The
miracles of the Gospel can by no possibility be explained away in this
manner. Total fiction will account for anything; but no stretch of
exaggeration that has any parallel in other histories, no force of fancy
upon real circumstances, could produce the narratives which we now have.
The feeding of the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes surpasses
all bounds of exaggeration. The raising of Lazarus, of the widow's son
at Nain, as well as many of the cures which Christ wrought, come not
within the compass of misrepresentation. I mean that it is impossible to
assign any position of circumstances however peculiar, any accidental
effects however extraordinary, any natural singularity, which could
supply an origin or foundation to these accounts.
Having thus enumerated several exceptions which may justly be taken to
relations of miracles, it is necessary, when we read the Scriptures, to
bear in our minds this general remark; that although there be miracles
recorded in the New Testament, which fall within some or other of the
exceptions here assigned, yet that they are united with others, to which
none of the same exceptions extend, and that their credibility stands
upon this union.
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