plain to us that, if any alleged fulfilment of prophecy could not be substantially discerned beforehand by the Church, the prophecy in question could not have been a guiding light to them-i.e. in other words, it could not have been useful as simple prophecy.

I do beseech the reader to examine this point maturely and prayerfully with his Bible in his hands. It furnishes a simple balance, I feel, wherein such post-facto ingenious systems of interpretation as Mr. Elliott's will be at once "found wanting."

The Apocalypse was not intended for learned men only, as Mr. Elliott would make it; but, as every other portion of the blessed word, is like the Eolian harp, whose heavenly music, all meddling ingenuity of man spoils.

Let the Spirit of God play upon it with His breathings from other parts of his word, and the humblest child of God, who has the Spirit, will enjoy it equally with the most erudite.

MR

THE WITNESSES OF CHRIST'S MIRACLES.*

R. MILL brings an imputation against the testimony in favour of the miracles of Christ which struck as as extremely strange from him. Supposing his idea to be just, it would raise the character of the testimony higher, if possible, in our estimation, than before. He supposes that the first grand attractive power of Christ over His early followers arose from "the excellence of the doctrine" taught by Him, and from that blameless life of His, which drew forth in their minds " just reverence for the Teacher" (236). One would have supposed that a capacity of this nature, and minds of such an order on the part of the disciples, would, as a matter of course, raise them to a very lofty height indeed in the estimation of Mill. It is no longer, according to him, vulgar miracle acting upon vulgar minds which drew Peter and James and John and others to the side of Christ. It was the doctrine which He taught, so superior to that of the Scribes and the Pharisees! It was the life which He led; so pure, so true, so unselfish! It was the mind He displayed; so full of love, of patience, of mercy! These were the things which, according to him, first drew the disciples to the side of Jesus of Nazareth! Overpowered by an all but excessive sense of these moral qualities, they are ready to accept His claims without the smallest examination, or even to impute to Him miraculous power if He had been slow to exert it, or may not have done so at all.

The former part of this description of the early disciples of Christ is as much above their deserts as the latter part falls below them. Beyond doubt, the first thing which disposed the disciples to look favourably upon Jesus, was the testimony of the Baptist (John i. 35, 36). John Baptist, though a very extraordinary teacher, never claimed miraculous power, nor had any attributed to him, though Mill would tell us that it was all but a matter of course that every teacher out of the common

*Three Essays on Religion. By John Stuart Mill.

would claim, or have attributed to him, if he did not claim, such an ordinary prerogative. On other than miraculous powers, John Baptist won his great influence with his generation; and his testimony it was that first drew the disciples to Christ. Once with Him, there were in His words and life much to attract minds of a certain kind. But we are far from thinking that the disciples had so just, so true, so appreciating a sense of the doctrine and teaching of Jesus as would be the grand attraction to Him; an attraction so powerful and overwhelming as to make them think slightly of all other considerations. This is not the view which we have of the intercourse of Christ and His disciples down to the very close of His life. No doubt they often "wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth," as the men of Nazareth did, who presently afterwards endeavoured to throw Him down a cliff (Luke iv. 22-29). No doubt they sometimes said to one another, "Never man spake like this man," as the officers of the Pharisees said; who, nevertheless, did not join themselves to His cause (John vii. 46). But with all this, there was on their part, and continued on their part till after His resurrection, a dulness of conception, and often a misapprehension of His teaching, which surprises us now. The great leading views of Himself and His work on earth, were utterly misapprehended by the disciples. When they perceived for a moment their meaning, they were surprised and angry (Mark viii. 32). It may with great probability be maintained, that if they had from the first really comprehended the "doctrine" of their Master, its "excellence," which Mill supposes led them first to Him, would rather have deterred them altogether. It certainly was not their thorough appreciation of the doctrine which first led them to Christ. They were not men of this exalted moral and religious temperament. They were at first led by motives; many of them of a very much lower character. The works of Christ it was which rather led them to bear a doctrinal teaching, which was often difficult of comprehension, or hard to bear when it was comprehended, and sometimes positively rejected when it was understood.

But who does not perceive that if Mill's description of the motives which first led the disciples to Christ, irrespective of all other evidence, were indeed true, it raises those disciples to a position in the moral and intellectual world, which demands for them and their testimony of every kind an attention and a respect of the profoundest nature. A true sense of the vast superiority of the doctrine of Christ above all other doctrines of their time, and of the surpassing excellence of His moral and religious character above all that was possessed or claimed by the religionists of their period-Sadducee, Pharisee, or Essene; this, if possessed to that extent asserted for them by Mill, and constituting the grand constraining motive with them to abandon earlier teaching and guides whom they were taught to reverence from their childhood, would place them in quite a different category of minds from that which he elsewhere awards to them. Why, they were, on this showing, the very elect minds of the nation! The lower you place their original status and their original ignorance, the higher you elevate that marvellous power of intellect and of heart which saw in Jesus the commanding excellence of mind and doctrine which so few of their countrymen could

see. Mr. Mill's flattering theory of the early disciples, places them beyond the power of removal in the position of calm, well-judging men, capable of judging of other matters as well as of the matter of religious doctrine; places them in the rank of lovers of truth beyond all other things; which would make it with them a moral impossibility to deceive. This latter theory of Mill neutralises the former. Men who could judge so truly, so justly, so well, and act upon their judgment so boldly and disinterestedly, cannot possibly be classed among the "extremely ignorant and credulous people" in whose ranks he had previously placed them! They must have been men altogether unlikely to have admitted unfounded claim to miraculous power; altogether unfit for the deceitful part of attributing either to Christ or to themselves a miraculous power which they did not fully believe to have been possessed and exercised.

The next objection which Mill brings against the testimony in favour of the Christian miracles is, that it is that of persons "unaccustomed to draw the line between the perceptions of sense, and what is superinduced upon them by the suggestions of a lively imagination (236). To this general statement we have little, if any, objection to make. It will be at once conceded that the early disciples were not, as a class, men of science, and had seldom, probably, thought of that scientific process which a philosopher of the 19th century describes. But when all this is granted, it does not advance his argument. We must not dismiss a case with a general observation which, applicable in one case, is perhaps wholly inapplicable in another. We must apply this general observation to the case of the miracles of the Gospels, not selecting one or two of them which perhaps might in a degree suit the application, but taking them in their more remarkable instances and in their general character. Thus taken, the observation of Mill, allowing it to be true to the fullest extent, does not weaken the testimony for the Christian miracles in the very smallest measure.

There are, no doubt, whole classes of alleged events which pass under the name of the supernatural, to which the above observation would apply with very considerable force. Such events would be the whole class of visions or revelations attributed by the witnesses to their Master or claimed for themselves. In this field, which occupies so large a space in many religious systems, there is indeed much scope for self-deception; much danger of misapprehension by persons of a particularly ardent fancy, not accustomed to distinguish between the "perceptions of sense and the suggestions of a lively imagination." Or, again, in that shadow land of supposed apparitions of the dead, it would add most materially to the value of testimony if it were prepared to submit to the test of scientific observation. In all these cases, there is no doubt that Mr. Mills' general observation applies with great force; and if the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah, and of His apostles to be His accredited messengers, rested on such signs, we would ourselves most jealously and most strictly apply the test to the alleged testimony, and if it were in general testimony such as he has described above, it would beyond doubt possess a very diminished weight.

But when we examine the alleged Miracles of the New Testament, or, for that matter, of the Old Testament, we find them to belong, as a

general rule, to classes of events of a wholly different kind, and to be such as even a man unaccustomed to distinguish between the perceptions of sense and the suggestions of fancy could judge of just as well as the man who had devoted the study of a lifetime to such questions. In the entire history of Christ there is but one, or at most, two visions, that of the transfiguration on the Mount, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at His baptism (Matt. xvii. 9; iii. 16). But these are not appealed to in evidence of His claims. It is works of a totally different kind that are represented as drawing the faith of men to Jesus, or as being put forward by His witnesses for the purpose of doing so. In the history of the apostles there are also given accounts of visions, but these are never put forward in the way of proof (Acts x. 2; xvi. 9). In the whole history of the Bible there is not a single narrative of the supposed apparition of the dead to the living. There are a very few cases, as the appearance of Samuel to the witch of Endor, and the appearance of Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration, which are by some supposed to be the appearances of the ghosts or spirits of these men (1 Sam. xxviii. 14; Matt. xvii. 9). Scripture, however, does not describe them as appearances of this nature, and they can all be accounted for on principles in harmony with the analogy of the Bible, which ignores and discountenances such apparitions. Mr. Mill's observation, therefore, applicable in many cases, and in all such cases to be applied in its utmost force, is not applicable in that case to which he applies it, viz., to the miracles of the Gospel. They are not, as the all but universal rule, of the kind which require, in order to judge their proper nature, a mind skilled to distinguish the perceptions of sense from the suggestions of imagination; or, where there are a very few such cases, they take no place in that testimony which demanded belief in the claims of Jesus as the Messiah, sent from God to man with a Message.

Among His alleged miracles, there is a remarkable one, which in some of its circumstances might be supposed to approximate to those stories of apparitions which are so commonly believed by the ignorant and superstitious. I refer to His alleged walking upon the sea of Galilee (Matt. xiv. 26). Here are several circumstances such as readily suggest to the imagination, especially of those unacquainted with scientific phenomena and the laws of mind, appearances not warranted by the actual perceptions of sense. The time is night, faint gleams of moonshine perhaps here and there shedding a dim, uncertain, flickering. light amid the prevailing shadow of driving cloud and night. The scene is on the sea, in a fishing boat, the passengers fishermen, a class often reputed and probably with justice-as very prone to see sights which the rigid analysis of science cannot often admit to be the real perceptions of sense. Nor can it be said of the fishermen of that memorable night that they were devoid of those feelings, call them superstitions if you like, which would make them admit the reality of a spiritual appearance much more readily than it would be accepted by such minds as those of Hume and Mill. The circumstances of that night were such as were calculated to draw forth such feelings if they had existed, as they most probably did, in their minds. The storm howled around them; the waves threatened to swamp their vessel; fleeting shadow and light of various shape and fantasy moved across the waters. In such circum

stances doubtless their thoughts would often and anxiously revert to the strange, loved, trusted man who had gone up into a mountain to offer up secret prayer while they were rowing across the sea. If in such circumstances some of them, or even all of them, had said they saw, or fully believed they saw, the figure of their Master looming through the shadows, traversing the short broken white billows, and then disappearing towards the land they went to, we should not have been very much surprised at the story, and, without imputing to them any intentional deception, we should not feel greatly called upon to believe it. We would put all the circumstances of the case together, sagely call to mind that Peter and James and John and the rest were wholly unaccustomed to distinguish between the perceptions of sense and the suggestions of fancy, and probably, as the result of our scrutiny, would give the narrative a place among those numerous legends of the sea which are not worthy of any serious belief.

But with these doubtful circumstances which, if they were all that were presented to us in this strange narrative, would most likely lead us beyond a doubtful scepticism to a positive disbelief, there are other circumstances which place the whole story absolutely out of the region of the most exuberant imagination. It did not require any skill to distinguish between the perceptions of sense and the suggestions of imagination, to judge whether they had left Jesus behind them on the land, and had been for some hours rowing and toiling without Him. It did not require any scientific discrimination of the most slender kind to judge whether this same well-known Master had in the most perilous hour of the voyage come up close to the boat, invited Peter to walk with Him upon the water, taken that poor frightened disciple with a strong hand as He was sinking in mortal terror, with Peter climbed the sides of the fishing boat, among them and speaking to them accept the worship of awe-struck minds, and accompany them on the remainder of their voyage to the land of Gennesaret. Here they were as competent to judge as men of science like Hume or Mill. Here, when they testify, they either relate actual miracle or are rank liars and impostors. Here, in this case of all others in Scripture most resembling the stories of the superstitious, the canon of Mill, reminding us of the necessity in many cases of being able to draw the line between the perceptions of sense and the suggestions of imagination, does not apply with the very smallest force.

If we will examine into the general character of the miracles of the New Testament, or the special character of such of them as are more prominently brought before us, we will find the very same result. A great multitude of sick folk, afflicted with most of the diseases of the East, are brought to Jesus for cure (Mark i. 32). Not this one, or that one, or a few out of many, but one and all who were brought sick into the presence of Jesus and His disciples are alleged by these latter to have been cured on that occasion by their Master! Do we think Mill's canon of discrimination applicable here? Surely not. Can the truth that the witnesses of the Christian miracles were unaccustomed to distinguish between the perceptions of sense and the suggestions of fancy, apply to such cases as the perfect cure in a moment of Peter's wife's mother in fever, as the raising of Lazarus, as the feeding of five thou