tenderly rebuked, and Jesus added, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." My business is with the "mighty works" of the New Testament wrought to testify to a Divine Mission. They are not spoken of as violations of law, or as suspensions, or interferences, or contradictions to law. They are described, not on the side of their physical nature, but on that of their moral signification, in their connection with Him who claimed to be the Redeemer of mankind. They are called "wonders," as contrary to common experience; and "signs," as replete with an ulterior meaning, and testifying to the character and work of Christ. There is no need to inquire into the how, or the mode of their production; any more than to suppose that miracles cast a slur upon the settled order of nature, as if it needed repair; for nature is perfect for her own ends, and miracles are introduced for other and higher purposes.

To say a miracle is impossible, is only to say it is so to man, but not to God, unless He has willingly surrendered His lordship over His works, or they have escaped from His hands. But to say there are no transcendental beginnings or interpositions anywhere (Spinoza), or that there are no "modifications in the existing conditions of material agents, unless through the invariable operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences, following in some necessary chain of orderly connection" (Baden Powell), is equivalent to asserting development in nature through the agency of physical laws alone, apart from an original Creator and an everlasting Lord; or, at least, excludes His divine will and action beyond the inflexible maintenance of ordinary operations. So far as this maintains the invariable sequence of causes and effects, and the uninterrupted order of physical events, it is true. Revelation, the

Bible, in appealing to miracles supposes the ordinary course of physical phenomena, the constancy of natural sequences, to be inviolable. But such physical observation does not demonstrate that the Scriptures relate impossibilities; to do so, science must pass beyond its sphere. To say that certain things are, does not warrant the conclusion and belief, that therefore other things cannot be. If we can detect nowhere in nature a provision made for producing miracles, that does not prove that nature teaches the belief in miracles to be absurd. Even in nature there is something analogous to miracles, in the distinct worlds, or orders of things, e.g., the unbridged gulf between rocks and plants, and between plants and animals, so that, as Hegel says, "an animal is a miracle for the vegetable world;" and we may likewise contrast the animal instinct and its adaptive understanding, with the mind of man and its reason and moral

consciousness. Even Aristotle held that man's reason is distinct from the brutes, and has no affinity with his own physical frame, but comes from without and must be divine. And if we confine the contrast to men, what law of development will account for a resplendent genius now and then flashing on the world? Physical science must change its name and function, and become metaphysical, to utter a universal dictum, such as that miracles are impossible. And yet science attempts this when it devises a theory of the universe which excludes the abiding control of the personal God, and His almighty will. Positivism does the same, when it assumes that natural laws have not originated in, or are not administered by Personal will. If all nature excludes voluntary control, and is subject only to an iron rule of invariable succession, then man also is incapable of control from himself or from a Supreme will. Thus, the assailant of miracles threatens to destroy all ideas of freedom and moral responsibility.

But setting aside all these assumptions, science really presents no antecedent grounds for rejecting miracles; and if we allow the fact of the distinction between things physical and moral, the higher nature and personality of man, the personal existence of God, and His moral rule, and the vicinity of invisible realms, immediately the presumed impossibility of miracles, wrought by the Divine will for man's moral welfare, melts away. Brown, quoted by Mill, says, "A miracle is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that cause, if present, there can be no doubt, and the only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the miracle, is the improbability that any such cause existed."-Then, some argue that miracles are immensely improbable. Hume's ingenious argument (previously indicated by South and Sherlock) has been persistently used, that miracles are contrary to human experience, that no amount of testimony is sufficient to establish them, and that it is far more likely men should be deceived or mistaken, than that miracles could ever take place. Of course, from their very nature and purpose, they are contrary to common experience! But not so to all,

for some have testified to them. And to measure probabilities, we must look at the circumstances. If the alleged miracle be without purpose, or for a secular or party end in connection with long cherished beliefs, we have good reason to say "there must be a mistake somewhere." But the gospel miracles are exceptional incidents, accomplished under exceptional circumstances. They produce no disturbance of nature, no throwing

things in the physical world out of gear. They are avowedly wrought for purposes of the highest order; they bear on the noblest destinies of humanity, and link themselves with the principles of natural religion, with the being and sway of the mighty, wise, and gracious God, with our conscience and responsibility and with the future existence of the soul. Natural religion suggests the desirableness of revealed religion, and revealed religion implies supernatural interposition. As science indicates epochs of the energising power of nature, so the Bible records epochs of an energising power above nature. Physical wonders are in company with spiritual ones, ie., in the soul-world, of which sensible things are the types and shadows. In other words, miracles occur in connection with inspiration, and whilst marvels startle the eye, new truths or new applications of truth are addressed to the mind. Now the Lord Jesus Christ being presented to us as exceptional in His personsupernatural, the Son of God-in His moral character, and by the purpose of His mission, it is only in keeping with all this that signs and wonders attended His earthly career, showing whence He came, and illustrating what He came to do. If Christianity be the revelation of God's redeeming love, it involves a miracle in history by the Divine manifestation, and a corresponding miracle in nature by a Divine birth. So miracles are recorded as things to be expected in the wake of such a personage as the Son of God; they follow as the fitting and humble retinue of Him who walked the earth its undisputed Master.

The historical proof of miracles has of late been comparatively little impugned, namely (1.) the concessions of the Jews in their talmudical writings, (2.) the admissions of heathens such as Celsus, Porphery, Julian, (3.) the affirmations of Christians. We must accept the New Testament witnesses as competent and satisfactory, or believe either that they were dishonest men intending to deceive, or were duped by their own or other people's fancies, or partly both, as Renan thinks. Now, there are no other witnesses for the resurrection of Christ but these; and so far from their being men to snatch at anything and weave a web of wonders, they were slow to believe, not only what the prophets had written, but what Jesus told them; and some of them would not believe it even though their fellows had seen the risen Christ; as to the women, they came to anoint a buried, not to hail a risen Jesus. Burdened with doubts, fears, and unbelief, as they were, and desiring demonstrative evidence, but finally convinced, and staking their all upon that conviction, surely all this places them above suspicion of fraud or of being deceived. Both this resurrection and that

of Lazarus were such "sensible facts" as to compel the persuasion of their miraculous nature. When B. Powell says, "testimony can only apply to sensible facts, and can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence, or phenomenon; that it is due to supernatural causes, is entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumption of the parties" he could only mean, phenomena are immediately apprehensible; the cause is not so. But the event may be of such a nature as to preclude a natural solution, and to compel the witness to believe that the cause is supernatural; though this conviction implies the "previous belief" of the existence and action of God in nature. This is reasonable, rather than to say it is "inexplicable," through a persistence in denying everything supernatural. These miracles are "subordinated to a wise plan and design in the Divine mind, under which they have been kept near to nature, just diverging enough for the purpose, and no more;" and "it needs but an unprejudiced and searching investigation of nature to perceive, that the miracles related are anything but absurd, and a comparison of them with the legends or so-called miracles of other religions, to recognise what a different spirit dwells in them” (Mozley),

Miracles form a part of Christianity; they are not "external buttresses, but concurrent with other proofs, pillars identical with the inner structure. They really run into the lines of New Testament teaching from end to end; they cannot be torn from the life of Christ; His nature, character, teaching, wonders, constitute an unparalleled spiritual unity. "The facts of Christianity form part of its essential doctrine; the fact of the resurrection is the cardinal doctrine; the doctrine of the incarnation is the fundamental fact; the most momentous truths of Christianity are its actual realities, founded upon an historical basis, interwoven with transactions and events which rest upon the evidence of sense (Archd. Lee). Miracles are reasonable attestations of a Divine commission, as his credentials are to an ambassador; so our Lord appeals to them, "they bear witness. of me, that the Father hath sent me." It may be said they do not enforce a train of argument, nor establish any moral or religious proposition; no physical demonstration can ever link itself on to a spiritual truth, because the two things belong to totally different spheres. It is enough to answer, the exact point touched by miraculous evidence is the office sustained and the commission borne by a person: "My works bear witness of me," says Jesus; "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by Him." The evidential force bears on the person, on

Christ himself, the sent of God; and this frees them from any objection to their competency to serve as direct proofs of spritual truths; they afford a basis for the enunciation of a Divine message, a mandate of the Divine will, e.g., the miracles of Moses afford evidence of his Divine legation, those of Jesus of His Divine Messiahship. He claimed a right to speak as one who had power to command men that they should obey. Miracles are thus related to spiritual truth, which yet commends itself to men's consciences, and when believed, vindicates the wisdom of such belief by its effect on their lives.-With what Christ did, is ever associated His matchless character and life, and matchless teaching. He who appeals to His own mighty works, appeals also to His own self-evidencing words, and to their power over the moral dispositions of His disciples. At the present time Christianity establishes its claims by the new spiritual creation which it effects in its sincere disciples. Consider Christianity as a present fact, as a moral spiritual power in the world; then examine its principles, and trace its achievements to the beginning, to bring out the evidential worth of Christ's miracles as a crown on the head of other proofs. They now prove the superhuman character of Jesus, just as the recorded acts of Julius Cæsar or of Alexander the Great prove their genius and prowess. They promote the acceptance of Christian truths by their illustrative force, their beneficent tendency, their ethical significance,-by their saving the body they pointed to the salvation of the soul. They serve to reveal His person as Divine Creator, being veritable victories over nature, and symbolical of the great victory of redemption.

ART. IV.-NOTES ON EPHESIANS.

Chap. V., vers. 1, 2. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.

The exhortation in these verses follows up and enforces what goes before. The apostle had just referred to the forgiveness which God for Christ's sake has bestowed upon us, and " therefore," that is, on account of the forgiveness which we have obtained, he presses the obligation to become "followers," or imitators, of God in this "forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.' And we are thus to become followers or imitators of God, as "dear" or beloved

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