Gospels are certainly not calculated to inspire much confidence in their intelligence and accuracy of observation. Now it is apparent that the evidence for Miracles requires to embrace two distinct points: the reality of the alleged facts, and the accuracy of the inference that the phenomena were produced by supernatural Agency. The task would even then remain of demonstrating the particular supernatural Being by whom the miracles were performed, which is admitted to be impossible. We have hitherto chiefly confined ourselves to a consideration of the antecedent credibility of such events, and of the fitness of those who are supposed to have witnessed them to draw accurate inferences from the alleged phenomena. Those who have formed any adequate conception of the amount of testimony which would be requisite in order to establish the reality of occurrences in violation of an order of Nature, which is based upon universal and invariable experience, must recognize that, even if the earliest asserted origin of our four Gospels could be established upon the most irrefragable grounds, the testimony of the writers--men of like ignorance with their contemporaries, men of like passions with ourselves--would be utterly incompetentto prove the reality of Miracles. We have already sufficiently discussed this point, more especially in connection with Hume's argument, and need not here resume it Every consideration, historical and philosophical, has hitherto discredited the whole theory of miracles, and further inquiry might be abandoned as unnecessary. In order, however, to render our conclusion complete, it remains for us to see whether, as affirmed, there be any special evidence regarding the alleged facts entitling the Gospel Miracles to exceptional attention. If, instead of being {211} clear, direct, the undoubted testimony of known eyewitnesses free from superstition, and capable, through adequate knowledge, rightly to estimate the alleged phenomena, we find that the actual accounts have none of these qualifications, the final decision with regard to Miracles and the reality of Divine Revelation will be easy and conclusive. {212} PART II. THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS INTRODUCTION.