The Scripture narratives, if they are not altogether devoid of truth,
lead us to believe that our Lord performed His miracles in the face of
three sects or parties of enemies, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians;
each one rejecting His claims on grounds of its own. They were also
performed in a populous city, of which all the rulers and the mass of
the inhabitants were hostile to His pretensions. Such a place could
never have been chosen as the scene of a miraculous event, known by
those who promulgated it to have had no foundation in truth, and withal
assumed to have been known throughout the city at the time, and to have
been productive of a series of results, miraculous and ordinary, which
were asserted to have commenced at the moment of its occurrence.
The writer of "Supernatural Religion" would disparage the accounts of
our Lord's supernatural works and Resurrection, because such accounts
are to be found only in the writings of "enthusiastic followers," not in
those of indifferent persons; but the nature of the case almost excludes
all other testimony: for the miracles of our Lord were wrought for an
evidential purpose,--to convince the Jews especially that He was the
Christ, the hope of their fathers, and, as such, was not only to be
believed in, but to be obeyed and followed.
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