Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors Part 7

Martin Luther says,-

"People cry it up as a great miracle, that Christ made the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lepers clean; and it is true such works are miraculous signs; but Christ regards his influence on the soul as far more important than that on the body; for as the soul excels the body, so do the miracles wrought on the former excel those wrought on the latter....

"The miracles which Christ wrought on the body are small and almost childish, compared with the high and true miracles which he constantly performs in the Christian world by his divine, almighty power; for instance, that Christianity is preserved on the earth; that the word of G.o.d and faith in him can yet hold out; yea, that a Christian can survive on earth against the devil and all his angels; also against so many tyrants and factions; yea, against our own flesh and blood. The fact that the gospel remains and improves the human heart,-this is indeed to cast out the devil, and tread on serpents, and speak with tongues; for those visible miracles were merely signs for the ignorant, unbelieving crowd, and for those who were yet to be brought in; but for us, who know and believe, what need is there of them? For the heathen, indeed, Christ must needs give external signs, which they could see and take hold of; but Christians must needs have far higher signs, compared with which the former are earthly. It was necessary to bring over the ignorant with external miracles, and to throw out such apples and pears to them as children; but we, on the contrary, should boast of the great miracles which Christ daily performs in his church."

In the "Christian Examiner," Dr. James Walker says,-

"Christianity embodies a collection of moral and vital truths, and _these truths_, apart from _all history_ or philosophy, const.i.tute Christianity itself. Instead, therefore, of perplexing and confounding the young with what are called the evidences of Christianity, give them Christianity itself. Begin by giving them Christianity itself, as exhibited in the life and character of the Lord Jesus, as ill.u.s.trated by his simple, beautiful and touching parables, and as it breathes through all his discourses. They will _feel it to be true_. Depend upon it, paradoxical as it may sound, children will be much more likely to believe Christianity without what are called the evidences, than with them; and the remark applies to some who are not children.

"Why talk to one about the argument from prophecy, or the argument from miracles, when these are the very points, and the only points, on which his mind, from some peculiarity in its original const.i.tution, or from limited information, chiefly labors. Give him Christianity itself, by which we mean the body of moral and vital truths which const.i.tute Christianity. Observe it when you will, you will find that the doubts and difficulties suggested by children relate almost exclusively to the _history_ of Christianity, or to what are called the _external_ evidences of Christianity, and not to the _truth_ of Christianity itself. Give them Christianity itself: for if they believe in that, it is enough. Nothing can be more injudicious than to persist in urging the argument from miracles on a mind, that, from any cause, has thus become indifferent, and perhaps impatient of it. How idle to think to convince a person of Christianity by miracles, when it is these very miracles, and not Christianity, that he doubts! The instances, we suspect, are not rare, even of adults, who are _first converted to Christianity itself_, and afterwards, through the moral and spiritual change which Christianity induces, are brought to believe entirely and devoutly in its _miraculous origin and history_."

Dr. Channing says,-

"There is another evidence of Christianity still more _internal_ than any on which I have yet dwelt; an evidence to be _felt_ rather than described, but not less _real_ because founded on feeling. I refer to that conviction of the divine original of our religion which springs up and continually gains strength in those who apply it habitually to their tempers and lives, and who imbibe its spirit and hopes. In such men there is a consciousness of the adaptation of Christianity to their n.o.blest faculties; a consciousness of its exalting and consoling influences, of its power to confer the true happiness of human nature, to give that peace which the world cannot give; which a.s.sures them that it is not of earthly origin, but a ray from the everlasting Light, a stream from the fountain of heavenly Wisdom and Love. This is the evidence which sustains the faith of thousands, who never read and cannot understand the learned books of Christian apologists, who want, perhaps, words to explain the ground of their belief, but whose faith is of adamantine firmness, who hold the gospel with a conviction more intimate and unwavering than mere arguments ever produced."

And here is an extract from another writer:-

"Doubtless Christ's spiritual glory is in itself as distinguis.h.i.+ng, and as plainly showing his divinity, as his outward glory, and a great deal more; for his spiritual glory is that wherein his divinity consists, and the outward glory of his transfiguration showed him to be divine only as it was a remarkable image or representation of that spiritual glory.

Doubtless, therefore, he that has had a clear sight of the spiritual glory of Christ may say, 'I have not followed cunningly devised fables, but have been an eye-witness of his majesty,' upon as good grounds as the apostle, when he had respect to the outward glory of Christ that he had seen. A true sense of the divine excellency of the things of G.o.d's Word doth more directly and immediately convince of the truth of them; and that because the excellency of these things is so superlative. There is a beauty in them that is so divine and G.o.dlike, that is greatly and evidently distinguis.h.i.+ng of them from things merely human, or that men are the authors and inventors of,-a glory that is so high and great, that when clearly seen, commands a.s.sent to their divinity and reality. The evidence which they who are spiritually enlightened have of the truth of the things of religion, is a kind of intuition and immediate evidence. They believe the doctrines of G.o.d's Word to be divine, because they see divinity in them. That is, they see a divine, and transcendent, and most evidently distinguis.h.i.+ng glory in them; such a glory as, if clearly seen, does not leave room to doubt of their being of G.o.d, and not of men."

Trench, also, denies that the miracle can have absolute authority, since Satanic powers may work evil too. This convinces us, he says, that miracles cannot be appealed to in proof of the doctrine or of the divine mission of him who brings it to pa.s.s. The doctrine must first commend itself to the conscience as being good; then the miracle shows it to be a new word from G.o.d. But when the mind and conscience reject the doctrine, the miracle must be rejected too. The great act of faith is to believe, in despite of all miracles, what G.o.d has revealed to the soul of the holy and the true; not to believe another gospel, though an angel from heaven should bring it. Instead of compelling a.s.sent, miracles are _then_ rather warnings to us that we keep aloof; for they tell us not merely that lies are here, but that he who utters them is an instrument of Satan.

False miracles, or lying wonders, are distinguished from the true, not by the intellect, but by the moral sense, which finds in them something immoral, or ostentatious, or futile, leading to nothing. Origen says the miracles of Moses issued in a Jewish polity; those of our Lord in a Christian Church. But what fruits have the miracles of Apollonius or aesculapius to show?

The miracles of Christ are redemptive. Modern writers of evidences make a dangerous omission when they fail to say that the doctrine is to try the miracle, as well as the miracle to seal the doctrine. To teach men to believe in Christ on no other grounds than his wonderful works is to pave the way of Antichrist. Those books of Christian evidences are utterly maimed and imperfect, fraught with the most perilous consequences, which reverence in the miracle only its power.(10)

-- 6. But Orthodoxy is right in maintaining their Reality as Historic Facts.

The first thing we notice about the miracles of Jesus is, that they are intertwined inextricably with the whole narrative. It is almost impossible to disentangle them, and to leave any solid historic residuum. There is a story in Goethe of a statue of iron and silver, with veins of gold. The flames licked out the gold veins of the colossus, and it remained standing a little while; but when at last the tenderest filaments had been licked out, the image crashed together, and fell in a shapeless, miserable heap.

So when the tongue of criticism shall have eaten out the supernatural elements of the gospel narrative, the heroic figure will fall, as it has already in Renan's construction, into an amorphous ma.s.s of unhistoric rubbish.

Then we see that most of these miracles are miracles of healing, which have their a.n.a.logues in many similar events scattered through history.

Many such facts might be collected to show that there is in man a latent power of overcoming disease, in himself and others, by a great exertion of will. If in common men there is such a power, latent, and as yet undeveloped, why should it be an unnatural thing that one so full of a superhuman life as Jesus should be raised to a position where, by his very word or touch, he could cure disease, and that even at a distance?

We see such wonderful discoveries made every day of latent powers in nature, and secrets hidden till now from all men, that we do not know where to put limits to the possibility of the wonderful. To go into a telegraphic office in Boston, and speak to a man in New York or Was.h.i.+ngton, and have an answer in five minutes; to have your portrait painted in a moment by the rays of the sun,-such things as these would have seemed miracles to us a few years ago. To be able to tell what metals there are in the sun's atmosphere, and what not there; to say, "In the atmosphere of the sun there is silver, but not gold; there are iron, and antimony, and lead, and aluminum, but no copper nor zinc,"-does not this seem incredible? But we know that we _can_ now tell just that.

When we read the Gospels, we find everything in them so simple, so unpretending, so little of an attempt at making out a consistent story, such a harmony in the character of the works attributed to Jesus (with one or two exceptions), that we are irresistibly inclined to say, "These stories must be simple facts. Delusion never spoke in this tone,-so clear, so luminous,-in language so honest and sincere."

I do not deny that some mistakes or misapprehensions may have crept into the records. Occasionally we can see signs of something being mistaken for a miracle which was really not one. For example, the finding of a piece of money in the fish's mouth may have been the mistake of a proverbial expression, common among fishermen, and used by Matthew in his original Hebrew Gospel, but which the Greek translator, ignorant of the popular phrase, considered to be meant for a miracle.

The most natural supposition is, that a wonderful power dwelt in Jesus, which enabled him to heal the sick, cure the insane, and sometimes even bring back life to the dead. What do we know about death? The last breath has been drawn. The heart has ceased to beat, the lungs to move. We say, "He is dead." But people have lain two or three days in this state, declared dead by the physicians, and then have come to life again by natural causes. A drowned man has all the marks of death; but after lying in this state half an hour, he is brought to life again. What, then, might not have been done by that supernatural power of life which, as history shows, dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth?

-- 7. a.n.a.logy with other Similar Events recorded in History.

It may very properly be asked whether miracles have occurred since the Bible record was closed; and if not, why not. Since we have regarded the miracles of the New Testament as no violations of law, but the coming in of higher laws or forces than those usually at work in the world, why may they not have taken place in our own time? If Christ's miracles differ only from other miracles in being higher and more perfect, what are the miracles of a lower cla.s.s? Can we point out any events belonging to the same cla.s.s of phenomena which have happened during the last thousand years?

In reply to this question, we will proceed to mention certain phenomena which seem to belong to the same order as the works of Jesus. The _distinction_ between the miracles of Christ and all those portents will be pointed out hereafter.

In the "Atlantic Monthly" for February and March, 1864, there appeared an account (written, we believe, by R. Dale Owen), of the Convulsionists of St. Medard. The facts therein stated _seem_ to contradict all the known laws of physiology. The lower side of miracles, namely, their apparent violation of physical laws, here appears as fully developed and as fully attested as the most careful sceptic could desire. If, therefore, any one objects to believing the miracles of Jesus on the ground that they _seem_ to be violations of physical laws, we ask what they mean to do with these facts, so extraordinary, and yet so fully attested. If believed, there is no reason, based on the abnormal character of Christ's works, for rejecting those. But if disbelieved, it can be done only by setting aside all the ordinary rules of evidence, and all the laws of belief, in favor of a negative prepossession of a purely empirical character. Phenomena somewhat similar to these have occurred elsewhere, among Protestants as well as Catholics, during periods of great religious excitement. The beginnings of most religious systems-Methodism, Quakerism, &c.-have stories like these of supernatural influences. They have usually been disbelieved because their friends have claimed too much: they have claimed that such phenomena were divine attestations to the truth of the doctrine preached. What _is_ proved by them is the simple fact that the soul of man is capable, under high excitement, of suspending, or rather overcoming, all common physiological laws. We have seen similar results follow often from such causes, only in ordinary ways. A sick person is made well in a moment by some moral influence; a weak and sickly mother will nurse a sick child, night after night, without rest or sleep, and keep well, where a strong man would break down. Mesmerism brings forward mult.i.tudes of like facts. There are, for example, the well-attested facts concerning the transfer of the senses: that people under the influence of animal magnetism can read with their forehead, the pit of their stomach, or the back of their head. We have seen a weak boy, some thirteen years old, when magnetized, lift a chair with three heavy men standing on it.

Clairvoyance, or seeing things at a distance, though not so well proved, is confirmed by a vast number of facts. We come, then, to our final statement concerning miracles, which is this:-

I. There is in man a power, as yet undeveloped, and only occasionally seen in exceptional conditions, of overcoming the common laws of nature by force of will; and this is sometimes voluntary, and sometimes involuntary.

II. This phenomenon takes these forms:-

A. _Power of the soul over the body (a.) to resist pain_, as in the case of martyrs, who are burned alive without any appearance of suffering; _(b.) to resist physical injury_, as in the case of the Convulsionists; _(c.) to dispense with the usual service of the senses_, as in the case of the girl at Worcester Insane Asylum, Ma.s.sachusetts, under the care of Dr.

Woodward, who could read a book in a perfectly dark room and with bandaged eyes; _(d.) to give a preternatural energy and strength to the body_.

B. _Preternatural knowledge_-such cases as that narrated by Dr. Bushnell, of Yonnt, in California; or _knowledge through dreams_, waking presentiments; cases of _foresight_, or prophecy; of _insight_, or knowledge of what is pa.s.sing in other minds; of _clairvoyance_, or knowledge of what is happening at a distance, of which mult.i.tudes of facts are narrated in such books as the "Seeress of Provorst," Mrs. Crowe's "Night Side of Nature," Robert Dale Owen's "Footfalls from the Boundary of the Unseen World," which, after being sifted by a fair criticism, will leave a large residuum of irresolvable facts.

C. Higher than these is a preternatural elevation of the whole character, as in such cases as that of JOAN OF ARC, where a young girl, ignorant, a peasant, dest.i.tute of all common means of influencing any one, by the simple power of faith, because she believed herself inspired and commissioned, succeeded in gaining the command of the armies of France, and then of achieving a series of victories, equal, on the whole, as mere military exploits, to those of the first captains of the world.

In all these cases we see manifestations of a power in the soul over nature, body, men, and the laws of time and s.p.a.ce. So we say, _secondly_,-

III. This power was possessed in the highest degree known in this world by Jesus of Nazareth, and it differed in him from these other cases in these points:-

1. It was always voluntary in its exercise, never involuntary. He was not possessed by it, he possessed it. He used it just when and where he chose to use it. It was always at his command; he never appears to have tried to work a miracle, and failed. So,-

2. It was in him constant, and not occasional. In other cases where the miraculous element appears, it seems to come and go; but to Jesus the spirit was not given by measure. He had it always.

3. This power in him was total, and not partial. It was therefore harmonious-in harmony with all his other qualities. He had power over diseases of the body, and also those of the soul. He knew what was in man, and what was in nature-in the present, and in the future. There was nothing ecstatic, enthusiastic, nothing of excitement, about him; but everything denoted a fulness, a PLEROMA, of this spiritual life.

4. The exercise of this power in Christ was always eminently moral, never wilful. The one or two seeming exceptions, as, for example, the cursing the fig tree, and the causing the evil spirits to go into the swine, ought to be explained in harmony with the vast majority of his actions, which always are guided by love, and justice, and a holy sense of what is true and good.

5thly, and lastly. The miracle power of Jesus reached a higher point of development than in any one else. The raising of the dead to life, and the mysterious power over nature indicated by the turning of water into wine, by the miracle of the loaves and fishes, calming the storm, if facts, are facts unparalleled in any other biography, but seem possible, however unintelligible, when considered as emanating from such a masterly and commanding spirit as that of Jesus.

And this finally brings us to the miracle of the resurrection, concerning which we will first quote from an article in a late number of the "Westminster Review," to show the most recent ideas of the critical and negative school on this point.

-- 8. Miracle of the Resurrection. Sceptical Objections.