Evidence of Christianity | Page 3

I wish it, however, to be correctly understood, in what manner, and to
what extent, this argument is alleged. We do not assume the attributes
of the Deity, or the existence of a future state, in order to prove the
reality of miracles. That reality always must be proved by evidence. We
assert only, that in miracles adduced in support of revelation there is
not any such antecedent improbability as no testimony can surmount.
And for the purpose of maintaining this assertion, we contend, that the
incredibility of miracles related to have been wrought in attestation of a
message from God, conveying intelligence of a future state of rewards

and punishments, and teaching mankind how to prepare themselves for
that state, is not in itself greater than the event, call it either probable or
improbable, of the two following propositions being true: namely, first,
that a future state of existence should be destined by God for his human
creation; and, secondly, that, being so destined, he should acquaint
them with it. It is not necessary for our purpose, that these propositions
be capable of proof, or even that, by arguments drawn from the light of
nature, they can be made out to be probable; it is enough that we are
able to say concerning them, that they are not so violently improbable,
so contradictory to what we already believe of the divine power and
character, that either the propositions themselves, or facts strictly
connected with the propositions (and therefore no further improbable
than they are improbable), ought to be rejected at first sight, and to be
rejected by whatever strength or complication of evidence they be
attested.
This is the prejudication we would resist. For to this length does a
modern objection to miracles go, viz., that no human testimony can in
any case render them credible. I think the reflection above stated, that,
if there be a revelation, there must be miracles, and that, under the
circumstances in which the human species are placed, a revelation is
not improbable, or not to any great degree, to be a fair answer to the
whole objection.
But since it is an objection which stands in the very threshold our
argument, and, if admitted, is a bar to every proof, and to all future
reasoning upon the subject, it may be necessary, before we proceed
further, to examine the principle upon which it professes to be founded;
which principle is concisely this, That it is contrary to experience that a
miracle should be true, but not contrary to experience that testimony
should be false.
Now there appears a small ambiguity in the term "experience," and in
the phrases, "contrary to experience," or "contradicting experience,"
which it may be necessary to remove in the first place. Strictly
speaking, the narrative of a fact is then only contrary to experience,
when the fact is related to have existed at a time and place, at which

time and place we being present did not perceive it to exist; as if it
should be asserted, that in a particular room, and at a particular hour of
a certain day, a man was raised from the dead, in which room, and at
the time specified, we, being present and looking on, perceived no such
event to have taken place. Here the assertion is contrary to experience
properly so called; and this is a contrariety which no evidence can
surmount. It matters nothing, whether the fact be of a miraculous nature,
or not. But although this be the experience, and the contrariety, which
Archbishop Tillotson alleged in the quotation with which Mr. Hume
opens his Essay, it is certainly not that experience, nor that contrariety,
which Mr. Hume himself intended to object. And short of this I know
no intelligible signification which can be affixed to the term "contrary
to experience," but one, viz., that of not having ourselves experienced
anything similar to the thing related, or such things not being generally
experienced by others. I say "not generally" for to state concerning the
fact in question, that no such thing was ever experienced, or that
universal experience is against it, is to assume the subject of the
controversy.
Now the improbability which arises from the want (for this properly is
a want, not a contradiction) of experience, is only equal to the
probability there is, that, if the thing were true, we should experience
things similar to it, or that such things would be generally experienced.
Suppose it then to be true that miracles were wrought on the first
promulgation of Christianity, when nothing but miracles could decide
its authority, is it certain that such miracles would be repeated so often,
and in so many places, as to become objects of general experience? Is it
a probability approaching to