III.  We may dismiss from the question all accounts in which, allowing the phenomenon to be real, the fact to be true, it still remains doubtful whether a miracle were wrought.  This is the case with the ancient history of what is called the thundering legion, of the extraordinary circumstances which obstructed the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem by Julian; the circling of the flames and fragrant smell at the martyrdom of Polycarp; the sudden shower that extinguished the fire into which the Scriptures were thrown in the Diocletian persecution; Constantine’s dream; his inscribing in consequence of it the cross upon his standard and the shields of his soldiers; his victory, and the escape of the standard-bearer; perhaps, also, the imagined appearance of the cross in the heavens, though this last circumstance is very deficient in historical evidence.  It is also the case with the modern annual exhibition of the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Januarius at Naples.  It is a doubt, likewise, which ought to be excluded by very special circumstances from those narratives which relate to the supernatural cure of hypochondriacal and nervous complaints, and of all diseases which are much affected by the imagination.  The miracles of the second and third century are, usually, healing the sick and casting out evil spirits, miracles in which there is room for some error and deception.  We hear nothing of causing the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the lepers to be cleansed. (Jortin’s Remarks, vol. ii. p. 51.) There are also instances in Christian writers of reputed miracles, which were natural operations, though not known to be such at the time; as that of articulate speech after the loss of a great part of the tongue.

IV.  To the same head of objection, nearly, may also be referred accounts in which the variation of a small circumstance may have transformed some extraordinary appearance, or some critical coincidence of events, into a miracle; stories, in a word, which may be resolved into exaggeration.  The miracles of the Gospel can by no possibility be explained away in this manner.  Total fiction will account for anything; but no stretch of exaggeration that has any parallel in other histories, no force of fancy upon real circumstances, could produce the narratives which we now have.  The feeding of the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes surpasses all bounds of exaggeration.  The raising of Lazarus, of the widow’s son at Nain, as well as many of the cures which Christ wrought, come not within the compass of misrepresentation.  I mean that it is impossible to assign any position of circumstances however peculiar, any accidental effects however extraordinary, any natural singularity, which could supply an origin or foundation to these accounts.