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spiritual healthiness on the whole more satisfactory than an earnest and intelligent demand for evangelical preaching. Such demand implies, and must always follow, a correct appreciation of the essentials of our religion. Even when urged by those who are least capable of giving it a reasonable explanation, it may stillindicate a deep feeling of spiritual need, and an experimental knowledge of what alone will satisfy the craving of man's spirit, which it would be alike foolish and sinful to disregard. True it is that there is absolutely nothing which has not its point of connection with the Gospel of God's Son; and that this is likely to be overlooked chiefly when the connection is most remote. The religion of Jesus is intended to secure the sanctification of everything. The salutation of a Christian is to be holy; his eating and drinking are to be to the glory of God; his putting on of apparel to be under the influence of Christian character. Ordinary morality, therefore, domestic economy, civil government, sanitary measures, baths and washhouses, and the like, may have their share of remark in an evangelical pulpit, and may have it because of their connection with what is most strictly appropriate to it. But if those things whose connection with the Gospel is most remote are specially liable to be overlooked, on exactly the same grounds is it least necessary that they should be remembered. The instinct even of an unlettered Christian will be in the main very near the truth in judging of such matters.

But this cry for the Gospel, like many others equally wise and reasonable, not unfrequently degenerates into mere cant. It is often the cry of united pride and ignorance—the pride and ignorance of those who have constituted themselves judges of pulpit orthodoxy, and who are at the same time singularly destitute of all ability to explain what orthodoxy is. It is the cry, also, too often of a selfishness which will not regard, or a blindness which cannot discern, the signs of the times. The exigencies of one age may require scarcely more than a passing reference to some even of those things which are essential to Christianity; while they may demand a complete exposition and rigorous application of others. One generation may be satisfied that we should exhibit the symmetry and beauty of the Christian superstructure, while another may require proof of the strength and depth of the foundation. To take no note of this is not to be evangelical, but to betray the Gospel. To contend that the wants of 'true believers' should alone be supplied is to forget that 'Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost.' And indeed there are not a few believers who have more faith than reason, and who need not unfrequently to be themselves reminded of the ground of the hope that is in them. If the Gospel is to be preached in these

days with anything approaching the success which ought to be desired, it must be by a recognition of the sort of obstacles which stand in the way of that success. A growing number of those who come within the reach and influence of the pulpit are not now troubling themselves with doctrinal logomachies. They save themselves such trouble by simply denying the facts upon which the evangelical doctrines are based. If the belief in the atonement of Christ be an essential of Christianity, the belief in his existence and his death must be at least equally such. If the teaching of Christ was in any sense inseparably connected with his miracles, to dispute the miracles (which multitudes are only too eager to do) is to invalidate the teaching. Such connection is almost universally allowed in one sense or another; and in this sense as perhaps the lowest';-that if books which record miracles in the manner in which the Gospels record them are not trustworthy in that respect, they are not trustworthy at all; and they are our only record of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The question of miracles, then, may be regarded as of fundamental importance; and on this account we are glad to find that it is beginning to receive a very complete consideration in our evangelical pulpits. That this is wished we might gather from the existence of Dr. Cumming's work at the head of this article-that it is wanted, from the existence of Dr. Wardlaw's.

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We shall scarcely have occasion to make much reference to the 'Lectures' of Dr. Cumming. Originality,' says their author, 'is the attribute of few;' and he does not pretend that it is his own. He is deeply indebted,' he says, for many leading thoughts to Olshausen, the German commentator, and also in some degree to Trench, whose obligations to the same writer are very many and very great.' Now we should very much suspect, apart from his implication to the contrary, that Dr. Cumming knows Olshausen as nearly as possible only through Trench, and there is scarcely a single thought in his Foreshadows of any importance, depth, or novelty, which may not be found almost in the same words, and with exactly the same illustrations, in the Notes on the Miracles of our Lord. When Dr. Cumming leaves his guide, he too often simply stumbles into all kinds of mistakes; and when he alters the form in which Mr. Trench has expressed some valuable thought, he does it sometimes by omitting the modification which is absolutely an essential of its worth. With certain minor blemishes we have not space to meddle. When God,' he says, 'turns water into wine, all that he does differently (from the natural mode) is to shorten the process. The ordinary process is that the water in the sea should rise into the cloud, then fall from the cloud in copious showers, give refreshment to

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the vine and fertility to the earth, develope itself in sap, in blossom, in grapes, in fermentation, in wine; that is the long process; the short process is the water turning into wine at Christ's word.' (p. 7.)

Now this is much more pretty than correct. The process called shorter is not shorter only, but different-different in every stage between the water and the wine. In the miracle there is neither cloud, nor copious shower, nor earth, nor fertility, nor vine, nor refreshment, nor sap, nor blossom, nor grapes, nor fermentationall this is superseded by the word of Christ, and never appears at all. The processes are wholly different in kind, and this circumstance invalidates not the illustration only, but the entire argument. Again, at page 8, we find the following words- A miracle is not, as some have tried to show, contrary to nature. Never accept this definition of it, because, as I shall show you in subsequent lectures, Strauss, one of the most subtle and most able infidels of modern times, (but who, I rejoice to say, has been replied to by his own countrymen, Neander, Tholock, and many others, whose genius and piety are unquestionable,) has laid hold of this, and tried to do great mischief by it.' Now we would suggest that this is no reason at all for rejecting any definition whatever of a miracle. If it be a correct definition, it is not the less so for Strauss's abuse of it; if not, it should be rejected for that reason. So that the introduction of Strauss and the Leben Jesu is merely an argumentum ad hominem of a kind altogether unworthy a good and sound cause.

But without further minute criticism, for which almost every page of Dr. Cumming's work would furnish matter, we would utter our protest for the honour and influence of literature against the book, from page 1 to page 579, et id genus omne. If the literature of Christianity is to escape contempt, it must consist of something deeper and more carefully laboured than lectures 'preached from notes and accurately reported.' A man has no right to publish a book which confessedly contains nothing which has not been better said before; unless, indeed, the modesty of a preface is to be a justification of what something which is not modesty would alone have ventured to attempt.

The other works at the head of our article will require, as being far more careful and original, a more detailed and respectful examination. This even the names of their authors will at once secure. Dr. Wardlaw may be regarded as a champion of a severely conservative orthodoxy; Mr. Trench as an expounder and representative of the Evangelical divines of Germany. In their books they not only differ, but are contrasted. Dr. Wardlaw attaches special importance to the répas, and counts the onusov as

a necessary and certain consequence; Mr. Trench asks concerning the onusov, and from it he judges of the origin and worth of the Tépas. The one is satisfied to know that a miracle has been wrought; the other requires to be certified of the moral teaching in connection with it. The one tests doctrine by miracle; the other miracle by doctrine. In this difference is involved every other. In both works there is originality, though only in the measure to be expected in connection with the subject of which they treat. Dr. Wardlaw's style is clear, but dry, and rendered needlessly tedious by a superfluity of formal divisions. The Notes, both in style and matter, are by one in whom the theologian has not acquired too absolute a mastery. They abound in happy illustration and apt quotation, and scholarly use and dissection of words. Their appeal is to that which is within us, and their argument is rather welcomed than received, and conviction is rather won than compelled.

We would venture to regret, as an imperfection in Dr. Wardlaw's work, though a natural result of the views he has adopted, that it is almost altogether wanting in a due appreciation of the difficulties of the subject of which it treats. We do not wonder that a veteran Christian, trained alike in the schools of human wisdom, and scripture, and experience, should lose sight entirely of the petty improbabilities which constitute the strength of scepticism. But that which is really insignificant may acquire a fictitious importance. There were tall men among the Lilliputians. An argument may have its strength in the littleness of the mind to which it is addressed. And if Dr. Wardlaw had been proud enough to remember that there are minds of very pigmy stature when compared with his own, he might have rendered his work on miracles far more effective. Besides, the questions he has undertaken to discuss have their real difficulties. Truth is to us not what is certain, but what is probable, more probable, most probable. There is much really noble struggle towards truth and light (however disgusted we may often be at the affectation of it) with which it would have been both kind and politic to sympathise. Many may shut this book in sorrow and anger, because for much that has been to them an agony it has scarcely any better answer than a sneer.

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Dr. Wardlaw would have it understood, first of all, that in the discussion upon which he enters he has no argument with the atheist' (p. 1.) That he is perfectly right in so marking out his ground, if it be his pleasure to do so, we have no manner of question. Yet a treatise on miracles might have its argument even for atheism. The atheism most generally professed, and invariably intended, is not belief, but doubt. Its great proposition

is not 'There is no God,' but 'There is no sufficient proof that there is a God.' Now there may be as much proof of design, and of an infinite and almighty designer, and proof more striking, in the occasional disorder of the universe than in its almost invariable order. The suspension, or violation, or contradiction of a law of nature-or (to take the other view) the operation, the coming down of a higher law, of the law of a higher nature this may be just the one additional point of evidence requisite for the proof of a personal Deity. Regularity must indicate the working of great laws; but to some minds this does not necessarily involve the idea of a lawgiver, of anything or any being superior to law. That idea may be involved in a miracle, and atheism, through the consideration of miracles, may thus become theism. A very useful book might be written upon the evidences of a personal God in the disorders and irregularities of the universe.a

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On similar grounds Dr. Wardlaw might have refused to meddle with any pantheistic objection to miracles; might have disregarded every species of pantheism,' as he disregards every sort of atheism; and the more so, as we believe him to be perfectly right when he affirms that atheism and pantheism are in effect the same. The difference of name indicates only a difference in our point of view. A consistent pantheism has no room either for the unnatural or the supernatural. The universe is not from God, it is God; it (and God, horresco referens) is but a huge monster flinging abroad its countless limbs, and writhing its vast bulk into all manner of contortions. A miracle is but a new contortion. We, with all our regularities, are the quieter moving members of this living animal universe. But we do not often find pantheism more consistent than atheism; we find, rather, pantheistic tendencies. Hence Dr. Wardlaw cannot omit all reference to Spinoza. Here, however, (pp. 49 and 50,) we think there is again room to regret the want of a due appreciation of the difficulties of the subject. The theologian has entirely mastered the philosopher.

With all who are neither atheists nor pantheists the miracles have ever been deemed an important part of Christian 'evidences." The reasons for this we have already in part suggested, and they will appear abundantly as we proceed. By common consent of friends and foes, their authority has been considered identical with the safety of Christianity itself as divine and authoritative. They were doubtless regarded as of very special importance both by Christ and his Apostles, as multitudes of quotations might be adduced to prove. At the same time, they were not so much

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Such a work has indeed in part been attempted (if we may judge from its title) in the book entitled God in Disease.'