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    profess his willingness to receive them , provided they were attested by a number of witnesses unexceptionable in- an intellectual and moral point of view , and provided that their depositions have been taken under a judicial examination , conducted with competent ability , and with all the forms necessary to , guarantee their truth . " * This last circumstance , which he insists

    upon as indispensable , cannot be appealed to as establishing the credibility of many of the miracles recorded in Scripture ; but , with respect to some of them , it would not be difficult to shew that they were subjected even to more severe trials than that which he has demanded . They were , indeed , so numerous , and were performed in such a variety of situations , that the same rigid inquest is not in every instance practicable ;—but it is important to

    observe , that if in a smqle instance this can be effected , such is the nature of the claims of which these miracles are the credentials , and such is the inseparable connexion of all the parts of the history , that the truth of every other part follows of course . The argument in favour of divine revelation derived from miracles , is of that kind which logicians style cumulative . It it not necessary , in order to establish our point , to enter into a separate examination of every individual fact , on pain of losing all if a single instance be

    found defective ; on the contrary , it is enough to establish one instance , whatever becomes of the rest . Mr . Bentham complains that the greater part of the events called supernatural have been of a transitory character . It is true , that stilling the waves , or feeding five thousand men with a few loaves and fishes , however unequivocal the manifestation of divine power might be , were yet cases where the effect was not permanent ; but how many others were there where the result was of the most durable kind ! To the cures , indeed , Mr . Bentham suggests various

    grounds of doubt and uncertainty ; performed , as they were , under circumstances almost infinitely diversified , in the presence sometimes of multitudes , at others of selected witnesses , selected , it might seem , for the express purpose of securing not only the roost scrupulous investigation , but all the suspicious scrutiny that the most hostile jealousy could excite . " There may have been no real disease ; or it may have been cured by natural means , or by the effect of imagination , or the disease may only have been suspended or palliated . Or , lastly , the whole may have been the work of fraud and

    imposture . " He then asks , " Whether the annals of jurisprudence present a single case in which all the precautions necessary to guard against deception on each of these points was resorted to ? " f I would beg leave to draw his attention to the history of the blind man , in the ninth chapter of John ; and ask , whether he can find a more remarkable instance , I do not say of a judicial investigation , conducted with temper , judgment and impartiality , but of a cross examination ., evincing throughout the most violent animosity , and a determination , if possible , to discover something which might enable the adversaries to throw a doubt on the reality of the miraculous cure ?

    Here , then , if we do not find p recisely the course of procedure chalked out by Mr . Bentham , we find considerably more . And , I repeat , it is sufficient for our purpose , if this sort of inquisition have been instituted and brought to a satisfactory termination in a single case * , If one of the miracles performed by Jesus be clearl y and decisively established , the conclusion is inevitable , that he was indeed a teacher sent from God ;—and if he was a teacher sent from Qod * then all the other works to which he appeals as

    • P . 231 . t Ibid .

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    400 Evidence for Improbable and Supernatural Facts .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 400, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/8/