depended upon as evidence in the early Church. In the age of Apologetics (beginning about A.D. 80) the principal argument for the divine origin of Christianity was derived from its moral effects. Miracles were admitted, but only as auxiliary and subordinate. The reason is sufficiently obvious: they had to enter into competition with other miracles, real or pretended. There was scarcely sagacity enough among the early Christians to distinguish the skilful jugglery of man from miraculous power. Even when these false miracles were disputed, it was on ground which might have been occupied with equal success against the Christian in that age, and with more success now, for they were regarded as physically impossible. Quae "Quae si essent facta, fierent; quia fieri non possunt ideo non facta sunt'-' Cur enim si nati sunt, non hodieque nascuntur.' (Minucius Fel. Octav. c. 20, and c. 23.) Eusebius has preserved a fragment of Quadratus, one of the first of the Apologists, indicating far greater powers of philosophical discrimination. The works of our Saviour were always to be seen, for they were real; those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, were seen not only when they were healed or raised, but they were always there, not only whilst He dwelt on the earth, but also after his departure, which they long survived; so that some of them have lived even to our own times.' The more usual reply to men who, like Celsus, ridiculed the Christian miracles as on a par with heathen magic, was an appeal to their moral circumstances and effect. Magicians,' says Origen, flattered men's sinful inclinations, they fell in with their previous modes of thinking, and required the renunciation of nothing. On the other hand, whoever in the primitive times would be a Christian must break loose from many of his hitherto favourite inclinations, and be ready to give up everything for his faith.' ↳

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A very similar course was adopted (and we shall have need to remember this further on) even by Christ himself in answer to the Jews, from whom was borrowed the charge of magic against the Christians—This fellow does not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.' Our Lord's answer to the deep malignity of this assertion was in his appeal to the whole tenour of his doctrine and his miracles-whether they were not altogether for the overturning of the kingdom of evil,-whether such a lending of power to him on the part of Satan would not be wholly inconceivable, since it would be merely and altogether suicidal. For though it would be quite intelligible that Satan should bait his hook with some good, should array himself as an angel of light,

b See Neander's 'Church History,' vol. i. p. 98. Clark's edition.

and do for a while deeds that might appear as deeds of light, that so he might the better carry through some mighty delusion,

"Win men with honest trifles, to betray them

In deepest consequence,"

just as Darius was willing that a small detachment of his army should perish, that so the mighty deceit which Zopyrus was practising against Babylon might succeed; yet a lasting, unvarying, unrelenting assault on his kingdom is unintelligible, as being furthered by himself; his kingdom thus in arms against itself could not stand, but hath an end. He who came, as all his words and his deeds testified, to destroy the works of the devil, could not have come armed with his power, and helped onward by his aid. It is not a pact with the Evil One which this tells of, but of One mightier than that Evil One, who has entered with power into his stronghold, and who, having bound him, is now spoiling his goods. Our Lord does in fact repel the accusation and derive authority to his miracles, not on account of the power which they display, however that may be the first thing that brings them into consideration, but on account of the ethical ends which they serve. He appeals to every man's conscience whether the doctrine to which they bear witness, and which bears witness to them, be not from above, and not from beneath; and if so, then the power with which he accomplished them could not have been lent him from beneath, since the kingdom of lies would never so contradict itself, as seriously to help forward the establishment of the kingdom of truth.' Here was, whatever might have been, a testing of the miracle by the doctrine.

The miracles, or magical delusions brought into competition with Christianity by its enemies, had a destructive rather than a constructive object. The cures of Esculapius, for example, and the wonderful works of Apollonius Tyanæus were employed not to establish any claims put forward on their behalf, but to show that the claims of Christ had no better support. It was indeed attempted to produce some positive check to the religion of Christ, by Porphyry among others, but the time for this had gone by.

To pursue this history of the use and abuse of miracles, and of the assaults made upon them, though very instructive, would carry us further than our space would permit. One word more, in justice to much abused Germany. The sceptical, rationalistic, and historico-critical objections, belong at least as much to England as to the continent. We must do our best to meet them further on. Pantheism is not the easily besetting sin of Englishmen ; but he

must know strangely little of the history of English deism, who supposes that we are dependent on foreign importation for any large amount or important quality of that article.

It is of very special importance in any treatise on miracles that the term itself shall be rigorously defined. Let us examine the definition given by Dr. Wardlaw-The definition given of them by the Hebrew ruler Nicodemus, when he came to Jesus by night (John iii. 12), as "works which no man can do except God be with him," is quite sufficiently accurate and comprehensive for our purpose. I have already, at the very outset, given a definition of them in other terms, as works involving a temporary suspension of the known laws of nature; or, a deviation from the established constitution and fixed order of the universe; or, perhaps more correctly, of that department of the universe which constitutes our own system; whose established order and laws we are capable, to the full extent requisite for the purpose, of accurately ascertaining; works, therefore, which can be effected by no power short of that which gave the universe its being, and its constitutions and laws.' (p. 24.)

The (supposed) fact that a real miracle never has been and never can be wrought, except directly by God, is thus embodied in the definition. But, we would submit, a merely accidental fact or an opinion about a thing can be no proper part of the definition of it. That only God can work a miracle may be deducible at once from the correct definition; but so may a thousand other things which might easily be expanded into a treatise. The whole value of a miracle, in Dr. Wardlaw's view, depends upon this very fact; and to the proof of it are devoted forty or fifty pages; yet it is emphatically denied by many biblical scholars of highest repute, and it seems to be contradicted by various passages of Scripture, which Dr. Wardlaw has felt it needful carefully to investigate. It cannot then be fair or logical to assume the whole matter in dispute in the very definition of a miracle, and then (as we shall see Dr. Wardlaw does) make use, in argument, of this same definition, when considering the reality of the fact which it embodies.

The opinion of Nicodemus, as expressed in John iii. 1, 2, can make no pretensions to accuracy or even to definiteness; although, taken in its connection, it is certainly far more than an empty truism. 'Works which no man can do,' is plainly equivalent to 'works such as no man can do.' Does this, then, include merely the supernatural in power, or does it include the moral circumstances? Those miracles which Christ did were as remarkable for their ethical beauty and propriety, as for their mere power. This definition, borrowed from the Jewish inquirer, is not sufficiently

discriminative. It includes far too much. A man can do nothing whatever'except God be with him,' and yet, to call every act a miracle, is to keep the name and sacrifice the thing.

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Again, Dr. Wardlaw calls a miracle a suspension of the known laws of nature,' and 'it is necessary,' he adds, 'to mark this.' (pp. 24, 25.) But is not this simply another form of that view of miracles with which the name of Schleiermacher is connected? Is it not to make a miracle merely relative to the capacity of those before whom it may seem to be wrought? The mere accident of our complete knowledge of a 'law of nature' has nothing whatever to do either with its observance, or suspension, or removal. It may have much to do with our belief of a miracle. As that may seem to ignorance to be supernatural, which would become perfectly natural and singularly easy to more advanced knowledge, so to fancied knowledge that may seem no miracle which a more modest and scientific investigation may prove to be very far beyond unaided human power or wisdom. The fact is not altered by these opinions concerning it. A suspension of the known laws of nature' may at any given period both include too much, and exclude too much, to be a correct definition of a miracle. But however unsuccessful himself in furnishing such a definition, Dr. Wardlaw has in some respect an advantage over Mr. Trench in this particular. A miracle is most obviously a relative termit belongs to a particular system of laws. This proposition, the laws of our world may require,' may be just another way of saying (among other things) that A must always be followed by a, and that a can never happen unless preceded by A. But to an angel, though the first of these propositions may be true, 'the second may be false. To a man it would be, on this hypothesis, a miracle that a should be the effect of B. To an angel it may be a perfectly natural effect of B, C, D, X, ad libitum. Now,

if we speak of the entire universe, including even God himself, it is perfectly obvious that we leave no room either for the unnatural or the supernatural. The power of God is competent to perform any work whatever, and, in relation to himself, a miracle is impossible or unmeaning. These distinctions Mr. Trench overlooks, as does also Dr. Cumming more entirely. And yet the distinction is plain enough in a quotation from Augustine at the foot of page 15, in the Notes:-Contra naturam non incongruè dicimus aliquid Deum facere, quod facit contra id quod novimus in naturâ. Hanc enim etiam appellamus naturam, cognitum nobis. cursum solitumque naturæ, contra quem cum Deus aliquid facit magnalia vel mirabilia nominantur. Contra illam verò summam naturæ legem a notitia remotam sive impiorum sive adhuc infirmorum, tam Deus nullo modo facit quam contra se ipsum non

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facit.' This is wholly true, though Augustine did not make our use of it. When we speak of miracle we have no reference to the summæ naturæ leges,' but to what may be, so far as the capacities of the human mind are concerned, 'cognitus nobis cursus solitusque naturæ.' Indeed, in any other sense miracle is a word without a meaning.

A miracle,' says Dr. Cumming, 'is not a thing against nature, but is a thing above and beyond what we call nature. For instance, when we read of our Lord's healing the sick, and in other instances raising the dead, we hear it said, this is contrary to nature. It is no such thing. We call it contrary to nature because we say that sickness is natural. Sickness is not natural; it is an unnatural thing; it is a discord in the glorious harmony; it is a blot upon the fair creation; it is most unnatural, and was never meant originally to be.' d

But this is mere assumption. It is without question that death was in the world before sin, even before man was placed upon it. Physically, a constant death is the condition of a man's life. The Book of Genesis would seem obscurely to intimate that the continued life of Adam and Eve would have been the result of a special provision, itself partaking more of the miraculous than of the natural. The death which was to man the punishment of sin, was just the removal of that which would have prevented death (Gen. iii. 22-24). We believe death to be natural, and if not, a miracle would be no more above nature' than contrary to it ;' it would simply be nature, or on a level with it. Indeed, all this is a mere trick of words, to escape the objections of a species of pantheism. The laws of nature are merely developments of the Godhead. God cannot contradict, or be inconsistent with himself. But, inasmuch as a miracle is a contradiction of the laws of nature, or at least an inconsistency with them, therefore a miracle is impossible.' Now, what do we gain in this argument by saying that a miracle is not contrary to nature but above it? Thus much -God does not contradict himself, but he suffers himself to be contradicted by some other! Who that other is, Dr. Cumming, we suspect, is in no position to inform us.

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There may be something to justify Dr. Wardlaw's strictures, too long to quote, on that part of Dr. Vaughan's Age and Christianity, which treats of Revelation as miraculous' (pp. 87-102). Yet we had ourselves taken a different view of that very valuable portion of a very valuable work. It had been Dr.

dForeshadows,' pp. 8, 9.

e

Vaughan's Age and Christianity,' p. 87. Statement of the Pantheistic objection to miracles.