ething which we
could not otherwise discover, and that the truth of communications which
are essentially beyond and undiscoverable by reason cannot be attested
in any other way than by miraculous signs distinguishing them as Divine.
It is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the
specific Revelation which we are considering, the very substance of
which is supernatural and beyond the criticism of reason, and that its
doctrines, if not proved to be miraculous truths, must inevitably be
pronounced "the wildest delusions." "By no rational being could a just
and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing
announcements."

On examining the alleged miraculous evidence for Christianity as Divine
Revelation, however, we find that, even if the actual occurrence of the
supposed miracles could be substantiated, their value as evidence would
be destroyed by the necessary admission that miracles are not limited to
one source and are not exclusively associated with truth, but are
performed by various spiritual Beings, Satanic as well as Divine, and
are not always evidential, but are sometimes to be regarded as delusive
and for the trial of faith. As the doctrines supposed to be revealed are
beyond Reason, and cannot in any sense be intelligently approved by the
human intellect, no evidence which is of so doubtful and inconclusive a
nature could sufficiently attest them. This alone would disqualify the
Christian miracles for the duty which miracles alone are capable of
performing.

The supposed miraculous evidence for the Divine Revelation, moreover, is
not only without any special Divine character, being avowedly common
also to Satanic agency, but it is not original either in conception or
details. Similar miracles are reported long antecedently to the first
promulgation of Christianity, and continued to be performed for
centuries after it. A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has
flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed
through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has
entered days of enlightenment. The evidence was too hackneyed and
commonplace to make any impression upon those before whom the Christian
miracles are said to have been performed, and it altogether failed to
convince the people to whom the Revelation was primarily addressed. The
selection of such evidence for such a purpose is much more
characteristic of human weakness than of Divine