This statement is obviously true, but it is equally undeniable that, their origin being uncertain, miracles have no distinctive evidential force. How far, then, we may inquire in order thoroughly to understand the position, can doctrines prove the reality of miracles or determine the agency by which they are performed? In the case of moral truths within the limits of reason, it is evident that doctrines which are in accordance with our ideas of what is good and right do not require miraculous evidence at all. They can secure acceptance by their own merits alone. At the same time it is universally admitted that the truth or goodness of a doctrine is in itself no proof that it emanates directly from God, and consequently the most obvious wisdom and beauty in the doctrine could not attest the divine origin of a miracle. Such truths, however, have no proper connection with revelation at all. "_These_ truths," to quote the words of Bishop Atterbury, "were of themselves sufficiently obvious and plain, and needed not a Divine Testimony to make them plainer. But the Truths which are necessary in this Manner to be attested, are those which are of Positive Institution; those, which if God had not pleased to reveal them, Human Reason could not {23} have discovered; and those, which, even now they are revealed, Human Reason cannot fully account for, and perfectly comprehend."(1) How is it possible then that Reason or "the moral nature in man" can approve as good, or appreciate the fitness of, doctrines which in their very nature are beyond the criterion of reason?(2) What reply, for instance, can reason give to any appeal to it regarding the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Incarnation? If doctrines the truth and goodness of which are apparent do not afford any evidence of Divine Revelation, how can doctrines which Reason can neither discover nor comprehend attest the Divine origin of miracles? Dr. Mozley clearly recognizes that they cannot do so. "The proof of a revelation," he says, and we may add, "the proof of a miracle--itself a species of revelation--which is contained in the substance of a revelation has this inherent check or limit in it: viz. that it cannot reach to what is undiscoverable by reason. Internal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, because at every step the test is our own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fitness; but human reason cannot in the nature of the case prove that which, by the very hypothesis, lies beyond human reason."(3) It naturally follows that no doctrine which lies beyond reason, and therefore requires the attestation of miracles, can possibly afford that indication of the source and reality of miracles which is necessary to endow them with evidential value, and the supernatural doctrine must, therefore, be rejected in the absence of miraculous evidence of a decisive character. {24}