incipient in manifold diseases, and complete in the extinction of corporeal and spiritual life, reigns over his own person, and Satan has become the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world. The fundamental laws of nature have been so perversely combined and directed, that universal disorder prevails. Those which unfallen man would soon have understood and used for a perfect mastery of nature, have been left in a great degree unknown and undeveloped. The recent discovery of three or four such laws, and their application to the mechanic arts, show what a dominion man might have enjoyed had he attained, as his Creator designed he should speedily have attained, a full knowledge of all natural powers. In the possession of such a knowledge, perhaps a large part of the works of the incarnate Redeemer would have been within his power. What were miracles when performed by Christ, and by his servants, might have been the appropriate actions of man inhis normal state. If we carefully notice those miracles we may discover in nearly all of them significant tokens of a restorative and perfective character. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil;" and God "anointed Jesus of Nazareth to go about doing good, and to heal all that are oppressed of the devil." In the fulfillment of this general design miracles bore no unimportant share. They broke the spell of Satan's enchantment. They gave a slight specimen of the order which ought to reign in Christ's kingdom. He expelled demons, healed the sick, allayed storms, raised the dead, was transfigured, walked on the waves, conversed with angels, and held intimate intercourse. with his Father. What is there of disorder in all this? What general process of the natural world is injured or confused? On the other hand, is not an elevating and harmonizing influence given to every interest affected? Are not such events related to the material and social nature much as divine spiritual influences are to the soul? May not even those external miracles which seem difficult to interpret on any such principle, be regarded as a part of that great process by which the restitution, the regeneration, the recapitulation (ávakepaλaiwoię) of all things under Christ is to be attained ?*

*Acts iii, 21; Matt. xix, 28; Eph. i, 10; Rev. xxi, 1, 5. Comp. Rom. viii, 18-22; 1 Cor. xv, 24-28.

III. With such a view of the laws of nature and of miracles, on what ground must the latter be pronounced incredible? To allege that they are impossible would be to claim an extent of knowledge which would be itself miraculous. Spinoza imagined that if a single miracle like that of the raising of Lazarus should actually occur, our whole universe would be unhinged. It is hard to perceive why such a disastrous result should follow. Every operation to produce it was, for ought we know, confined to a single individual, and it would be difficult to prove that such a transaction might not have taken place, or that such an independent personality might not have been annihiIated, and yet other portions of the universe have remained unconscious of the occurrence. Miracles, even according to the most extreme definition, were conceded by Kant and Fichte to be possible, however incredible. They are naturally possible, for they imply no absurdity; and they are morally possible, for we can imagine a sufficient reason for them. If any law is transgressed it must be one which is derivative, and whose validity depends upon a peculiar combination of primary laws. But such violations, if so they may be called, take place every day by the conflicts which occur among various natural and human agencies. Laws which usually act in combination are separated, or are united in new relations, which may seem in the highest degree extraordinary. Is it incredible that yet higher combinations should sometimes be effected and to an extent beyond finite powers?

Our author attaches much importance to what he calls the "antecedent credibility" of events, and alleges that no amount of evidence would be likely now to make a philosopher believe in the marvels of witchcraft and magic. We are not so sure of this. Intelligent men have recently exhibited some remarkable instances of the power of human faith. This "antecedent credibility," which so much influences men's judgment in matters of religion, we suspect often depends very much upon their tastes and imaginations. There are cases, however, in which it is not altogether to be despised. We should justify a reluctance to believe in extraordinary interpositions of Providence, if no occasion worthy of the Divine presence were made out. But have we not already suggested grounds on which an occasional occurrence of miracles might be credited? To

prove the disorders consequent upon sin is not our present task, but on the supposition that they exist, and that God has interposed to redeem and save men, are not miracles credible? If such a being as the Son of God has entered our humanity, might we not expect him to remove some of the disorders under which nature and humanity groans? At least, is there anything incredible in the assertion that he did some things to be accounted for only by remembering his extraordinary character? Must the miraculous facts of Scripture be regarded, not as aids, but as "the greatest burden our faith has to bear?" Could we of the present day believe in him more easily had he never shed. forth his miraculous power?

The experiment has to some extent been tried of forming a system of religion without miraculous facts, and our author has left us one of the latest attempts of this character; but the result is certainly not flattering enough to force a strong presumption" in their favor.

IV. Our author's next objection is to the testimony by which the reality of miracles is proved. He throws suspicion first upon the testimony of the original witnesses, and then upon the documents in which it has been preserved. Satisfied as he appears to be that he could not believe in a miracle, even under the most favorable circumstances before his own eyes, he of course doubts whether any man ever had sufficient evidence of them. Whoever witnesses what claims to be a special act of God, has to determine whether it is beyond the power of all natural agents, and necessarily a direct act of God. "This," our author says, "must be a matter of opinion, depending not on the evidence of the senses but of reason, and relating not to experience, in the limited sense of that word, but to the general ground of our convictions and the whole basis of the inductive philosophy; and it turns especially on the views we have arrived at of the order of the natural world, and the chain of physical causation." If, after a careful sifting of all the facts connected with a marvelous event, he should fail of discovering its origin by natural laws, he declares that he would set it down as an apparent anomaly awaiting future solution; assured, however, that sooner or later, in the advance of physical discovery, it would receive its explanation." This is said not merely of doubtful marvels, but of all possible miracles. God

has left himself no way, it seems, of reaching him! This is a position beyond that which Laplace, or the stanchest disbelievers of whom we have read before, ever ventured to assume. The only apology we can make for such apparent presumption is, that he was probably speaking of miracles as violations of the primary laws of matter. That there are some miracles recorded in the Scriptures respecting which one who witnessed them only as isolated events might doubt whether they were wrought by God, is conceded in the inspired narrative itself; but our Lord gives us his own judgment upon men who had opportunity to observe any considerable number of his works, in their connections with his character and teachings. "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin," "but now have they no cloak for their sin." We are willing to leave the case even where our author has himself placed it, at the bar of reason as well as of our senses, and to be decided by our views of its consistency with natural order, and we shall have no fear of the result where reason is not fettered by some invincible prejudice.

That there is an obvious distinction between believing in a miracle on the testimony of our own senses, and believing in one on the testimony of ancient documents, it would be absurd to deny. In the latter case the additional questions relating to the competency and the honesty of the witnesses, and the authenticity and genuineness of the records, are to be decided. In this discussion we must assume that these are established. That our received text contains words and even sentences which were not in the original records, and that many letters and points have been changed in the course of centuries of transcription and printing, cannot be denied; but a Savilian professor in Oxford must know, what the most ordinary student of higher criticism, friendly or hostile to evangelical religion, concedes, that all these are of no serious consequence to the integrity of our faith. In the language of Bishop Hare, a man quite liberal enough toward men of "broad" faith, but scrupulously accurate in his learning, "Nothing more need be said in defense of our text on this account, nothing can be said against it. A man must be afraid of his own shadow who can hereafter be in pain about a various reading, or think the number of them any prejudice to the integrity or authority of the

sacred books." That we have also the very books which were written by the men whose names they bear, or, if anonymous, by holy men in whom we can have confidence, ought not, after the searching criticism of the last twenty years, to be disputed. And though we must trust to these authors for a statement of the original facts, we do not hesitate to say that we are in quite as favorable circumstances as they could have been for a judgment upon the supernatural character of the miracles. Since the ascension of our Lord, and after the experience of so many centuries, we are in a position to know the consistency of such facts with the divine nature of Christ, their relations to a disordered universe and to the great scheme of redemption, and their harmony with other facts in nature and history, and therefore we have a body of materials for an enlightened conviction which no one in the limited horizon of primitive times could have had. The difficulties those original witnesses must have experienced in such an age are obvious; but we are dependent upon them not so much for their "opinions" of the power exhibited in what they saw, as for a mere tradition of the external facts, and accordingly their transparent narratives exhibit very seldom the personal feelings or judgments of their writers, but make us a part of the multitudes around our Lord witnessing his actions and hearing his words. We have, therefore, merely to transfer these scenes and discourses to our own higher position, and connect them with what we know of "God manifest in the flesh," and we can scarcely fail to recognize their supernatural character. Even if the age in which they were written were as superstitious and credulous as our author supposes, we are compelled to receive not their philosophy, but only their details of facts. We had supposed, however, that that period was not as remarkable for credulity as for skepticism. The philosophy of the nations then controlling the world's civilization had lost its validity, and even among the Jews an infidel Sadduceeism or a hypocritical Phariseeism had the highest authority. Our Lord himself encouraged no desire to exercise supernatural powers, and his disciples appear to have had no object in relating his miracles but to inculcate truth. We can have no jealousy of such narrators; we instinctively confide in their honesty, and we admire their healthy freedom from the puerile fancies and prejudices of their age.