In the first place, merely as a matter of historical attestation, the Gospels are not the strongest evidence for the Christian miracles.

Only one of the four, in its present shape, is claimed as the work of an Apostle, and of that the genuineness is disputed.

The Acts of the Apostles stand upon very much the same footing with the Synoptic Gospels, and of this book we are promised a further examination.
But we possess at least some undoubted writings of one who was himself a chief actor in the events which followed immediately upon those recorded in the Gospels; and in these undoubted writings St.Paul certainly shows by incidental allusions, the good faith of which cannot be questioned, that he believed himself to be endowed with the power of working miracles, and that miracles, or what were thought to be such, were actually wrought both by him and by his contemporaries.

He reminds the Corinthians that 'the signs of an Apostle were wrought among them ...

in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds' ([Greek: en saemeious kai terasi kai dunamesi]--the usual words for the higher forms of miracle-- 2 Cor.xii.