miraculons event to accept one miracle in order to avoid another! We have stated the gist of Hume's argument. The fallacy does not consist in the postulate that a miracle is contrary to experience; for there is a logical propriety in this provisional assumption. But the fallacy lies in the assumption that a miracle is just as likely to occur in the one place a in the other; that we may as rationally expect a miracle to be wrought in the matter of testimony, whereby the laws of evidence are miraculously converted into a vehicle for deceiving and misleading mankind, as to suppose a miracle in the physical world, like the healing of the blind. Hume's argument is valid only on the hypothesis that God is as ready to exert supernatural power to make truthful men falsify, as to perform the miracles of the Gospel. Introduce the fact of a personal God, a moral Government, and a wise and benevolent end to be subserved through miraculous interposition, and Hume's reasoning is emptied of all its force.*

THE SPECIAL FUNCTION OR USE OF MIRACLES.

This is a topic deserving of more full examination. Why is Revelation attended with miracles? What particular end is subserved by supernatural manifestation in connection with Christianity? These are the questions to be considered.

* Most of the opponents of Hume have failed to overthrow his reasoning. Assuming that the uniformity of Nature is ascertained from testimony, they have claimed that testimony does not prove this uniformity to be unvarying, and that Hn me, in taking the opposite position, begs the question in dispute. If they are correct, there is no greater a pri ri improbabil ty of a miracle, than of a natural event; and the same amount of proof which satisfies us that a man has sunk in the water, suffices to prove that he has walked on the water or subdued the billows with a word. If they are correct, an event inexplicable by natural laws is as credible as the every-day phenomena of Nature. They forget that the uniformity of Nature is a legitimate generalization from experience. It is not a bare record of facts and observations, but an authorized (though not absolute) generalization on the basis of them. It is true that J. S. Mill and philosophersof the Positivist type, who exclude an a priori element from induction, have no good warrant for any generalization-any dictum more comprehensive than the cases actually observed. Hume, to be sure, is logically involved by his philo. sophical theories in the same embarrassment. But on a sound philosophy, we are obliged to admit a presumption against miracles, which requires to be re

moved.

error.

It has been sometimes thought that the miracles of Christ were to prove His Divinity. But this, in our judgment, is an The miracles of Christ do not differ in kind from those which are attributed to the prophets of the Old Testament. By the prophets the sick were healed, and the dead revived. Nothing in the quality of the works wrought by Christ, therefore, can authorize us to put this interpretation upon them. If we look at the teaching of the New Testament, we discover that neither Christ nor the apostles attach this peculiar significance to His miraculous works. On the contrary, they are explicitly said to be performed by the Father, or by the Father through Him. They are said to be effected by a power which, though it permanently abide in Him, was yet given Him of God. They are sometimes preceded by the offering of prayer to the Father. They are declared to be a manifestation of the power and majesty of the Father. And in keeping with these representations is the circumstance that no miraculous works proceeded from Jesus prior to the epoch of his baptism and entrance on His public ministry. The Divinity of Jesus is a truth which rests upon His testimony and that of the apostles, and not upon the fact that he performed works exceeding human power.*

**

The old view that miracles are to authenticate the divine mission of a religious teacher, is the correct view. They are a proof which God condescends to afford, that the person by whom they are wrought is clothed with an authority to speak in His name. This being their special office, Christ never performed miracles for the promotion of his own personal com fort. That miracles are in this way a testimony of God, is de

not to prove his See Mark vii. 34,

See also Acts ii.

The scriptural proof that the miracles of Christ were Divinity, is presented more in detail in the Essay of Müller. John xi. 41, 42, v. 36, ix. 25, 33, xiv. 10, xi. 40, cf. Luke ix 43. 22, cf. Acts x. 38. There is only one passage (John x. 11) which could be thought to suggest a different view. But the doğa which Christ manifested forth by the miracle at Cana was the Messianic glory-implying, indeed, in the view of John, divinity, (see John i. 14); yet not identically the dóğa for which Christ prays in John xvii. 5. Hence John x. 11, cannot be considered as inconsistent with the general tenor of the New Testament representations on this subject, which is seen in the passages above cited, many of which are from John.

clared by the Saviour. "The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.”* "If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly,' Jesus answered them, 'I told you and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." "+ We need not cite the numerous passages in which the miracles are set forth as the proper signs of Messiahship. An emphatic example is the response of Jesus to the messengers who came from John the Baptist with the question whether He was indeed the Christ. The miracles of Christ, then, are the testimony of God to His supernatural, divine mission; and the miracles of the Apostles have a similar design and import.‡

Is this end unimportant? Surely, if the Christian religion is important, it is essential that its authoritative character should be established. Whether the doctrine is of God, or Christ speaks of himself; whether the Gospel is only one more experiment in speculation; one more effort of erring reason to

• John v. 36.

+ John x. 24, 25.

Müller has attempted, as we think, successfully, to show that the miracles of Christ were also intended to be symbolical of his spiritual agency, and of relations in his spiritual kingdom. The miracles of healing symbolized, and commended to-faith, his ability to cure the soul of its disorders. The feeding of the multitude set forth the possibility, through Him, of accomplishing great things in His cause by apparently insignificant means. His resurrection from the dead is a standing symbol, in the writings of Paul, for the spiritual awakening from

the death of sin.

That the miracles of Christ, besides the principal end of authenticating his mission, had other collateral motives and ends, is not questioned. They undoubtedly serve to impress the mind with the fact of the personality of God. They are thus an antidote to Pantheistic sentiment, as well as to the Deism which puts God far off. They are, also, a natural expression of the compassionate feelings of Christ toward all in distress. Says Chastel, in his excellent Etudes Historiques, upon the Influence of Charity in the early Church, p. 30, “Cest parce que Jesus aimait que, tout en publiant la nouvelle du royaume des Cieux, il guérissait, dit l'historien, les maladies et les langueurs du peuple (Matt. iv. 23, 24). Cette même compassion qui le saisissait a la vue de la foule errante et sans guide, (Matt. ix. 36), l'attendrissait aussi sur d'autres souffrances; il allait de lieu en lieu faisant du bien et laissant partout des marques de son inépuisable sympathie." This is true; yet there was another, which was, also, the principal motive,—the attestation of his messianic mission and office.

solve the problems of life, is surely a question of capital importance. Some writers at the present day affect to consider this question of no moment. But every sober and practical mind desires, first of all, to know if the Gospel can be depended upon. The authority and certainty of the Christian system are of inestimable value; and these are guaranteed by miracles.

While it is the office of the Christian miracles to verify the supernatural, divine mission of Christ, we are far from considering that they are the exclusive, or even the foremost, proof of this great truth; or even that, by themselves, they are adequate to the production of an inward faith. But of their relation to the other sources of Christian evidence, we shall speak more fully under another head.

A recollection of the end for which miracles are wrought, will expose the fallacy of the current skeptical objection that miracles would imply a flaw in the constitution of material Nature, which needs to be repaired through a special intervention. The need of miracles is not founded on the existence of any defect in Nature. The system of Nature is good and is worthy of God. It is fitted, in itself considered, to disclose the attributes of the Creator and to call forth feelings of adoration in the human mind. The defect is not in Nature. But the mind of man is darkened so that this primal revelation is obscurely discerned; his character, moreover, is corrupted beyond the power of self-recovery, in consequence of his apostasy from God. Now, if God shall mercifully approach with new light and new help, why shall He not verify to man the fact of His presence, by supernatural manifestations of His power and goodness? In this case, Nature is used as an instrument for an ulterior moral end. The miracle is not to remedy an imperfection in Nature, but is, like the Revelation which it serves to attest, a product of the condescension of God. He condescends to address evidence to the senses, or to the understanding through the senses, in order to open a way for the conveyance of the highest spiritual blessing to mankind. Material Nature, be it remembered, does not include

the end of its existence in itself. It is a subordinate member of a vaster system, and has only an instrumental value.

*

Of a piece with the objection just noticed, is the vague representation that something sacred is violated by a miracle. Hume styled a miracle a transgression of natural lawskillfully availing himself of a word which usually denotes the infringement of a moral law, and so carries with it an association of guilt. Several recent writers have more directly propounded a like notion. Such views may be pertinent under a scheme of sentimental Pantheism where Nature is deified. Only he who holds, with Spinoza, that Nature is God, can deem a miracle repugnant to the attributes of God. When the attempt is made to connect such notions with any higher theory of the universe, they deserve no respect, but rather contempt. As if it were derogatory to the Divine Being to save a human life by any other than physical agencies, even when the principal end to be attained is the verification of a heavengiven remedy for the soul and for the disorders which sin has brought into it!

THE RELATION OF MIRACLES TO THE MORAL PROOFS OF CHRIST

IANITY.

The question has often been discussed whether the strongest proof of the divine origin of Christianity is found in its doctrine or its miracles. Some have gone so far as to say that the doctrine proves the miracles, not the miracles the doctrine. The truth on the subject has been more properly set forth in the aphorism of Pascal: "Doctrines must be judged by miracles; miracles must be judged by doctrines."

It is plain that a doctrine which the unperverted conscience pronounces immoral or inconsistent with the perfections of God, cannot be received on the ground of alleged or supposed miracles attending it. This principle is declared in the Bible itself, in a memorable injunction given to the Israelites. We must conclude, to be sure, that all wonders, which the teacher of such doctrine performs, are "lying wonders;" that they are

* Hume's Essays, Vol. II., Appendix, K.

+ Deuteronomy xiii, 1-4.