accidentally mingled with those of extinct animals; others preferring to regard both implements and bones as belonging to a race of extinct apes, NOT men; others regarding both indeed as human, but intentionally buried in the places where they are found, in much later times; others admitting the contemporaneousness of the implements and bones with the formations and other remains in connection with which they are found, but contesting the antiquity assigned to these by geologists. The confirmatory arguments from Ethnology and Philology are commonly met by this class of replicants by reference to miraculous agency, or occasionally by the elaboration of counter-evidence.

Under the second head three modes of answer have been adopted. First, it is urged that the Scriptural chronology refers only to the descendants from Adam, while at the same time hints are dropped, and indications given, of another class of men, inferior in character, and stretching back into much earlier times, to whom, no doubt, these implements and bones are to be ascribed. Secondly, stress is laid upon the divergences in these genealogies between the Hebrew text and the Samaritan, the Septuagint version, and the statements of Josephus; some adopting the longer chronology deducible from the last two, some regarding the whole question as in consequence hopelessly uncertain. Thirdly, it is pointed out that each of these genealogies contains exactly ten generations,—a number which may perhaps have been regarded as having a mystical significance, to obtain which some of the actual links in the chain were omitted, and so the chronology shortened unnaturally.

Lastly, there are yet other defenders of Scripture who give up the genealogies altogether, regarding them as mere traditions, having no bearing upon spiritual truth, or, at all events, none which is in any way affected by supposing them to be corrupt and defective in their chronological aspect.

III. We pass on now to the third group of objections; those, namely, which are brought against Scripture miracles, on the ground of their inconsistency with scientific principles. Particular facts bearing on the miraculous events recorded in Scripture the objector does not here in general produce, or need to produce; his charge refers to the whole class as a class, and is based upon the widest of all the inductive conclusions which Science has elucidated-the absolute and unalterable uniformity of the laws of Nature. Here, therefore, we have no longer to deal with detailed interpretations, as in the two former groups, but with general views and principles. The objection in question presents itself in two forms, so different in character

and complexion that it will be advisable to consider them, with their respective answers, quite apart.

The first form of the objection, then, avowedly ignores all considerations of Theology whatever, and deals with the matter on purely naturalistic and physical grounds. Scientific investigation, it is said, plainly shows that every department of Nature is under the control of laws the most exact and inexorable, and, so far as our knowledge can reach, has ever been and must ever be so. The whole course of Nature is a chain of antecedents and consequents bound together by a necessary and absolutely certain connection, entirely beyond the reach of interruption or alteration; every event that happens in Nature is the inevitable result of the laws and properties of matter and force, which can neither be violated, modified, or suspended; and beyond these laws and properties Nature knows no other rule; they are alone and supreme. To assert, therefore, that an event, or series of events, occurred which are contrary to this uniformity, which are not the result of these laws and perties, but opposed to them and incompatible with them, is to assert the occurrence of an impossibility, and is simply absurd.

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The answer to this form of the objection is commonly a reductio ad absurdum. Plainly and on the surface it denies the existence of God; that is, of a personal Being ruling Nature, possessed of a proper spiritual existence, unlimited supremacy, and WILL. It involves, therefore, either atheism or, which is the same thing in other words, materialistic pantheism. And its consequent absurdity may thus be easily demonstrated. But further; it is said, push the argument home, and it involves also the denial of all spiritual existence whatever. It is certain that man has the power of modifying at his will the course of external Nature, causing things to happen which would not have happened but for his influence and interference. If, then, the principle be sound that every event in Nature is the result solely and absolutely of physical laws and causes, it follows manifestly that this will of man is itself also but a physical cause; that its apparent freedom is purely delusive, it being in reality as rigidly and passively the subject of law as any other cause; that, in fact, he has no more real intelligence or independence than a calculating machine or an automaton. From this barren and repulsive materialistic fatalism most objectors may be expected to shrink instinctively; and, of course, the admission once made, that there are spiritual existences independent of physical law, yet capable of influencing Nature, and the argument for the impossibility of miracles from their involving such non-physical agency falls to the ground.

The commoner form of objection, however, evades this answer by adopting a different ground of attack. Granted, it is said, that there is a true personal God, having full and supreme power over Nature, and therefore able to suspend, modify, or act independently of, its laws; yet is it credible that He should do so? Are not these laws the Are not these laws the proper expressions of His Will, ordained and created by Himself with a full knowledge beforehand of the results that must arise from their action; so created as exactly to accomplish the ends which He had in mind and no others, so created also as to be sufficient to accomplish these ends without further extraneous aid or interference? Is not the uniformity of Nature, in fact, the inevitable consequence of the unchangeableness of God, to suppose an alteration in which is hence to suppose a change of mind in God, which is incredible? Man, indeed, may be constantly interfering with Nature; but is not this because Nature is independent of him, and so does not always fit in of itself with his designs, because also his knowledge of it is limited, and his will concerning it variable? Does not, then, the ascription of such interference to God also really imply that he is subject to the like imperfections, that Nature is independent of Him, that His knowledge is limited, and His will variable? While, yet further, have we not in the observed fact of the undeviating uniformity of Nature, and the absolute supremacy of physical laws, even in cases where we should have thought a slight alteration would have been productive of immense good, a proof that human reason is altogether incompetent to comprehend the purpose of this iron rule of law, but must be content to receive it simply as a fact, which, however apparently fraught with evils here and there, is certainly in accordance with God's Will, and not, therefore, lightly to be set aside on any grounds of fancied expediency?

To this objection, thus set forth, there are, as before, three distinct lines of reply:

First, there are those who deny the scientific premiss of the objection, that Nature is thus inexorably uniform and subject to law. According to some, this premiss is unsound, because, after all, the idea of uniformity is merely the impression which a more or less extended experience of past uniformity has made upon the imagination, whereby we instinctively conclude that it will continue for the future, and, in fact, always; which kind of instinctive conclusion has been proved, however, over and over again, to be in particular cases fallacious and misleading, and therefore may be so in the present case also. This answer, pushed to its extremest limit, puts the improbability of a miracle on exactly the same footing as the impro

bability of any other non-habitual event,-the mere number of chances à priori against its occurrence, an improbability which entirely vanishes on the production of any ordinarily credible testimony. Stated more cautiously, the miracle is ranked with events new and strange, wonders inexplicable and improbable, alike after their occurrence as before, and therefore requiring more than ordinary evidence on its behalf, but still involving nothing intrinsically incredible. Others, again, attack the scientific premiss on the ground that the laws and causes referred to are purely hypothetical, mere possible explanations which Science has devised, which may, however, just as likely be erroneous, and on which it is illogical, therefore, to build any argument of moment. How do we know that there may not be other and truer explanations, equally accordant with natural phenomena, and not inconsistent with miracles?

Then, Secondly, there are those who admit the scientific premiss, but deny the inference; who admit that Nature is uniform and subject to law, but deny that miracles are therefore incredible; for, say they, miracles have to do with something which is beyond and above physical nature,-the soul of man. Man, it is argued, has put himself out of harmony with Nature; his free-will, acting in opposition to the will of God, has produced discord and rebellion where was meant to be concord and subjection; and the course of Nature being thus disturbed in its relation to man, it is plainly by no means improbable, but rather probable, that in God's dealings with man He should find it necessary to modify that course in other respects also. In particular, it is urged, man has by this evil action of his free-will put himself out of communion with God, to a great extent silenced the revelation of God existing in his own conscience, and blinded his eyes to that discoverable in Nature. For his recovery and reformation. there is needed, therefore, other and clearer revelation than these two, to which his attention shall be attracted, and his submission secured, by evidence of God's action and presence other than that existent in Nature or himself; in a word, by miracles. However incredible, then, a miracle may be, viewed merely in itself, as a part of the course of Nature; it is perfectly credible, nay, probable, when viewed in connection with its purpose, as having respect to one who is out of harmony with Nature, and whom the uniformity of Nature has ceased to affect as an evidence of God's existence. So far the advocates who adopt this line of answer are pretty well agreed, differing only in form or mode of statement; but here two notable differences between them come into view. In the first place, there is a difference as to the character of miracles. Some, who

look chiefly at the impression produced by miracles on man, and regard the order of Nature as created by God indeed, but now practically independent of Him, speaking of miracles as higher manifestations of His presence, because proofs of His supremacy over Nature. Others, on the contrary, who look rather at the Divine attribute of unchangeableness, and regard the order of Nature as the true and proper expression of His living presence, speaking of them as lower manifestations, condescensions, in which God has stooped to act for awhile after the imperfect manner of man, as elsewhere to adopt man's language and man's form, that man might learn to recognize Him the easier and better. Then, in the second place, there is a difference as to the agency involved in miracles. Some regarding them as wrought by God directly, without the intervention of natural forces or laws. Others regarding them as wrought through the instrumentality of these, merely specially controlled and adjusted for the particular end in view.

But, Thirdly, there are yet others who admit both the premiss and inference of the objection, but deny their importance. According to these, it is quite true that no miracles properly so called ever happened or could happen; but still events happened which were thought to be miraculous, impressions were created on the mind which were believed to be produced by miracles, and by these certain spiritual ends were attained. What matter, then, if we reject the means, so long as we preserve the end? What matter if that which men of old regarded as a miraculous act of God, we regard as purely natural, so long as we both recognize God's hand there? What matter if we reject the miraculous evidence of doctrines, on account of which men of old believed in them, so long as we hold the doctrines themselves? Why trouble about the particular channel through which truth comes, so long as both are drinking of the same fountain-head?

IV. We now pass to consider the fourth and last group of objections; those, namely, which are brought against the dogmatic teaching of Scripture on the ground of its inconsistency with the facts of Nature. Some of these, as, for example, the pre-eminence which Scripture assigns to man in the history of the world, and the assertion that all things were -created and are still actively superintended by a personal God, who has the power of dispensing with, and controuling, natural laws, have been already touched upon. Of the rest, two only need here receive especial mention, as the most notorious and oftenest urged. In the first place, then, it is objected that Scripture represents the whole of creation as "very good," the product of unmixed beneficence; whereas, in fact, Nature is full