If, on the other hand, we dismiss the miracles of later ages as false, and as merely the creations of superstition or pious imagination, how can the miracles of the Gospel, which are precisely the same in type, and not better established as facts, remain unshaken? The Apostles and Evangelists were men of like passions, and also of like superstitions with others of their time, and must be measured by the same standard. Dr. Mozley will not admit that, even in such a case, the difficulty of distinguishing the true miracles amongst the mass of {198} spurious justifies the rejection of all, and he demands a judicial process in each case, and settlement according to the evidence in that case.(1) We might reply that if the great mass of asserted miracles be determined to be spurious, there is no reason shown for entering upon a more minute consideration of pretensions, which knowledge and experience force us _à priori_ to regard as incredible, and which examination, in so many cases, has proved to be delusion. Even if the plea, that "the evidence of the Gospel miracles is a special case which must be decided on its own grounds," be admitted, it must be apparent that the rejection of the mass of other miracles is serious presumptive evidence also against them. 2. The argument for the reality of miracles receives very little strength from the character of either the early or the later ages of Christianity. "It is but too plain," says Dr. Mozley, "in discussing ecclesiastical miracles, that in later ages, as the Church advanced in worldly power and position, besides the mistakes of imagination and impression, a temper of deliberate and audacious fraud set itself in action for the spread of certain doctrines, as well as for the great object of the concentration of Church power in one absolute monarchy."(2) We have already quoted words of Dean Milman regarding the frame of mind of the early Church, and it may not be out of place to add a few lines from the same writer. Speaking of the writings of the first ages of Christianity, he says: "That some of the Christian legends were deliberate forgeries can scarcely be questioned; the principle of pious fraud {199}