are properly proved by the proper proof of them; for a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural doctrine, while a supernatural doctrine, on the other hand, is certainly not the proper proof of a supernatural fact.

So that, whatever comes of the inquiry, miracles and revelation must go together.  There is no separating them.  Christianity may claim in them the one decisive proof that could be given of its Divine origin and the truth of its creed; but, at any rate, it must ever be responsible for them.

But suppose a person to say, and to say with truth, that his own individual faith does not rest upon miracles, is he, therefore, released from the defence of miracles?  Is the question of their truth or falsehood an irrelevant one to him?  Is his faith secure if they are disproved?  By no means; if miracles were, although only at the commencement, necessary to Christianity, and were actually wrought, and therefore form part of the Gospel record and are bound up with the Gospel scheme and doctrines, this part of the structure cannot be abandoned without the sacrifice of the other too.  To shake the authority of one-half of this body of statement is to shake the authority of the whole.  Whether or not the individual makes use of them for the support of his own faith, the miracles are there; and if they are there they must be there either as true miracles or as false ones.  If he does not avail himself of their evidence, his belief is still affected by their refutation.  Accepting, as he does, the supernatural truths of Christianity and its miracles upon the same report from the same witnesses, upon the authority of the same documents, he cannot help having at any rate this negative interest in them.  For if those witnesses and documents deceive us with regard to the miracles, how can we trust them with regard to the doctrines?  If they are wrong upon the evidences of a revelation, how can we depend upon their being right as to the nature of that revelation?  If their account of visible facts is to be received with an explanation, is not their account of doctrines liable to a like explanation?  Revelation, then, even if it does not need the truth of miracles for the benefit of their proof, still requires it in order not to be crushed under the weight of their falsehood....  Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Christianity must stand or fall together.  These two questions—­the nature of the revelation, and the evidence of the revelation—­cannot be disjoined.  Christianity as a dispensation undiscoverable by human reason, and Christianity as a dispensation authenticated by miracles—­these two are in necessary combination.  If any do not include the supernatural character of Christianity in their definition of it, regarding the former only as one interpretation of it or one particular traditional form of it, which is separable from the essence—­for Christianity as thus defined the support of miracles