Jewish Religion began in miracles, was continued, and will end in miracles. The Mahometan tells us the Koran is a miracle; its author had miraculous inspiration, visions, and revelations. The writings of the Greeks, the Romans, the Scandinavians and the Hindoos, the Chinese and Persians, are full of miracles. In Fetichism all is miracle, and its authority, therefore, the best in the world. The Catholic Church and the Latter-day-Saints still claim the power of working them, and, therefore, of authenticating whatever they will, if a miracle have the alleged virtue.
Now in resting Christianity on this basis we must do one of two things: either, first, we must admit that Christianity rests on the same foundation with the lowest Fetichism, but has less divine authority than that, for if miracles constitute the authority, then that is the best form of Religion which counts the most miracles; or, secondly, we must deny the reality of all miracles except the Christian, in order to give exclusive sway to Christianity. But the devotees of each other form will retort the denial, and claim exclusive credence for their favourite wonders. The serious inquirer will ask, If such be the Evidence, what is Truth, and how shall I get at it? And if he does not stop for a time in scepticism, at best in indifference, why he is a very rare man. In this state of the case theologians have felt bound, in logic, either to prove the superiority of Christian miracles, or to deny all other miracles. The first method is not possible, the Hindoo Priest surpasses the Christian in the number and magnitude and antiquity of his miracles. The second, therefore, is the only method left. Accordingly, most ingenious attempts have been made to devise some test which will spare the Christian and condemn all other miracles. The Protestant saves only those mentioned in the Bible; the Catholic, more consistently, thinks the faculty immanent in the Church, and claims miracles down to the present day. But all these attempts to establish a suitable criterion have been fruitless, and even worse, often exposing more than the folly of their authors.[1] However, they who
- ↑ See Douglas's Criterion, or Miracles Examined, Lond. 1754, and Leslie's Short Method with the Deists. See an ingenious illustration of the folly of one of Leslie's canons in Palfrey, Academical Lectures, &c. Vol. II. p. 150, note 11. See Fehmelius, De Criteriis Errorum circa Religionem communibus, Lips. 1713, 1 Vol. 4to.
