date

23 Jan y 1814 Jug True Ch.4
23 Jan y 1814

Jug True

Ch.4. Miracles

(1)

Hard indeed is the task of him who has to defend the sort of proof afforded by reports of miracles. The fact as reported must have in it neither too little of the marvellous nor too much: too little the report is not that of a miracle: too much it is indeed the report of a miracle but of a miracle for which credence is not to be found.

Narrow enough from the first, the interval between the miraculous and the incredible grows narrower and narrower, proportionate in mens minds judgment grows stronger and stronger, and the faculty of swallowing marvels weaker and weaker. As the swallow contracts, miracles of too large a dimension are strained out and put aside.

Till comparatively speaking of late years the systems of diabolism had formed a capital part of every Christian creed. Weak to the last degree in itself, and attacked by the many with encreasing vigour, the necessity of abandoning it became at last indisputable. To every man who had eyes, every day as many liars, also have presented themselves as men: to no man alone so much as one single devil. The existence of four liars was found easier to believe than that of four thousand or nobody could say how many more than four thousand devils. The devils vanished, and diseases took their place. Not but that among those things which were done with such facility by devils, there were many who exceeded by far all the known powers of disease. But details on that head belong not to this place.

In the article of miracles not strength only but number has a claim to notice. In an article of such delicacy excess is no less dangerous than deficiency. In the interval that had elapsed between the days of Jesus to the middle of the last century reports of miracles had accumulated in so vast a multitude the sham[?] of them broke with its own weight. In comes D r Midddleton, and at one stroke lopt off the whole length of it reckoning from the death of Jesus, or a few years after it.
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    for the any miracles than those reported in the Gospel history, miracles which have been been ascribed to persons other than Jesus, instead of having for their support the accumulated body of wisdom contained in the Gospel history rest on any stronger foundation than that the report of a single writer, writing at a great distance from the time of the alledged occurrences the report being in most instances if not in every case without exception that without impeaching the veracity of the author the may be stated as composing a man, the occurrence ordinary occurrence to which his own had given
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    Ch.4. Miracles 2

    (1)

     Add—devils lodged only to be expelled—but everybody expelled them. 1. Jesus 2. his followers 3. other independents in his name

    From the histories of Jesus devils present MS alt. illegible. themselves at every step almost as frequently human beings: the whole country swarms with devils. Men are seen in whose bodies are as so MS orgi. ‘bodies are as so’. many receptacles or lodging-houses provided for the reception of devils: devils in any number find accommodation and apt society together in one such house. Not men only but pigs are found capable of being put to this use. Expelled from the one two footed sort a devil finds immediate lodgment in the quadruped: but in the course of the journey a sort of decomposition or creation or propagation—at any rate a multiplication of devils, takes place. The quantity of diabolic matter that had served for the diabolizing of one man, served somehow or other for the diabolizing of several thousand hogs: in each such hog must have been lodged at least one such devil: whether any and what greater number, and whether in each hog the same, or in different hogs different numbers—these are among the questions for the selection of which no sufficient data are to be found.