APPENDIX. No. I. ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR BLESSED SAVIOUR AND HIS APOSTLES. SINCE the publication of Dr Campbell's, Bishop Douglas's, and Mr Farmer's answers to Hume's Essay on Miracles, the same objections that were, I believe, first urged by him against the miracles of the Old and New Testaments have again been repeatedly stated, and stated in a form somewhat new; and as they have been disseminated among all classes of reading people, with the art which distinguishes one of our most popular literary journals, unwilling to dismiss from my hands a work of this kind, without attempting at least to expose the sophistry which has been thus employed to undermine the foundations of our holy religion. * I am A miracle has been defined-" An effect or event contrary to the established constitution or course of things," or "a sensible deviation from the known laws of nature." To this definition I am not aware that any objection has ever been made, or indeed can be made. That the visible world is governed by stated general rules or laws; or that there is * See the Edinburgh Review, No. XLVI. APPENDIX. No. I. ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR BLESSED SAVIOUR AND HIS APOSTLES. SINCE the publication of Dr Campbell's, Bishop Douglas's, and Mr Farmer's answers to Hume's Essay on Miracles, the same objections that were, I believe, first urged by him against the miracles of the Old and New Testaments have again been repeatedly stated, and stated in a form somewhat new; and as they have been disseminated among all classes of reading people, with the art which distinguishes one of our most popular literary journals,* I am unwilling to dismiss from my hands a work of this kind, without attempting at least to expose the sophistry which has been thus employed to undermine the foundations of our holy religion. A miracle has been defined-" An effect or event contrary to the established constitution or course of things," or 66 a sensible deviation from the known laws of nature." Το this definition I am not aware that any objection has ever been made, or indeed can be made. That the visible world is governed by stated general rules or laws; or that there is * See the Edinburgh Review, No. XLVI. an order of physical causes and effects established in every part of the system of nature, which falls under our observation, is a fact, which is not, and cannot be, controverted. Effects which are produced by the regular operation of these laws or physical causes, or which are conformable to the established course of events, are said to be natural; and every palpable deviation from this constitution of the natural system, and the correspondent course of events in it, is called a miracle. If this definition of a miracle be accurate, no event can be justly deemed miraculous merely because it is strange, or even to us unaccountable; for it may be nothing more than the regular effect of some physical cause operating according to an established though unknown law of nature. In this country earthquakes happen but rarely, and at no stated periods of time; and for monstrous births perhaps no particular and satisfactory account can be given; yet an earthquake is as regular an effect of the established laws of nature as the bursting of a bomb-shell, or the movements of a steam engine; and no man doubts, but that, under particular circumstances unknown to him, the monster is nature's genuine issue. It is therefore necessary, before we can pronounce an event to be a true miracle, that the circumstances under which it was produced be known, and that the common course of nature be generally understood; for in all those cases in which we are totally ignorant of nature, it is impossible to determine what is, or what is not, a deviation from her course. Miracles, therefore, are not, as some have represented them, appeals to our ignorance. They suppose some antecedent knowledge of the course of nature, without which no proper judgment can be formed concerning them; though with it their reality may be so apparent as to leave no room for doubt or disputation. Thus, were a physician to give instantly sight to a blind man, by anointing his eyes with a chemical preparation, which we had never before seen, and to the nature and qualities of which we were absolute strangers, the cure would to us undoubtedly be wonderful; but we could not pronounce it miraculous, because it might be the physical effect of the operation of the unguent on the eye. But were he to give sight to his patient merely by commanding him to receive it, or by anointing his eyes with clay, we should with the utmost confidence pronounce the cure to be a miracle; because we know perfectly that neither the human voice, nor clay made of dust and spittle, has, by the established constitution of things, any such power over the diseases of the eye. No one is now ignorant, that persons apparently dead are often restored to their families and friends, by being treated, during suspended animation, in the manner recommended by the Humane Society. To the vulgar, and sometimes even to men of science, these resuscitations appear very wonderful; but as they are known to be effected by physical agency, they can never be considered as miraculous deviations from the laws of nature, though they may suggest to different minds very different notions of the state of death. On the other hand, no one could doubt of his having witnessed a real miracle, who had seen a person that had been four days dead, come alive out of the grave at the call of another, or who had even beheld a person exhibiting all the common evidences of death, instantly resuscitated merely by being desired to live. Thus easy is it to distinguish between such miracles as those of our Blessed Saviour, and the most wonderful phenomena produced by physical causes, operating according to the established laws of nature. Yet it seems difficult to admit, on any occasion, a suspension of these laws; and we may safely pronounce, that they have never been sus |