"When we turn from more general arguments to examine the documentary evidence for the reality of the supposed miraculous occurrences, and of the divine revelation which they accredit, we meet with the characteristics which might have been expected. We do not find any trace even of the existence of our gospels for a century and a half after the events they record. They are anonymous narratives, and there is no evidence of any value connecting these works with the writers to whom they are popularly attributed. The miraculous evidence upon which alone, it is admitted, we could be justified in believing its astounding doctrines being thus nugatory, the claims of Christianity to be considered a divine revelation must necessarily be disallowed, and its supernatural elements, which are, in fact, the very substance of the system, inevitably sharing the same fate as the supposed miraculous evidence, must, therefore, be rejected as incredible and opposed to reason and complete induction." ("Supernatural Religion," p. 698.) "A miracle as evidence can establish no fact, for the reason that the miracle does not exist. The miracle itself must be attested. As we have no evidence of miracles, we are not called on to believe them, but to believe the story which relates them. 'But the miracle is above and beyond reason.' To this we reply: It is absurd to assume what is beyond reason, to account for what is opposed to reason." (Ibid.) David Hume's Argument on Miracles. "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable that all men must die; that lead cannot of itself remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or, in other words, a miracle, to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health should die suddenly; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible but by an opposite proof which is superior. (2.)