Their falsehood
has thus been detected; but nevertheless their genuine success for a
time has been enough to show that they rested on a reality, and that
reality seems to have consisted in the strange power of mind over body.
In this region all is at present unexamined; and all operations are
tentative, and for that reason most are only successful for a time. Now
our Lord's miracles are never tentative; that is not the character given
to them either by friend or by foe. Nor is there any instance recorded
either by friend or by foe of an attempted miracle not accomplished.
Nowhere is there any record given us by the assailants of the Gospel of
any instance of His action parallel to the record given in the Acts of
the Apostles of the seven sons of Sceva the Jew. The accounts of his
enemies charge Him with deceit, which is identical with saying that they
did not believe Him. But they do not ever charge Him with failure.
Nevertheless it is quite conceivable that many of His miracles of
healing may have been the result of this power of mind over body which
we are now considering. It is possible that they may be due not to an
interference with the uniformity of nature, but to a superiority in His
mental power to the similar power possessed by other men.
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