not stop here to discuss how far a prescience may be vouchsafed to God’s saints.  Even ‘old experience’ is found to be gifted with ‘something like prophetic strain.’  It is sufficient to say here again that it would be difficult to point to a single authentic biography of any Christian hero—­certainly of any Christian hero of the early centuries—­of whom some incident at least as remarkable as this prophecy, if prophecy it can be called, is not recorded.  Pontius, the disciple and biographer of Cyprian, relates a similar intimation which preceded the martyrdom of his master, and adds:  ’Quid hac revelatione manifestius? quid hac dignatione felicius? ante illi praedicta sunt omnia quaecunque postmodum subsecuta sunt.’ (Vit. et Pass.  Cypr. 12, 13)” [156:1]

I am the more anxious to quote this extract from a work, written long after the essays on Supernatural Religion, as it presents Dr. Lightfoot in a very different light, and gives me an opportunity of congratulating him on the apparent progress of his thought towards freedom which it exhibits.  I quite agree with him that the presence of supernatural or superstitious elements is no evidence against the authenticity of an early Christian writing, but the promptitude with which he sets these aside as interpolations, or explains them away into naturalism, is worthy of Professor Huxley.  He now understands, without doubt, the reason why I demand such clear and conclusive evidence of miracles, and why I refuse to accept such narratives upon anonymous and insufficient testimony.  In fact, he cannot complain that I feel bound to explain all alleged miraculous occurrences precisely in the way of which he has set me so good an example, and that, whilst feeling nothing but very sympathetic appreciation of the emotion which stimulated the imagination and devout reverence of early Christians to such mistakes, I resolutely refuse to believe their pious aberrations.

VIII.

CONCLUSIONS.

We have seen that Divine Revelation could only be necessary or conceivable for the purpose of communicating to us something which we could not otherwise discover, and that the truth of communications which are essentially beyond and undiscoverable by reason cannot be attested in any other way than by miraculous signs distinguishing them as Divine.  It is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the specific Revelation which we are considering, the very substance of which is supernatural and beyond the criticism of reason, and that its doctrines, if not proved to be miraculous truths, must inevitably be pronounced “the wildest delusions.”  “By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements.”