but, as described by St. Paul, “they were after the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders.”

Finally, that miracles are a direct and absolute proof of the doctrines and testimony in behalf of which they are performed, we will now show from the Scriptures themselves. It may readily be seen, from both the Old and New Testaments, that the inspired writers, so far from considering miraculous evidence a secondary and dependent kind of testimony, “standing at the bar of an anterior principle, and there waiting for its authentication,” ever appealed to miracles as the most direct and indubitable proof of the truth of any doctrine, or of the divine mission of any person in whose behalf they have been performed.

To give but one example from the Old Testament, look at the contest of Elijah with the false prophets of Baal, an account of which is recorded in the eighteenth chapter of the first book of Kings. In the days of Ahab — that wicked king of Israel who, with a profanity hitherto unparalleled in the history of Israel, had “digged down the altars of the true God” and set up the idolatrous worship of Baal — Elijah the Tishbite was divinely commissioned to stem the prevailing tide of corruption. In answer to his prayer, the heavens became as brass, and for more than three years a withering drought prevailed. Ahab and the priests of Baal charged upon Elijah and Elijah’s God the dreadful calamities of the times. Elijah challenged them to a fair contest upon the question. The plan was agreed upon. The multitudes of Israel were summoned to the Mount of Carmel to witness the decisive conflict between truth and idolatry. There sat the royal monarch in his robes of state. Around were gathered the eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and of the groves. And there, in his rough mountain garb, the commissioned prophet of the Lord, standing up as the fearless advocate of the true religion, proclaimed to the multitudes: “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him… I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under; and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.” Here the issue was a plain one. It was the authentication of Baal and his prophets on the one hand, or of Jehovah and his Prophet Elijah on the other hand; but how was it mutually agreed that the matter should be decided? It was by the direct and simple testimony of a miracle: “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” The prophets of Baal proceeded with their offering first. “But there was no voice nor any that answered.” No miracle testified in their favor. After every precaution had been taken by Elijah to furnish indubitable proof of a real miracle, he proceeded with his offering. He called upon his God, saying, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, The Lord, he is the God! The Lord, he is the God!”

Now, we ask, can any thing be more pointed than the truth here set forth, that miracle, and miracle alone, was recognized as the direct and infallible authentication of the mission of him in whose behalf it was performed? In his prayer, Elijah asks God for the miracle as a divine attestation of the fact, both that Jehovah was “God in Israel,” and that the doings and teachings of his prophet were divinely sanctioned. And when the miracle appeared, there was immediate and unqualified acquiescence in its testimony as final and conclusive. There was no holding of it in abeyance till the character of the teachings of Jehovah by his accredited prophet could be scanned. It was enough that an unquestionable miracle had been witnessed. They had heard the divine utterance in that palpable form, and that was the finale on the question.

But let us hear the claims which our Saviour founds upon the testimony of his miracles. His language is: “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.” “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works.” To this direct, miraculous testimony he constantly appeals. “The works which the Father hath given me to do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.” What these works are, he informs us in the answer he sent to John by those disciples whom John had deputed to ask the Saviour, “Art thou he that should come?” “Go,” said Jesus, “and show John again those things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

Thus it appears that our Saviour placed the strongest possible reliance upon the simple, abstract testimony of miracles. Did he wish to impress the people with the divinity of his claims as a Teacher sent from heaven, or to show them their own responsibility for neglecting his precepts, he never paused to argue out the consistency of his doctrines with the principles of natural religion, or with the “supremacy of conscience within them.” However weighty corroborative evidence of this kind may be justly estimated, he never deemed it an essential prerequisite to the testimony of miracles; but ever “taught as one having authority,” founding his claims to that authority on the witness of his miracles alone. Had it been otherwise — had it been necessary for the people first to examine all his teachings to see if they embodied any thing whatever “obviously inconsistent with morality, or with historical or mathematical truth” — what would have