MIRACLES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4496, 17 August 1875, Page 2

MIRACLES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away : so , he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more,”—(Job vii, 9.) The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward.”—(Eccl. ix, 5.) They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise.”—(ls. xxvi, 14.)

Sir,—A miracle, according to the true interpretation of the word, is something admirable. The vast order of nature; the revolution of innumerable planets round innumerable suns ; the rapidity of light; the existence of man ; the whole order of nature —all are great and perpetual miracles. According to ordinary acceptation, we call a miracle the violation of divine and eternal laws. A miracle is a contradiction in terms —a law cannot at the same time be immutable and violated. We are told a miracle is that which is impossible to nature. What is nature? It is the eternal order of things. A miracle, therefore, would be impossible in such an order; no being could work a miracle. If an authentic miracle Is performed, it proves nothing, for scripture tells you that imposters may perform miracles. A fool is often called a dealer in wonders. It is much easier for men to tell lies than to perform miracles ; and it was quite as easy for priests to tell lies about Christ as to tell lies about Mahomet.

Mahomet, we are told, fed 30,000 men with the heart of a sheep, which far surpasses any of Christ’s miracles; he cut the moon in two, and gave speech to the brutes. All these we are told he did, and many other prodigies; and millions of people believe them just in the same way that millions of people believe in the tales concerning Jesus. It is quite easy for men to fabricate these things. There is no difficulty in lying, we witness that daily; but when do we witness men performing miracles ? The inference then is that we have every evidence to believe that men tell untruths, whilst we have no evidence to believe that they perform miracles. In Sir William Jones’ “Asiatic Researches,” Ist vol. p, 240 to 260, you will find the history of one Christina, not Christ, who was born in the reign of the tyrant Cansa, not Herod. Prophets told Cansa that there was one born who should aspire to the throne, then Cansa ordered a slaughter of male infants; and the parents of Chrishna, being warned in a dream,fled into Mathura, not Egypt, under the care of Yasoda, not Mary, wife of Ananda, not Joseph. Chrishna was born of a virgin of the royal line of Devaci, not David. Chrishna fed multitudes by miracles, healed the sick, made the blind to see, raised persons from the dead, for that purpose descended into the lower regions, and ultimately ascended into Heaven. I say that either the story of Chrishna was stolen from that of Christ, or that of Christ from Chrishna; and I allege the religion of Chrishna may be carried back at least 1000 years before the Christian era. “A Christian ” refers to the resuscitation of Lazarus as a case in proof of the miracles alleged to have been performed by Jesus. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus, but it is strange he is not mentioned by Matthew, Mark, or Luke, It is curious that Lazarus, whom all must have known and been acquainted with, is not mentioned at all by those who wrote the events of Christ’s life. There is no corroboration by Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or any profane author. John mentions him only on two occasions, and this man, this striking evidence of the truth of the miracle, should have gone everywhere a living proof of the truth of the Gospel. Thomas Woolston, a learned member of the University of Cambridge in 1737, wrote a work on miracles. It is to the dead raised by Jesus that he principally directs his attention. He contends that a dead man restored to life would have been an object of attention and astonishment to the universe ; that all the Jewish magistracy, and more especially Pilate, would have made the most minute investigations and obtained the most authentic depositions; that Tiberius enjoined all proconsuls and governors of provinces to inform him with exactness of every event that took place. Lazarus restored to life after being deadfour days I Such a proof should almost in a single moment have made the whole world Christian. But the whole world for more than two hundred years know nothing about these resplendent and decisive evidences.

Neither the Jewish historian Josephus, nor the learned Philo, nor any Greek or Roman historian at all, notices this miracle, which must inevitably have hold all nature in amazement. Miracles must have been very cpmmon in Egypt, since there was a body of people whose trade it was to work them. When Aaron’s rod was turned into a serpent, Pharoah, instead of being surprised at it as an unusual phenomenon, sent for his magicians, who immediately performed the like with their rods.. No doubt it is a duty to believe that Aaron’s miracle was performed by the power of God, but we are at a loss to discover by what power the magicians performed theirs. All systems of religion have been founded on miracles—all dogmas taught must be divine. The great Unknown speaks to men only in prodigies—these are his letters patent. Why I reject miracles are; first, that they are in opposition to the laws of nature—that they could not have taken place without a suspension or breaking of these laws: second, that nobody relates them but priests and fanatics, and priests have an interest in relating them, and fanatics are deranged in their minds ; third, that there were thousands of people in the neighborhood where these things are said to have taken place, and they did not believe them; and if they saw no evidence for believing them, we may be well excused for not having sufficient faith to believe that which is contrary to reason after a lapse of nearly two thousand years.—l am, &c., Age of Reason.