receive as genuine, without sufficient scrutiny, a worthless imitation of the predicted coin. So in the case of miracles. If God has wrought sundry miracles in past times, or if he has authorized us by a secret bias of our spirtual nature to expect them, the hasty assent given by multitudes to pretended miracles is explicable-but not otherwise. Hence this indiscreet assent does really establish a presumption in favor of the occurrence of miracles in the course of human history, while at the same time the acknowledged presence of counterfeits in that history, warns us to scrutinize keenly the claims of any event to a miraculous character. "The propensity of men," remarks Dr. Channing, "to believe in what is strange and miraculous, though a presumption against particular miracles, is not a presumption against miracles universally, but rather the reverse; for great principles of human nature have generally a foundation in truth and one explanation of this propensity so common to mankind is obviously this, that in the earlier ages of the human race, miraculous interpositions, suited to man's infant state, were not uncommon, and, being the most striking facts of human history, they spread through all future times a belief and expectation of miracles.”* The currency of false miracles, we repeat, shows that mankind. have been favored, or may justly expect to be favored, with true ones, while it admonishes them to beware of deception in this matter.

II. Of the countless millions of events which have taken their place in the world's history at any moment since the creation, all, with the rarest exceptions, have been confessedly due to natural causes, and it may therefore be safely inferred that the few events considered exceptional were either illusions, or were due to such causes. "The entire range of the inductive philosophy," says Baden Powell, " is at once based upon, and every instance tends to confirm by immense accumulation of evidence, the grand truth of the universal order and constancy of natural causes as a primary law of belief;

*Dudleian Lecture at Cambridge, Works, Vol. III., p. 109, sq. This discourse abounds in valuable thoughts.

so strongly entertained and fixed in the mind of every truly inductive inquirer, that he can hardly even conceive the possibility of its failure."*

If the premise of this argument merely signifies that few events in the world's history have been strictly miraculous, we are ready to adopt it. Our definition of a miracle, as an event which may and must be ascribed to extraordinary divine action, implies this. But we do not find in such a statement any basis for the conclusion. The fact that few events, if any, are miraculous, no more proves that none are miraculous, than the fact that few mountains are volcanoes proves that none are volcanoes. The nature of the proof is the same in both cases; the degree of it is higher in the former instance than in the latter.

Besides, one of the chief ends for which miracles are affirmed to have been wrought, namely, to authenticate a special revelation from God, seems to forbid their indefinite multiplication. Customary events are not the fittest credentials for an extraordinary messenger; and it has been urged with much ingenuity, that miracles would lose their distinctive character and their evidential force if they were to be wrought regularly and often. They would certainly lose in a great measure their power to excite general attention, and so also their practical value in attesting the claims of a messenger from God. Hence, if the chief end to be accomplished by miracles is borne in mind, it will appear that their infrequency, as compared with natural events, does not by itself establish the slightest presumption against their occurrence at certain crises in the history of mankind.

But if the statement that all events, with the rarest exceptions, are due to the operation of natural causes, signifies that they occur independently of any power acting from without and above the laws of matter and necessary causation, we do not accept the statement as true. For within certain narrow limits man himself is free, and has power to act upon the forces and sequences of material nature to disturb them, to resist them, to combine them,

* Recent Inquiries in Theology, p. 122, sq.

to guide them, to reinforce them; and hence his action is somewhat akin to the miraculous action of God: it is the working of a free power upon the blind forces of nature; a power which is able by controlling, by supplementing, or by overpowering them, to carry into effect its own purpose. And if we bear in mind the great number of events which are not determined by the laws of nature, as just explained, but are due to the agency of man, the foundation of the argument before us becomes unstable, and the structure built upon it falls. For though it may still be granted that a vast majority of events do take place according to the laws of nature, it is nevertheless certain that innumerable events are determined by the free agency of man, and so the inference against miracles falls to the ground.*

III. The laws of nature are divine, and therefore inviolable. For God to disturb them, is for him to repudiate his own work, and silence the voice of his own revelation. In the language of Goethe: "An audible voice from heaven could not convince me that water burns; I rather hold this to be blasphemy against the great God and his revelation in nature." This objection is urged with strong confidence by certain rationalists, and may be deemed their principal argument against miracles. It will therefore be proper for us to scan it closely, and see if it is at all decisive. The expression, "laws of nature," is ambiguous, and needs to be defined. The term "laws" may be taken, in this connection, to signify the regular successions of cause and effect, or antecedent and consequent, which obtain in the universe; and the term "nature" may be taken to signify all created being. Nature is said to be everywhere and always constant in her operations; the same causes producing uniformly the same effects. To set aside a law of nature is then, we are assured, to sever the tie between cause and effect, and disturb the order of the universe. This is an act which God cannot be supposed in any circumstances

* See Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, ch. iii, ix, xi, and Nitzsch, Studien und Kritiken, 1843.

to perform. By so doing he would condemn his own works and proclaim his own imperfection.

This objection, we remark, in the first place, assumes the competency of human reason to determine what sort of a creation is worthy of God; for it virtually asserts that any creation worthy of him must issue from his hand so perfect in all its forces and adjustments as to render any subsequent interposition needless. The originating act must be first and final, inserting powers and establishing ordinances which cannot be moved. The Allwise, having cut short his work, must henceforth hold himself aloof from his own creation, or enter it secretly through the channels of rigid law. A universe so constituted as to welcome, now and then, a fresh impulse from the divine hand, a new display of sovereign power, proving to the awed spirits of men that God is more than a principle of order or causation, or development; that He is a holy and loving Father, greater even than the temple of nature such a universe, we say, is vilified by this objection as imperfect and morally impossible. For what else can be meant by declaring the assertion of a miracle to be " blasphemy against the great God and his revelation in nature?" The assumption respecting the power of human reason which underlies the objection, is an ample refutation of it. For how weak is our reason in its best estate! dim our spiritual vision because of sin! The idea of man pronouncing an a priori judgment on plans of creation and providence is preposterous. It is enough for him to discover and adore the wisdom of God as actually manifested, without pretending to limit the action of Jehovah to particular modes and channels.*

How

Compare the remarks of Professor Rothe (Studien und Kritiken, 1858, p. 40), on another point: "To deny the possibility of recognizing with certainty, in one case, any event as a miracle, because this would presuppose an absolutely perfect knowledge of nature, which no man can claim, is also characteristic. For from the bearing of those men, who urge this point with so much pathos one must certainly conclude that the possibility denied by them exists. How otherwise could they, with such assurance, absolutely deny the reality of many miracles related in the Bible, a denial which, upon their stand-point, presupposes in them an absolute certainty that those accounts describe supernatural

events?"

It should, however, be clearly understood, in the second place, that to affirm the occurrence of "events which may and must be ascribed to extraordinary Divine action," is by no means to affirm that events have taken place which were not included in the eternal purpose of God and provided for in the make of the universe. To suppose them an afterthought would be to impeach his omniscience; to suppose them arbitrary, or not grounded in reason, would be to question his wisdom; to suppose them lawless or irregular, that is, now wrought and then omitted in circumstances exactly alike, would be to charge him with caprice; but the Christian Doctrine of Miracles is burdened with no such hypothesis. It assigns to these events a place in the eternal plan and infinite reason of God, and believes them to occur in the exact line of spiritual order. "The laws of God's supernatural agency," says Dr. Bushnell, "are laws of reason, or such as respect his last end, and the best way of compassing that end; which laws are yet so stable and so universal, that he will always do exactly the same things in exactly the same circumstances or conditions.”* Nor is it going too far to say that no one has shown this view to be erroneous. Deniers of miracles have for the most part part ignored the Christian doctrine on this point, or else have assumed its falsehood as a postulate.

It should also be observed, in the third place, that miracles do not sever the relation between cause and effect, and thus violate, in any proper sense of the word, the essential order of nature. They do suppose the action of a cause out of nature and able to direct, re-enforce, or neutralize her powers; but they do not involve anything derogatory to those powers. They are beside nature and above nature, but not contrary to nature. This distinction, as old as Augustine, is not without force and propriety, when properly understood. It means that miracles are at least in perfect harmony with the structure, the idea, and the end of creation. It means that inor

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* Nature and the Supernatural," p. 340. For remarks against this distinction, see Wardlaw on Miracles,” ģiv. p. 33, sq. His discussion of the point is ingenious and instructive, but not quite satisfactory.