tihvavy of t:he trheclo^ical ^eminarjp PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY From the Library of Professor Benjamin Breckinridge VJarfield Bequeated by him to the LibraiSy UTayj-f^^'^- EIGHT LECTURES ON MIRACLES r EIGHT V LECTURES ON MIRACLES f d& i^. /d. i C[a _r'f--cC.< ^ PREACHED BEFORE /i ^ y * x jfi. C r//^ UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THE YEAR M.DCCC.LXV ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A. CANON OF SALISBURY By J. B. MOZLEY, D.D. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD THIRD EDITION NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, WELFORD & CO. 1872 Dei Voluntas rcrum natura est. — St. Augustine. Miracles well attested do not only find credit themselves, but give it also to other truths, which need such confirmation. — Locke. The miracle, by displaying phenomena out of the ordinary connexion of cause and effect, manifests the appearance of a higher power, and points out a higher connexion , in whicli even the chain of phenomena in tlie visible world must be taken up. — Ncander. EXTRACT FEOM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE Eev. JOHN BAMPTON CANON OF SALISBURY " I give and bequeatli my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, " Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have " and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, " and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to " say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University " of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, "issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and " necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the " endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for " ever in the said University, and to be performed in the manner " followdng : " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter. Term, " a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by " no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between " the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach " eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's " in Oxford, bet^veen the commencement of the last month in Lent " Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Ser- " mons shall be preached upon either of the following subjects — to con- " firm and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and " schismatics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — " upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to " the faith and practice of the primitive Church— upon the Divinity vi Extract frovt Canon B amp tons Will " of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the " Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as conipre- " hended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture " Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are " preached ; and one copy shall be <,'iven to the C!liancellor of the " University, and one cojiy to the Head of every College, and one " copy to the ^layor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put " into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing them shall " be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for estab- " lishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not " be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to " preach the Divinity Lecture Sennons, unless he hath taken the " degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of " Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never preach " the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION THE difficulty which attaches to Miracles, in the period of thought through which we are now passing, is one which is concerned not with their evidence, but with their intrinsic credibility. There has risen in a certain class of minds an apparent perception of the impossibility of sus- pensions of physical law. This is one peculiarity of the present time: another is a disposition to maintain the dis- belief of miracles upon a religious basis, and in connexion with a declared belief in the Christian revelation. The following Lectures, therefore, are addressed mainly to the fundamental question of the credibility of Miracles; their use, and the evidences of them, being only touched on subordinately and collaterally. It was thought that such an aim, though in itself a narrow and confined one, was most adapted to the particular need of the day. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION' THE recent movement of thought in the direction of physical explanation of the Gospel miracles or the reference of them to unknown laws of nature, has exhibited more of philosophical senti- ment than philosophical discrimination. The movement has origin- ated ill a msh to meet scientific objections to miracles as isolated and anomalous facts ; and the aim has been to reconcile miracles, or to shew that we have a right to expect and look forward to their reconciliation, with the claims of science. With this aim it was necessary that when writers spoke of the possibility of miracles being reconciled with the laws of nature, they should distinctly understand that they meant a reconciliation with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, — those laws which scientific men mean when they use this phrase. Unless there is a clear understanding on this point the whole labour of such an enquiry is thrown away. For how could the objections of physical science be met by even proving ever so clearly the possilale consistency of miracles with natural law in a different sense from that in which physical science understands it ? But though it was so necessary that those who aimed at some reconcilia- tion of miracles with the laws of nature, in order to meet the objections of science, should keep the scientific sense of natural law distinctly in their minds, tliis has not been done ; but the expression "law of nature" has been constantly used without any accurate or distinct meaning, and the result has been a considerable waste of speculating power. There has been the feeling that something must be done on this head, a general desire to satisfy scientific tests, and a disposition to give a guarantee that mii-acles if accepted shall only be accepted as in some way or other coming under natural law, and being instances of it. But when this wish came to reason ; when it came to deal with the question how this reduction of miracles to natural law was to be made out, there was a large interval between the desire felt, and the argumentative satisfaction of it ; and the speculative- aim issued in much confusion and obscurity. ^ This preface includes the matter of some Notes of the First Edition, Preface to Second Editio7i Different naturalizing rationales of miracles have indeed from time to time been put forward by philosophers who have endeavoured to shew that it is not necessary to regard miracles as absolutely in-egular events ; and have for that purpose framed suppositions ujDon which, assumed to be tnie, miracles would belong to a system and would be instances of law. But when we examine these naturalizing hypotheses, and the asjiect in which they exhibit miracles, we do not find that miracles are under them naturalized physically, or reduced, any more than they were before, to natural law in the scientific sense. 1. We may count as a natiu-alizing rationale of miracles that defensive aspect taken of them as no violations of the laws of the Universe, and as in this sense no violations of the laws of Nature. Spinoza's position is that " nothing which takes place in nature can be contrary to the universal laws of nature." This defence accepts Spinoza's position, and applies it to the purpose of shewing that miracles are in a certain sense natural. The power which suspends a law of nature is just as natural in the Universe, as the law which is suspended. There is therefore no such a thing as a miracle in or with relation to the Universe ; one event is as natural as another. 2. Butler has proposed a naturalizing rationale of miracles which consists in the imaginary supposition that there may be miraculous dispensations going on in other parts of the Universe besides our own, and that therefore to an intelligent being who was made acquainted with these extraordinary Divine acts in other worlds, the miraculous proceedings in this world would present themselves as belonging to a class of events, or to an order of nature. " The only distinct meaning of that word [natural] is stated, fixed, or settled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from hence it must follow that persons' notion of what is natural will be enlarged in pro- portion to their greater knowledge of the works of God and the dis- pensations of His providence. Nor is there any absurdity in suppos- ing that there may be beings in the Universe whose capacities, and knowledge, and views may be so extensive, as that the whole Christian disjjensation may to them ajipear natural, i.e. analogous or conform- able to God's dealings with other parts of His creation ; as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us. For there seems scarce any other possible sense to be put upon the word, but that only in which it is here used ; similar, stated, or uniform."^ ^ Analogy, pt. i. ch. IL Preface to Second Edition xi 3. Mr. Babbage has suggested that a miracle may, for anything we know, be the result of the same original law of creation of which nature itself is ; the same mechanism which produces the order of nature, producing also the exception to it. And he has illustrated this conception by the analogy of a calculating engine, which produces by the same adjustment a regular succession of numbers, and then an exceptional insulated number, after which it takes up again the old succession.^ Here, then, are three naturalizing rationales of miracles, i.e. which divest miracles in a certain sense of their anomalous and irregular character, and engraft them upon system and order ; — rationales which are servicealjle and valuable as meeting the natural and reasonable desire, inherent in the human mind, for order and law in some sense, as necessarily attaching to all the works of God, and necessarily belonging to everything in the Universe. The human mind rejects total irregularity and eccentricity as an impossibility in the Universe as a whole ; and therefore in the case of any visibly anomalous event, such as a miracle, the human mind is committed to the discovery of some point of view in which the event in question ia not an anomaly but a natural event ; and it is committed to shew that the pomt of view in which such an event is natural is paramount to and takes precedence of that point of view in which it is anomalous. The first position, then, that I have noticed is not a mere conjectural hypothesis, but it effects this object with resjiect to miracles by an argument which, upon the supj^osition of the existence of a personal Deity, is irresistible and incapable of refutation. For if there is a Being in the Universe which can suspend a law of nature, the power which sus- pends the law is evidently just as natural, and is just as much belonging to the Universe as the power which sustains it. Again, Butler's imaginary supposition, though it is no more than imaginary, is still important as shewing the possibilities of the case ; that there may be, for anything we know, certain miraculous dispensations going on in other worlds which would make the miraculous dispensa- tion in this world one of a class or order of events, and in that light natural. Again, Mr. Babbage's hypothesis, by referring a miracle back to the original law of creation which produced the order of nature, naturalizes it in some sense. But though these rationales of mii-acles have for their object the naturalizing of miracles in sovie sense, it is evident when we examine them, that none of them are or profess to be physical explanations of miracles, i.e. reductions of them 1 Ninth Bridgwater Treatise, eh. viii. xii Preface to Second Edition to laws of nature in the scientific sense of that tenn. In no case is the order upon which they engraft miracles, the order of the actual physical world of which we have experience. 1. The first position asserts the supremacy of the higher law of the Divine Power over the subordinate laws of visible nature. The order in which a miracle is inserted then by this position is obviously and by the very terms of the statement a spiritual and invisible order, not a physical or visible one. The same rationale of the naturalness of a miracle is sometimes expressed by another formula, for which we are indebted to Brown, that a miracle is not contrary to the law of cause and effect, but is only an effect jiroduced by the introduction of a new cause. And this formula of Brown's has been put in an amended fonn by some writers, w^ho urge that in a miracle there is no violation or suspension of the laws of nature, which go on but are neutralized or counteracted by a higher law. But it is evident that the naturalness which is gained for a miracle by either of these explanations, is not a naturalness, or a confomiity to the laws of nature, in the scientific sense ; because the point upon which the naturalness of a fact turns in science, is not whether that fact has a cause simply, but whether it has a uniform or constant cause, i.e. whether it has the same antecedent by which it has been invariably attended in other cases. It is nothing to the scientific man to be told that the rolling away of the stone from the door of the sepulchre was in itself a natural fact which could have been effected by human macliinery, and that the cause alone was supernatural ; because the character of the cause or antecedent is the very point of the question in his eye. Had the stone been rolled away by machinery, no fact could have been more natural ; but if it was rolled away without the application of any human force, the fact was then unaccompanied by its ordinary and constant antecedent, and was therefore not a natural fact in the scientific sense. Nor does the amended form of the formula of BrowTi make the slightest difierence on this head. It does not signify in the eye of the man of science how we describe the substitution of another and a difierent antecedent of an event, for its ordinary and regular one ; whether we say that the law of nature was in that case suspended, or continued but Avas neutralized by a higher law ; he looks only to the fact itself of a strange antecedent. Was sight recovered by means of medical treat- ment, or by the restoring force of time ? that was a natural fact, be- cause these are ordinary antecedents of recovery. Was it recovered by the word of a person ? it was then not a natural fact, because it occurred not with its ordinary, but wnth a new and strange antecedent. Preface to Second Edition xiii It is quite true that we see laws of nature any day and any hour neutralized and counteracted in particular cases, and yet do not look upon such counteractions as other than the most natural events : but it must be remembered that, where this is the case, the counteracting agency is as ordinary and constant an antecedent in nature as the agency which it counteracts. The agency of the muscles and the agency of the magnet are as ordinary as the agency of gravitation which they both neutralize. Medicine is as ordinary an agent as the disease which it resists. The action of salt is as constant a cause in nature as the putrefaction which it retards. All these facts then are natural. But where the counteracting power to a law of nature is an unknown power, a power not in nature, then the counteraction or neutralization of a law of nature is not a natural fact, being deprived of its ordinary and constant antecedent, and coupled Math another and a new antecedent. The elevation of a body in the air by the force of an arm, is a counteraction indeed of the law of gravitation, but it is a counteraction of it by another law as natural as that of gravity. The fact therefore is in conformity with the laws of nature. But if the same body is raised in the air without any application of a known force, it is not a fact in conformity with natural law. In all these cases the question is not whether a law of nature has been counter- acted, for that does not constitute a fact contradictory to the laws of nature ; but whether it has been counteracted by another natural law. If it has been, the conditions of science are fulfilled. But if a law of nature has been counteracted by a law out of nature, it is of no pur- l^ose, with a view to naturalize scientifically that counteraction of a law of nature, to say that the law of nature has been going on all the time, and only been neutralized not susjDended or violated. These are mere refinements of language, which do not affect the fact itself, that a new conjunction of antecedent and consequent, wholly unlike the conjunctions in nature, has taken place. The laws of nature have in that instance not worked, and an effect contrary to what would have issued from those laws has been produced. This is ordinarily called a violation or suspension of the laws of nature ; and it seems an unnecessary refinement not to call it such. But whatever name we give to it, the fact is the same ; and the fact is not according to the laws of natiu'e in the scientific sense . 2. The imaginary hypothesis of Bishop Butler is only an ima- ginary one, and therefore it is not one of which physical science can take any cognizance. The claim of physical science is that miracles should be reconciled with the actual order of nature, of which we have xiv Preface to Second Edition experience, not with an imaginary one of which we can only frame the conception. 3. Mr. Babbage's rationale of miracles, which includes the cau&c of the miracle in the original law of creation, leaves, as I shew in Lecture VI., the miraculous /«cf as really miraculous as ever. This hypothesis does not profess to reduce the miracle itself, to alter the type of the fact, to divest it of its apparent eccentricity and re- solve it to similarity with any known classes of facts. It leaves it a real exception to the order of nature, and recognises the isolation and the anomaly as quite real. But such being the case, this hypothesis does not affect the position of a miracle in the eye of physical science, or accommodate it in any way to j^hysical law in the scientific sense. Tliis and the physical explanation of a miracle proceed indeed on Avholly contrarj- grounds. Mr. Babbage explains the miracle as an exception to the order of nature ; the other or physical explanation explains it as not an exception ; i.e. not so in reality, but only in ap- pearance. A meteor when stripped of its simply ocular irregularity as a phenomenon, and explained by science, is only an instance of the order of nature : a miracle is the same after it has gone through a physical explanation ; but a miracle remains an exception to that order, and is explained as such in Mr. Babbage's hypothesis. Let us take, e.jy. the miracles of Christ's Eesurrection and Ascen- sion, as they stand recorded in the Gospels, and suppose thein under the consideration of a physical philosopher who imposes the test of consistency with the laws of nature. Would the objection of such a person to these stuijendous and eccentric facts be met l)y a theory wliich simply pushed back and removed further off their causation, inserting it in the original structure of the machme of nature ? Would the proposed distance of the root and original of these mar- vellous events make any difference to him in his estimate of the facts themselves, and of their astounding and exceptional type ? It could not. His test is a totally different one, which is not affected by any such theory. His criterion is — can these marvellous events be re- ferred ultimately to any known order of facts ? Can they be brought under the head of any actual classes of phenomena which Ave call the laws of nature % If they cannot be, the test of physical science is not met; the /acis remain anomalous, and that is the very thing to which the physical philosopher objects. There are only two modes of reconciling miracles with natural law, in the scientific sense. 1. One is the discovery, could it be imaguied possible, of inter- Preface to Second Edition xv mitting laws of uature under whicli they came ; that is to say, could we imagine that it was found out by observation that miracles, though exceptions, were recurring exceptions, and exceptions which recurred with the same invariable antecedents. Could we suppose, amid the apparent iiTegularity and disorder which marked the occurrence of miracles in the world, that traces of such a law as this could be made out ; and that these excejstions to the order of nature, were, as excep- tions, uniform and regular ; in that case miracles would have been as truly brought under the laws of nature as the regular course of nature is. But the remark is obvious that no such intermitting law of miracles is seen in nature ; and it may be remarked further, that could we imagine such a law in existence, we could only imagine it by imagining also at the same time an alteration of the present order of nature. Such a conception would involve this result. For the re- currence, with whatever intervals, of miracles as, e.g. resurrections from the dead with regularity and uniformity, or with the same in- variable antecedents, would constitute a new order of nature.^ 2. The other mode of reconciling miracles with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, is the construction of some hyjDothesis which, if true, would bring them out of their apparent isolation, strip them of their apparent eccentricity, and reduce them to the head of known classes of facts. This has been done, and is constantly being done, with respect to eccentric natural phenomena. Explanations are con- structed which solve the apparent anomaly and irregularity, and shew how the extraordinary effect maj' have been in reality owing to well- known laws acting under unwonted circumstances. And if the ex- planations are admissible, these eccentric phenomena stand hypothe- tically under the head of natural law. Can the same thing be done then with respect to miracles ? The answer is, that this must depend on what the miracles are. We have the miracles of Scripture before us. We are also in possession of science with its large powers and re- sources for the construction of hypotheses and explanations. Can any scientific hypothesis be constructed which would bring the miracles of Scripture, the greater and more stupendous as well as the lesser ones, under natural law. It must be admitted, that consideriug what ^ The analogy of the arithmetical machine fails with reference to a phy- sical law of miracles, there being no intermitting law of miracles in nature answering to the intermitting law of numbers in the machine. The machine upon the same adjustment, always produces the same exceptional number ; which therefore belongs to the law of the machine. But there is no regularity in the recurrence of miracles corresponding to this regularity in the recurrence of the exceptional number. xvi Preface to Second Edition some of the Scripture miracles are, sucli an expectation is chimerical ; that the nature of the anomalies is such that no scientific hjqjothesis is conceivable which can subjugate them, strip them of physical sin- gularity, and reduce them to natural facts. Does the assemblage of miracles which gathers round our Lord, commencing -with His birth, carried on in His ministry, and terminating in His Resui-rection and Ascension, admit of any conceivable physical solution ? It must be seen that the imjjediment to the reconciliation of miracles with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, arises from the special character of that sense, from the peculiarity of the scientific definition of the laws of nature. The scientific sense of "laws of natiu'e" is a particular restricted sense, it does not go outside of or take in anything but absolute physical facts, regai'ded as uniformly recim'ent, or reciUTing with the same antecedents. Can the miracles of Scripture be reduced to this head '\ Recent reconciling speculation has by an ambiguous use of the term " laws of nature" concealed the point of the question, and prevented persons from seeing what the real problem which they had proposed to themselves was. It must be observed, too, that it is not only the jdiysical occurrence itself which in the case of these miracles has to be reduced to the order of nature, but the physical occurrence as corresponding to and fitting in with a command, an announcement, a whole set of preten- sions on the part of the person who is the agent or the centre of them. Should the question e.r/. ever be raised, whether the miracle of our Lord's Resurrection was a fact ultimately referrible to natm-al law ; the fact about which the question would lie, i.e.. about which we should have to enquire whether it might be idtimately natural or not, would be, not the simple resurrection of a man from the dead, but that re- surrection as coinciding with the whole nature, mission and office of Christ, His whole character, life and ministry, as well as Avith the previous announcements of the event. It is impossible not to see, even when the occurrence itself is of the most marvellous kind, how immensely this correspondence to a notification and adaptation to a whole set of circumstances add to the supematuralness of the miracle, and to its inexplicableness ujjon natural grounds. Because all this points, upon the argument of design or coincidence, to a special interposition of God, as distinguished from unknown physical causa- tion. Those circumstances of a miracle which distinguish it from an isolated marvel are also great evidences of its supernatural character. No physical explanation of it as an isolated marvel is an explanation of those circumstances which distinguish it from a marvel. Indeed, if we consider what a miracle in the religious sense is, that Preface to Second Edition xvii it is in its very nature and design something special, sometliing in apparent contradiction to the order of nature, and that it would not answer all its purposes unless it was ; what reason can there be why- such designed ajoparent exception to pliysical order should be in reality all the time an instance of 2>hysical order? If there is indeed no power in the universe equal to suspending the laws of nature, such a conclusion is wanted ; but if there is — and a miracle in the religious sense assumes such a power — why should there be this reversal of the appearance by the reality? Why should the physical exception follow physical regularity? The special act be a uniformly recurrent act ? What is the meaning of such an appended condition ? And why should a niiraculons interposition of the Deity not only agree with natural law in the universal sense, which in the reason of the case it must do, but also satisfy a particular restricted and technical sense of natural law assigned to the term in physical science? The authority of Bp. Butler has been quoted for the hypothesis of the referribleness of miracles to unknown laws of nature ; but this is a misinterpretation of his meaning, as a reference to his whole argu- ment will shew : — " If the natural and the revealed dispensation of things are both from God, if they coincide with each other and together make up one scheme of Providence; our being incompetent judges of one, must render it credible that we may be incompetent judges also of the other; since upon experience the acknowledged constitution and course of nature is found to be greatly different from what, before experience, we should have expected ; and such as men fancy there lie great objections against: this renders it beforehand highly credible that they may find the revealed dispensation likewise, if they judge of it as they do of the constitution of nature, very different from expectations formed beforehand, and liable in apjDearance to great objections; objections against the scheme itself, and against the degrees and manners of the miraculous interpositions by which it was attested and carried on. . . . " If this miraculous power was indeed given to the world to propa- gate Christianity and attest the truth of it, we might, it seems, have expected, that other sort of persons should have been chosen to be invested with it ; or that these should, at the same time, have been endued with prudence ; or that they should have been continually restrained and directed in the exercise of it : i.e. that God should have miraculously interposed, if at all, in a different manner or higher h xviii Preface to Seco7id Edition defj;ree. But, from the observations made above, it is undeniably evident, that we are not judges in what degrees and manners it were to have been expected He shouhl miraculously interpose ; upon sup- position of His doing it in some degi-ee and manner." {Analogii, Part II. ch. iii.) " The credibility, that the Christian dispensation may have been, all along, carried on by general laws, no less than the course of nature, may require to be more distinctly made out. Consider then, upon what ground it is we say, that the whole common course of nature is carried on according to general fore-ordained laws. We know indeed several of the general laws of matter : and a gi-eat part of the natural behaviour of living agents is reducible to general laws. But we know in a manner nothing, by what laws, storms and tempests, earthquakes, famine, pestilence, become the instruments of destruction to mankhid. And the laws, by which persons born into the world at such a time and place, are of such capacities, geniuses, tempers ; the laws, by which thoughts come into our mind, in a multitude of cases : and by which innimierable things happen, of the gi-eatest influence upon the aflairs and state of the world ; these laws are so wholly unknown to us, that we call the events, which come to pass by them, accidental : though all reasonable men know certainly, that there cannot in reality be any such thing as chance ; and conclude, that the things which have this appearance are the result of general laws, and may be re- duced into them. It is then but an exceeding little way, and in but a very few respects, that we can trace up the natural course of things before us to general laws. And it is only from analogy that we con- clude the whole of it to be capable of being reduced into them ; only from our seeing that part is so. It is from our finding that the course of nature, in some respects and so far, goes on by general laws, that we conclude this of the rest. And if that be a just ground for such a conclusion, it is a just ground also, if not to conclude, yet to appre- hend, to render it supposable and credible, which is sufficient for an- swering objections, that God's miraculous interj^ositions may have 1)een, all along in like manner, by general laws of wisdom. Thus, tliat miraculous powers should be exerted, at such times, upon such occasions, in such degrees and manners, and with regard to such per- sons, rather than others ; that the affairs of the world, being permitted to go on in theii- natural course so far, should, just at such a point, have a new direction given them by miraculous interpositions ; that these interpositions should be exactly in such degrees and respects only ; all this may have been by general laws. These laws are un- known indeed to us ; but no more unknown than the laws from Preface to Second Edition xix whence it is, that some die as soon as they are born, and others live to extreme old age ; that one man is so superior to another in under- standing ; with innumerable more things, which, as Avas before ob- served, we cannot reduce to any laws or rules at all, though it is taken for granted they are as much reducible to general ones as gravitation. Now, if the revealed dispensations of providence and miraculous interpositions be by general laws, as well as God's ordi- nary government in the course of nature, made known by reason and experience, there is no more reason to expect that every exigence as it arises should be provided for by these general laws of miraculous interpositions, than that every exigence in nature should by the general laws of nature ; yet there might be wise and good reasons that miraculous interpositions should be by general laws, and that these laws should not be broken in upon, or deviated from, by other miracles." (Ihid. chap, iv.) Butler, then, is meeting objections to the scheme and evidence of Christianity ; and, among the rest, " objections against the degrees and manners of the miraculous interpositions by which it was attested or carried on." And one answer by which he meets these objections is, that " Christianity is a scheme or constitution imperfectly com- prehended;" and that therefore, in oiir ignorance of the mode in which God's miraculous interpositions have been conducted, there is nothing against the supposition that they have been all along con- ducted by " general laws." Upon which supposition, he observes, the apparent defects in the exercise of these miraculous powers and the objects answered by them may be satisfactorily accounted for ; because " there is no more reason to expect that every exigence as it arises should be provided for by these general laws of miraculous interpositions, than that every exigence in nature should by the general laws of nature." We now come to that point of the argument at which Butler is misapprehended ; i.e. where he is supposed to refer miracles to i;uknown laws of nature, whereas his mention of the laws of nature is for a very different purpose. Having made the supposition of miraculous interpositions being " by general laws of wisdom," although these laws are unknown to ns, he confirms that supposition by a reference to the unknown laws of nature by which we are surrounded on all sides. Our ignorance, he says, of the general laws of miraculous interpositions, is no reason that there may not be such laws ; for we are ignorant of many of the laws of natural phenomena, " storms, tempests, earthquakes, famine, pestilence ; " and yet we are certain that those events do take place in obedience XX Preface to Second Edition to certain laws. The unknown laws of nature are introduced, not as hang the laws by which miracles take place, but as furnishing a parallel to those laws, upon the point of being unknou-n, which is a characteristic common to both. He does not say that the laws by which miracles take place are physical laws as those are by which eartli([uakes and pestilences take place ; but that our ignorance of the physical laws by which earthquakes and pestilences occur is a precedent for our being ignorant of the general laws of wisdom by which miracles occur ; which laws may exist notwithstanding, and have governed those interpositions all along. The common ground is not the identity of the laws under which extraordinary natural phenomena and miraculous interpositions come, but the similaiity of the ignorance of the laws in both cases. Such is the meaning of Butler. The " general laws of miraculous interpositions " and the general laws of nature are two diflerent sets of laws in the argument ; but the one supplies a ground for a supposi- tion respecting the other ; the existence of unknown laws of nature shews the possibility of there being unknown laws of miraculous interpositions. Why, the objector asks, if God has interposed mira- culoiisly, have not these interpositions been more general, and more effectual ? Why have not miraculous corrections been applied more largely to the faults and omissions which are inherent in the opera- tion of the laws of nature, as being general laws, directed to the "eneral as distinguished from private and individual advantage ? The answer of Butler is, that these miraculous intei-jiositions them- selves may, for anything we know, have been all along conducted by general laws ; and thus that the benefit from them may have been limited by the same cause which has limited the benefit of the laws of nature. The phrase, then, " general laws of wisdom," is not a phrase whicli, in Butler's meaning, stands for the laws of nature or points to any physical solution of miracles. The phrase expresses and stands for certain general rules laid do\TO by Providence, so to speak, for its own guidance ; according to which rules " miraculous powers are exerted at such times, upon such occasions, in such degrees and manners," &c.; which general rules Providence observes, although on particular occasions partial advantages might follow from the infrac- tion of them ; the partial disadvantages of such rules, and their failure to provide for " every exigence," being the very condition of their general benefit. And thus understood, the supposition that " God's miraculous interpositions may have been all along by general laws of wisdom," would substantially mean that there was an in- Pi^eface to Second Editio7i xxi herent limit in the nature of things to the utility of miracles, bej'ond which they would produce injury and disadvantage ; the general bad result of the excess being greater than the particular benefit of it ; which intrinsic limit was necessarily observed by the Autlior of Nature, who conducted these interpositions in agreement with, these intrinsic reasons, and by rules which coincided with them. The hypothesis of unknown physical law, then, cannot meet the miracles of Scripture as they stand : and in order to ajiply such an explanation \Wth any success, it is necessary that a previous step should have been taken with resjaect to the miraculous facts them- selves. This whole hypothesis in truth supposes, for its own feasibility, the previous application of a rationalistic criticism to the Gosjjel history ; it supposes a prior reduction of the type of the miraculous facts recorded in it, so as to accommodate them to the proposed explanation, and make them proper subjects of a scientific solution. In order to be open to such treatment in the first instance, the material must have been prepared by criticism; in which case it entii'ely depends on the extent to which such criticism goes, what the material is which is finally dealt with, and what facilities it affords for such treatment. This hypothesis means, in short, a scientific explanation of some extraordinary events which may be supposed to have been the original of the Gospel history. Such an original is, in the minds of those who entertain it, of vague and indefinite composition ; but so long as the imagination secures a type of fact which, however vague, is subject-matter of scientific explanation, there is a ground made for a scientific explanation to enter upon and occupy. The preparation, however, of the material is necessary in the first instance ; the critical idea is virtually the dominant one in this whole hypo- thesis of unkno-\vn law ; the mind has, consciously or imconsciously, adopted it, allowed it to play its part, and given it authority to deal with the facts, before that hypothesis is applied. The real instrument of reduction to law which is emjiloyed in this hypothesis is therefore criticism. One view of historical evidence opens the road most effectually to a scientific explanation of Gospel facts ; another view closes it. For if those miracles really took place as they are recorded, no hypothesis can bridge over the chasm between them and j^hysical law in the scientific sense. In the theological sense of natural law, which includes the invisible laws of Divine power, all the miracles of Scripture are instances of natural law ; but the idea of reconciling them with the natural law of science is cliimerical, unless with the previous aid of rationalistic criticism. PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION IT must be observed that the controversy respecting miracles tends to a stationary point, at which each side sees what its real pre- mises are, and sees that it is separated from the other by a difference of first principles. This has perhaps been the case in the recent discus- sion of this question. In the first \Aace, those arguments which profess to settle the question of miracles by a kind of mathematical method, deciding against their possibility by general formulas, may be said to be abandoned by men of philosophy and science. Thus we cannot read Spinoza's professed demonstration against miracles without being struck with the sort of antic^uated and obsolete character which it carries upon the very surface of it. Nor has a recent attempt, which is noticed in these Lectures, to settle the question by a quasi-mathe- matical proof been supported by men of science. - The more the human mind has gone into this question, the more it has seen reason to put aside all d lyriori ground against miracles as wholly inadequate, and to consider that the only question which has to be decided on this subject, and which seriously demands our attention, is the question of evidence — whether certain alleged miracles have taken place or not. But when, having put the sj)eculative class of arguments against miracles aside, we go to the practical question of evidence, we find our- selves here again, before long, coming to a standstill in controversy, because it soon appears that the two sides have no conmion criterion of good evidence and bad : that what is strong evidence to one man is weak to another ; what is sufficient to one is defective to another. And, what is especially to the purpose, this diff'erence does not arise merely from a diflerent estimate of witnesses and external data ; which is an accidental variation, depending on a fluctuating individual judg- ment : but it arises from a deeper and more settled cause, in the funda- mental principles and assumjations of the two sides ; their respective preKminary premises and inward convictions. We may note it as a law xxiv Preface to Third Edition of evidence, that our estimate of the evidences of any foct necessarily varies according to the greater or less antecedent probability which we attach to the fact. We see this very clearly when the antecedent probability is of the kind which arises from ordinary experience : we accept, without any hesitation, the evidence of any one we meet upon a common every-day fact ; while the very same evidence, if brought in support of an extraordinary fact, would not satisfy us, and we should accept it, if we did, with diliiculty. That is to say : antecedent probability makes sound, and the want of it makes weak evidence. The truth is, no one is ever convinced by external evidence only ; there must be a certain probability in the fact itself, or a certain admissibility in it, which must join on to the external evidence for it, in order for that evidence to produce conviction. Nor is it any fault in external evidence that it should lie so ; but it is an intrinsic and inherent defect in it, because in its very nature it is only one part of evidence which needs to be supplemented by another, or a priori premiss existing in our minds. Antecedent probability is the rational complement of external evidence ; a law of evidence unites the two ; and they cannot practieallj' be separated. I have spoken of the antecedent probability which is founded upon ordinary sensible experience. But there is an antecedent probability also which is formed not by common sensible experience but by original ideas, instinctive impressions, and fundamental convictions of the mind. Such are the principles of natural religion, which is the name we give to certain moral and religious assumptions, which form the groundwork upon which some proceed in all considerations of evidence; but which are not embraced and adopted by all minds. These inward premises affect the whole idea of God in the human mind, and with it the whole view of miracles, their place in the scheme of Providence, their use, and their probability. /There are two ideas of the Divine Being which spring respectively from two sets of first principles — one of which gathers around conscience, the other round a physical centre. There is the idea of God as the Supreme Mundane Being, the Impersonation of the causes which are at work in the development and completion of the visible world ; who looks — not from heaven — with calm satisfaction upon the suc- cessful expansion of the original seed of this vast material organism — the Universal Spectator of the fabric of Nature, the growth of art, and the progress of civilization. And there is the idea of Him as Moral Ciovernor and Judge expressed in the majestic language of Inspiration, which proclaims the " High and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy : keeping mercy for thousands, for- Preface to Third Edition xxv giving iniqiiity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." It must make all the difference in our notion of miracles, 'and in the antecedent probability with which the evidence of miracles is accompanied, whether we entertain one of these ideas of God or the other. If we entertain the former, there is nothing for miracles to do, they have no place in the system of things according to our conception of it, they are wholly foreign and alien facts, incon- gruous, discordant, and unmeaning. If we entertain the latter, there is a reason for them : they have a natural place in the whole scheme of things, as we conceive it ; especially they have a use, as a guarantee to a revelation, should it please God to make known to us anything in His spiritual relations to us, which we do not know by oiu- natural reason. 'The antecedent probability then arising from this inward source has the same effect regarding external evidence, in giving greater admissibility to it, that the antecedent probability of sensible experi- ence has. It is true they are probabilities arising upon wholly dif- ferent ground, and they may be called probabilities of different kinds; but each of them is probability, and as such this consequence attaches to each of them alike, viz. that of affecting the strength of external evidence. The same evidence must appear very different to us, be measured differently, and have a more or less persuasive power, according as its subject-matter has this inward ground of probability attaching to it or not. And this must apply to the evidences of the miracles which are the credentials of the Gospel dispensation. Accord- ing to our conception of the system of providence, and the place which miracles have in that system, their use and their probability, a difference must arise in the value of the historical evidence of those miracles. Nor is this a difference of imagination, but of reason; because, as has been said, it is a very law of evidence, that external evidence must be supplemented by antecedent probability. External or historical evidence has an intrinsic defect in it, for the purpose of full j)ersuasion standing alone, without this internal auxiliary, because evidence is, by its very nature, a double thing, in which an outer part has its complement in an inner, and both together make the whole thing. Antecedent probability is a constitutional element of evidence, and external testimony has reasonably a different weight, according as it comes to us with or without it. ' From this evidential law it is plain that those who, upon the assumption of certain principles, reject the evidence of the Gospel miracles, may, upon that assumption, be reasonable in that rejection ; and yet that those who, upon the assumption of other principles, xxvi Preface to Third Edition accept the evidence of the Gospel miracles may upon that assump- tion be quite reasonable in that acceptance. What is inadequate evi- dence to those who hold no belief in any power equal to produce miracles, or in any jjurpose to which they would apply, may be ade- quate, and reasonably adequate, to those who proceed upon a belief in both of these points. These two schools of minds live indeed in diti'erent universes ; and what has or has not, in their eyes, a natural place in the universe, must depend upon what conception of the imiverse they entertain. As has been observed elsewhere — " The primary ideas and sentiments which constitute natural religion are a legitimate basis for the mind to proceed upon in its estimate of the proof of revelation ; they correspond to the principles in special departments of knowledge, which enable those who are acquainted with those dei^artments to judge of evidence on matters belonging to them ; only with this difference, that the principles of science ultimately compel universal reception ; the moral set of principles does not. But this distinction does not interfere with the right of assertion, as regards those principles, on the part of those who have them ; they have a right to assert as truth what is irre- sistibly true to themselves and which others cannot disjirove. Those Avho find tliese original convictions in them, have a right to appeal to them as their starting-points and their reasoning base. They cannot of course appeal to their o^\^l original belief as binding others, but they can appeal to it as the full justification of themselves, and of that favourable attitude towards revelation which may be drawn from it. Such a primary belief is, therefore, a strictly philosophical premiss, for the purpose for which it is used. Were it used indeed for the purpose of 2:)roving revelation to those in whom the belief does not exist, no premiss could be more unphilosophical : l)Ut it is not used for this purjiose ; it is only used for tlie purpose of recommending revelation to ourselves, and to others who have the same primary belief with ourselves, and for this purpose it is a philo- sophical premiss." {Quarterly Review, July 1870.) Dr. Newman has drawn attention, in his Grammar of Assent, to this property of the antecedent ground, among the principles of evidence ; adding to his forcible explanation of it, the valuable rule and memento, that the real argumentative weight of antecedent pre- mises must lie in those premises as they actually exist in the individual's mind, and not as they are presented in propositions. This is very obvious when it is stated, and yet it requires to be stated, or the truth will not occur to us. Men of philosophical pre- tensions, who, upon their own premises, reject the evidences of revela- tion, thmk they can completely understand and grasj) the antecedent premises of believers, because these are expressed in intelligible pro- Preface to Third Edition xxvii positions ; and they infer tliat, understanding tliem, they can decide conclusively upon the inadequacy of them. But these persons are labouring under a mistake all the time in supposing that they do know Avhat these premises really are. They are what they are in the minds of those who hold them. But they do not know what that is ; nor therefore do they know their depth, their force, their stringency, the weight they carry with them in the balance of reason, as they exist in the individual's mind. They are at liberty then to speak for themselves, and to say, that they are obliged, upon thdr ante- cedent premises, to reject the evidences of revelation ; but they cannot say that it is unreasonable in others to accept them upon ilidrs ; because, in truth, they do not know theirs ; they know them in words and phrases, but they do not know them as they really exist in life and fact. Take, e.g., to quote from the same quarter again — the sense of sin. " This is a knowledge which those who possess it start with as an advantage in the estimate of the Christian revelation : i.e. they have a right to say that they do. It is not knowledge in a scientific sense, but it is knowledge in such a sense as that those who have it are in- stinctively assured that they are in possession of some truth, and are influenced by it in their judgment of Revelation and its proof. It is knowledge, so far as it is a kind of insight, partial but real as far as it goes, into the nature of sometliing, in which we are fundamentally concerned, and on which God's deahngs with us in Revelation pro- fess to hinge. It corresponds, in its place and results, to a principle of knowledge in some special department. It is impossible not to see what a strong root of Christian conviction and belief, what an in- troduction to the Christian dispensation, this sense of sin in the mind of St. Paul was. St. Paul filled two remarkable places ; he was at once the first philosophical teacher of (/hristianity, and the first great convert of promulgated Christianity, What is the most conspicuous premiss, then, which we observe working in his mind, to beget his belief in the Christian dispensation, and assure him of its being a real authentic revelation from God ? We see it in the ejjistles which suc- ceeded his conversion. It is the sense of sin. The apprehension of the tremendous, mysterious fact of sin, pervades all his epistles, as the great preliminary to the acceptance of the Gospel. It was an assurance in his mind, which was of the nature of a profound know- ledge, answering to the accurate acquaintance with some truth in some special department. Could any human being have persuaded St. Paul that he knew no more about sin than Gallio or Herod, and that he and the Sadducee Ananias stood exactly on the same level upon this article of knowledge 1 He felt he had a knowledge of this subject which other people had not. This formed the basis of the Christianity which he preached and propagated ; and if he persuaded xxvlii Preface to Third Ediiioii himself by the same arguments by which he persuaded others, it was the Ijasis of his own conversion to Christianity." — Quarterlij lievieiv, July 1870. The logical position therefore of the Christian and infidel toward each other is this : one of the parties taking certain fundamental per- ceptions — or what appear to him to be such — Avhich form the sub- stance of natural religion as his starting-points, and judging from them as a reasoning base, accepts from that base of judgment the evi- dences of Christianity. Can the other refute his inference ? He can- nut, for he does not know his base. He knows the truths of natural religion in the form of propositions ; he cannot possibly know them as they exist in the individual's mind. He cannot know then how much legitimate force they exert in the estimate of the evidences of revelation. Can he then disprove the principles themselves ? He cannot, for they are not in opposition to any known truth ; while the immense concurrence in them, and the general homage paid to them, protects them from the charge of fanaticism. The conclusion ujjon the premises then, and the premises themselves, are alike out of reach of his refutation ; the acceptance of the Christian evidences upon the assumjJtion of natural religion, and natural religion itself, are alike safe from the disputant's assault. It is thus that the argument as to evidences tends to a standstill — approaches to a posture of the two parties toward each other, in which neither upon his own premises can refute the other upon his ; or force his own conclusion upon the other, their respective ante- cedent grounds remaining the same. How could we expect those who do not hold the principles of natural religion to accept the historical evidences of Christianity 1 They are wanting in those inward antecedent convictions which are a necessary complement of external evidence, and without which all external evidence cannot obtain an entrance into a mind. But at the same time the corollary from this is that the rejection of Christianity by such minds can never be urged as a reflection upon Christianity, because, indeed, such minds have not the full argument for Christianity before them. They are not in possession of it, because they have cut themselves off from the foundation ; and therefore there is nothing upon which the edifice of Christian belief can grow up in them. The Comtist treats as xitter delusions and mistakes the ideas of a God, of prayer, of im- mortality ; he declares that the assertion that these are instincts of human nature, is false ; that human nature has not got these instincts, and has no such longings, and feels no such wants ; that Preface to Third Edition xxix liunian nature cannot only do without them, but that, where they are not artificially inserted in it by false training and education, it does do without them. But how can the rejection of Christianity by those who are without a necessary part of the evidences for Christianity— viz., the preliminarj^ convictions, be urged as any difficulty, or as a feet which tells against Christianity. In this stationary attitude then of the two parties to each other in the argument of miracles, there has sprung up on the side of the opponent of miracles what he regards as the argument of history. The controversialist who uses this argument abandons reasoning; he does not even weigh evidence ; all he does is to state facts. He asserts that, as a matter of fact, the pretension to exercise supernatural power has gradually declined, and been given up in civilized society ; that magic, witchcraft, and other forms of superhuman agency have become obsolete, have ceased to retain their hold on the actual belief of mankind ; and that the continuance of these claims has been found in fact inconsistent with human progress and advancement. Could anything, however extraordinary, it is asked, happen now, of which all reasonable persons would not agree to wait for a physical explana- tion, instead of attributing it to a supernatural cause ? This is a change, then, it is asserted, and a transition of fact, that we are going through ; argument does not affect this change in the mind of society ; these pretensions were given up in the actual belief of mankind, even at the very time that they retained their place in reasoning and philo- sophy ; the human mind is yielding to laws of progress, which even its own intellectual opposition cannot stop; and faith in these claims has retreated before the influence of civilization. But such being the argument against the supernatural deduced from actual history, and the known change in human belief ; I must observe that there is one broad line of distinction which separates all this purposeless, trifling, and low supernatural, — magic, witchcraft, and the like, from the miraculous credentials of the Christian revela- tion ; viz., that, as a matter of fact, while the belief in the former has become obsolete, the belief in the other has continued, and stood its ground. The belief in the Christian miracles has now possession of the mass of society, educated as well as uneducated. This, then, is an answer from fact to an argument from fact : the argument is that much belief in supernatural has gone with civilization, and the answer is that the belief in the Christian miracles continues with civi- lization. It is indeed true that the very first instinct of a rational mind at this day, on hearing the description of that supernaturalism which\ characterized rude ages, is to say — this cannot be true : such trivial, XXX Preface to Third Editio7i mean, and objectless crowds of mii-acles, as those of old magic and ■witchcraft, must be false : the order of nature is a solemn fact, and the interference with it must be, under the Divine Providence, a solemn fact too. The current supernaturalism then of rude ages is disbelieved. But the miraculous basis of Christianity is accepted. One fact then is met by another fact : the fact of mankind's disbelief is met by the fact of mankind's belief. It may be replied, indeed, that the distinction wliich is now maintained between the Christian supernatural and the vulgar is illogical, and will not be found capable of being upheld. But that is to reason ; and the new form of argument excludes reasoning, and ties itself to fact. It is the peculiar boast of the new controversial ground — that it does not argue but only state. The fact is stated then that legendary supernatural is abandoned ; and that is met by the counter fact that the Christian supernaturalism is retained. We have reasoning to offer if the law of the argument allows it ; but if it is the very merit of this new argu- ment that it settles the question by the statement of facts ; that is the aggressive fact, and this is the defensive fact ; and the one fact as a refutation of the Christian miracles, is directly answered by the other fact in support of them. The belief in legendary super- naturalism has been practically given up in educated society for nearly two centiiries ; and yet with the full consciousness of this abandonment of a large region of professed supernatural agency, the Christian miracles have continued to be believed. The distinction has been maintained, it has kept its ground, and it has sustained a long period of trial, during which the most intelligent and acute minds, fully alive to the progress which the human intellect had made in throwing off superstitious belief in sujierhuman agency, have nevertheless firmly maintained the belief in the miracles of Chris- tianity. This is a fact of history, and an existing fact of society ; and it is an express reply to the other fact for the purpose for which that fact is used.^ 1 See Note 5, Lect. VII. CONTENTS LECTUEE I MIKACLES NECESSARY FOE A REVELATION St. John xv. 24 If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin, LECTUEE II ORDER OF NATURE Gen. viii. 22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and ivinter, and daij and night shall not cease. LECTUEE III INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION ON BELIEF Psalm cxxxix. 14 Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul Jcnoiveth right well. LECTUEE IV BELIEF IN A GOD Hebrews xi. 3 Through faith we understmid that the worlds ivcre framed by the word of God. xxxii Contents LECTURE V TESTIMONY Acts i. 8 Yc slwll he witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and, in all Jadcea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. LECTUEE VI UNKNOWN LAW St. John v. 17 My Father worketh hitherto, and I v:ork. LECTURE VII MIRACLES REGARDED IN THEIR PRACTICAL RESULT Romans vi. 17 But God he thanlrd, that ye were the servants of sin, hut ye have oheyed from the heart that form of doctrine ivhich was delivered you. LECTUEE VIII FALSE MIRACLES Matt. vii. 22 Many will say to Me in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast otit devils ? ami in Thy name done many wonderful works ? LECTURE I MIEACLES NECESSAEY FOR A EEVELATION" St. John xv. 24 If I had not donc'among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin. HOW is it that sometimes when the same facts and truths have been before men all their lives, and pro- duced but one impression, a moment comes when they look different from what they did ? Some minds may abandon, while others retain, their fundamental position with respect to those facts and truths, but to both they look stranger ; they excite a certain surprise which they did not once do. The reasons of this change then it is not always easy for the persons themselves to trace, but of the result they are conscious ; and in some this result is a change of belief. An inward process of this kind has been going on re- cently in many minds on the subject of miracles; and in some with the latter result. When it came to the question — which every one must sooner or later put to himself on tliis subject — did these things really take place ? are they matters of fact ? they have appeared to themselves to be brought to a standstill, and to be obliged to own an inner refusal of their whole reason to admit them among the actual events of the past. This strong repugnance seemed to be the witness of its own truth, to be accompanied by a A 2 Miracles necessary [Lect. clear and vivid light, to be a law to the imderstauding, and to rule without appeal the question of fact. This intellectual movement against miracles is partly owing, doubtless, to the advance of science withdrawing minds from moral grounds and fixing tliem too exclusively upon physical. I am not sure, however, that too much has not been made of science as the cause in this case ; because, as a matter of fact, we see persons who are but little acquainted with physical science just as much op- posed to miracles as those who know most about it ; and for a very good reason. For it is evident that the objection which is felt against miracles does not arise from any minute knowledge of the laws of nature, or any elaborate analysis which has shewn the connexion of those laws, traced them farther back, and resolved them into higher and simpler laws ; but simply because they are opposed to that plain and obvious order of nature which everybody sees. That a man sliould rise from the dead, eg. is plainly y contradictory to our experience ; therein lies the difficulty of believing it ; and that experience belongs to everybody as much as to the deepest philosopher. A cause, which has had just as much to do with it as science, is what I may call the historical imagination. By the historical imagination I mean the habit of realizing past time, of putting history before ourselves in such a light that the persons and events figuring in it are seen as once-living persons and once-present events. This is in itself a high and valuable power, and it is evident that there is too little of it in the mass of men, to whom the past is a figured surface rather than an actual extension backward of time, in which the actors had all the feelings of the hour and saw it passing by them as we do, — the men who were then alive in the world, the men of the day. The past is an inanimate image in their minds, which does not beat with the pulse of life. And this want of reality I] for a Revelation attaching to the timc^ certain occurrences in it do not raise the questionings, which those very occurrences realized would raise. But a more powerful imagination enables a man in some way to realize the past, and to see in it the once-living present; so that when he comes across any scene of history, he can bring it home to himself that this scene was once present, that this was the then living world. But when the reality of the past is once apprehended and embraced, then the miraculous occurrences in it are rea- lized too : being realized they excite surprise ; and surprise, when it once comes in, takes two directions; it either makes belief more real, or it destroys belief. There is an element of doubt in surprise ; for this emotion arises 'because an event is strange, and an event is strange because it goes counter to and jars with presumption. Shall surprise then ffive life to belief or stimulus to doubt ? The road of belief and unbelief in the history of some minds thus partly lies over common ground ; the two go part of their journey to- gether ; they have a common perception in the insight into the real astonishing nature of the facts with which tliey deal. Tlie majority of mankind perhaps owe their belief rather to the outward influence of custom and education than to any strong principle of faith within ; and it is to be feared that many if they came to perceive how wonderful what they believed was, would not find their belief so easy and so matter-of-course a thing as they appear to find it. Custom throws a film over the great facts of religion, and interposes a veil between the mind and truth, which, by preventing wonder, intercepts doubt too, and at the same time excludes from deep belief and protects from disbelief. But deeper faith and disbelief throw off in common the dependence on mere custom, draw aside the interposing veil, place themselves face to face with the contents of the past, and expose themselves alike to the ordeal of wonder. I would, however, give a passing caution against one 4 Miracles 7iecessary [Lect. mistake wliich a mind gifted with an historical imagination is apt to commit. Such a mind raises a clear and vivid picture of a particular period, imagines the persons acting and speaking, calls up a perfect scene, and fills it with the detail of actual life. Tlie world which it tlnis pictures, it then assimilates, with allowance for externals, to the world of the present day, translating character and motives, actions and events into a modern type, in order to make them look real and living. If the period, then, into whicli this mind has transported itself be that of the first promul- gation of the Gospel, the miraculous events of that epoch are imagined and pictured as the kind of supernatural events which, if they made their appearance at the present day, would receive a natural explanation. Tlie person I am supposing has hitherto, then, made no mistake of fact, because he has only raised a picture, and only professed to do so. But just at this juncture he is apt to make, una- wares, a mistake of fact ; i.e. to suppose, because he has transported himself in imagination to the world of a distant age, that therefore he has seen that world and its contents, and to mistake a picture for reality. It seems to him as if he could bring back a report from thence, and assure us that nothing really took place in that world of the nature that we suppose. But in truth he no more knows by this process of the imagination what took place in that world, than another person knows : for we cannot in this way ascertain facts. The imagination assumes knowledge, and does not make it : it vivifies the stock we have, but does not add one item to it. The supposition — ' Had we lived in the world at that time we should have seen that there was nothing more miraculous in it then than there is now ' • — carries a certain persuasiveness with it to some ; but it is a mere supposition. They may by an effort of mind have raised a vivid image of the past, but they have not gained the least knowledge of its events by this act. That I] for a Revelation 5 world has now passed away and cannot be recalled. But certain things are said to have taken place in it. Whether those events did take place or not must depend on the tes- timony which has come down to us. With this jtrefatory notice of a prevalent intellectual feature of the day, — for this effort to realize the past, to make it look like yesterday, does not only characterize in- dividual writers, but is part of the thought of the age, — I enter upon the consideration of the position which I liave chosen as the subject of these Lectures ; viz., that Miracles, or visible suspensions of the order of nature for a provi- dential purpose, are not in contradiction to reason. And, first of all, I shall enquire into the use and purpose of miracles, — especially with a view to ascertain whether in the execution of the Divine intentions toward mankind, they do not answer a necessary purpose, and supply a want which could not be supplied in any other way. There is one great necessary purpose, then, which divines assign to miracles, viz., the proof of a revelation. And certainly, if it was the will of God to give a revelation, there are plain and obvious reasons for asserting that miracles are necessary as the guarantee and voucher for that revelation. A revelation is, properly speaking, such only by virtue of telling us something which we could not^ know without it. But how do we know that that commu- nication of what is undiscoverable by human reason is true ? Our reason cannot prove the truth of it, for it is by the very supposition beyond our reason. There must be, then, some note or sign to certify to it and distinguish it as a true communication from God, which note can be nothing else than a miracle. The evidential function of a miracle is based upon the common argument of design, as proved by coincidence. The greatest marvel or interruption of the order of nature occurring by itself, as the very consequence of being con- y 6 Miracles necessary [Lect. nected with nothing, proves nothing ; but if it takes place in connexion with the word or act of a person, that coinci- dence proves design in the marvel, and makes it a miracle; and if that person professes to report a message or revela- tion from heaven, the coincidence again of the miracle with the professed message from God proves design on the part of God to warrant and authorize the message. The mode in which a miracle acts as evidence is thus exactly the same in which any extraordinary coincidence acts : it rests upon the general argument of design, though the particular design is special and appropriate to the miracle. And hence we may see that the evidence of a Divine communi- cation cannot in the nature of the case be an ordinary event. For no event in the common order of nature is in the first place in any coincidence, with the Divine commu- nication : it is explained by its own place in nature, and is connected Mdth its own antecedents and consequents only, having no allusion or bearing out of them. It does not either in itself, or to human eye, contain any relation to the special communication from God at the time. But if there is no coincidence, there is no appearance of design, and therefore no attestation. It is true that prophecy is such an attestation, but though the event which fulfils pro- phecy need not be itself out of the order of nature, it is an indication of a fact which is ; viz., an act of superhuman knowledge. And this remark would apply to a miracle which was only miraculous upon the prophetical principle, or from the extraordinary coincidence which was contained in it. And hence it follows that could a complete pliysical solution be given of a whole miracle, both the marvel and the coincidence too, it would cease from that moment to perform its function of evidence. Apparent evidence to those who had made the mistake, it could be none to us who had corrected it. It will be urged, perhaps, that extraordinary coincidences I] for a Revelation take place in the natural course of providence, which are called special providences ; and that these are regarded as signs and tokens of the Divine will, though they are not visible interferences witli the order of nature. But special providences, though they convey mine, do not convey full evidence of, design. Coincidence is a matter of degree, and varies from the lowest degree possible to the fullest and highest. In whatever degree, therefore, a coincidence may api^ear in the events of the world, or in the events of private life, in that degree it is a direction, to whomsoever it is evident, to see the finger of God either in public affairs or in his own ; and to draw a lesson, or it may be to adopt a particular course of conduct, in consequence. But it is of the nature of a miracle to give proof, as distinguished from mere surmise, of a Divine design ; and therefore the most complete and decisive kind of coincidence alone is miracu- lous. It must be observed, however, that a special providence is an indication of a special Divine design, to whatever ex- tent it is so, only as being an indication of extraordinary Divine agency somewhere ; for from the ordinary nothing special would have been inferred. But extraordinary Divine agency partakes substantially of a miraculous character; though that character is not placed directly before our eyes, but is only gathered from such marks of comcidence as the events in the case exhibit. The point at which the Divine power comes into contact with the chain of natural causation is remote, and comparatively hidden; but still however high up in the succession of nature, such extraor- dinary agency is, at the point at which it does occur, pre- ternatural ; because by nature w^e mean God's general law, or usual acts. A special providence thus differs from a miracle in its evidence, not in its nature ; it is an invisible miracle, which is indirectly traceable by means of some remarkable concurrences in the events before us. If a 8 Miracles necessary [Lect. marvel is commanded or announced, or even what is not a marvel but only a striking event (such as sudden cure of a bad disease), and it takes jjlace immediately, the coinci- dence is too remarkable to be accounted for in any other way than design. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the dividing of the lied Sea, and other miracles which were wrouglit by the medium of natural agency, were miracles for this reason. But in the case of a special providence, the coincidence suggests but does not compel this interpre- tation. The death of Arius, e.g. was not miraculous, be- cause the coincidence of the death of an heresiarch taking place when it was peculiarly advantageous to the orthodox faith, to which it M'ould have been advantageous at any time, was not such as to compel the inference of extraordi- nary Divine agency ; but it was a special providence, be- cause it carried a reasonable appearance of it. The miracle of the Thundering Legion was a special providence, but not a miracle for tlie same reason, because the coincidence of an instantaneous fall of rain with public prayer for it car- ried some appearance, but not proof, of preternatural agency, especially in the climate where the occurrence happened. Where there is no violation of physical law, the more surprising and inexplicable must be tlie coinci- dence in events in order to constitute the proof of extra- ordinary Divine agency; and therefore in that class of miracles which consists of answers to prayer, the most un- accountable kind of coincidence alone can answer the pur- pose. And the same principle ap^jlies to other miracles. The appearance of the cross to Constantine Mas a miracle or a special providence, according to which account of it we adopt. As only a meteoric appearance in the shape of a cross, without the adjuncts, it gave some token of preter- natural agency, but not full evidence. It may be conceded, indeed, that the truths which are communicated in a revelation might be conveyed to the I] for a Revelation Immau mind without a visible miracle: and upon this ground it has appeared to some that a revelation does not absolutely require miracles, but might be imj)arted to the mind of the person chosen to be the recipient of it by an inward and invisible process alone. But to suppose upon this ground that miracles are not necessary for a revelation is to confound two things which are perfectly distinct ; viz., the ideas themselves wliich are communicated in a revelation, and the proof that those ideas are true. For simply imparting ideas to the human mind, or causing ideas to arise in the human mind, an ordinary act of Divine power is sufficient, for God can put thoughts into men's minds by a process altogether secret, and without the ac- companiment of any external sign, and it is a part of His ordinary providence to do so. And in the same way in which He causes an idea of an ordinary kind to arise in a person's mind, He could also cause to arise an extraordi- nary idea ; for though the cliaracter of the ideas themselves would differ, the process of imparting them would be the same. But, then, when the extraordinary idea was there, what evidence would there be that it was true ? None : for the process of imparting it being wholly secret, all that the recipient of it could possibly then know, would be that lie had the idea, that it was in his mind ; but that the idea was in his mind would not prove in the least that it was true. Let us suppose, e.g., that the idea was imparted to the mind of a particular person that an atonement had hecn made for the sins of the whole ivorld, and that the Divine powder stopped wdth the act of imparting that idea and went no further. The idea, then, of a certain mysterious event having taken place has been imparted to him and he has it, but so far from that person being able to give proof of that event to others, he would not even have received evi- dence of it himself. In an enthusiastic mind, indeed, the rise, without anything to account for it, of the idea that lo Miracles necessary [Lect. such an event had taken place, might of itself produce the hdicf that it had, and be taken as witness to its own truth ; but it could not reasonably constitute such a guarantee, even to himself, and still less to others. The distinction may be illustrated by a case of prophecy. It was divinely communicated to the ancient prophet that Tyre or Babylon should be destroyed, or that Israel should be carried into captivity ; and in this communication itself there was nothing miraculous, because the idea of the future destruction of a city, and of the future captivity of a people, could be raised in the mind of a prophet by the same process by which God causes a natural thought to arise in a person's mind. But then the mere occurrence of this idea to the prophet would be no proof that it was true. In the case of prophecy, then, the simple event which ful- fils it is the proof of the truth of that idea ; but this kind of proof does not apply to the case of a revelation of a doctrine, which must therefore have another sort of guar- antee. If, then, a person of evident integrity and loftiness of character rose into notice in a particular country and com- munity eighteen centuries ago, who made these communi- cations about himself — that he had existed before his natural birth, from all eternity, and before the world was, in a state of glory with God ; that he was the only-begotten Son of God ; that the world itself had been made by him ; that he had, however, come down from heaven and assumed the form and nature of man for a particular purpose, viz., to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world; that he thus stood in a mysterious and superna- tural relation to the whole of mankind ; that through him alone mankind had access to God ; that he was the head of an invisible kingdom, into which he should gather all the generations of righteous men who had lived in the world ; that on his departure from hence he should return I] for a Revelation 1 1 to heaven to prepare mansions there for them ; and lastly, that he should descend again at the end of the world to judge the whole human race, on which occasion all that were in their graves should hear his voice and come forth, they that had done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that had done evil unto the resurrection of damna- tion, — if this person made these assertions about himself, and all that was done was to make the assertions, what would be the inevitable conclusion of sober reason respect- ing tliat person ? The necessary conclusion of sober reason respecting that person would be that he was disordered in his understanding. What other decision could we come to when a man, looking like one of ourselves and only exem- plifying in his life and circumstances the ordinary course of nature, said this about himself, but that when reason had lost its balance, a dream of extraordinary and un- earthly grandeur might be the result ? By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements. Miracles are the necessary complement then of the truth of such announce- ments, which without them are purposeless and abortive, the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing un- less it is the whole. They are necessary to the justification of such announcements, which indeed, unless they are supernatural truths, are the wildest delusions. The matter and its guarantee are the two parts of a revelation, the ab- sence of either of which neutralizes and undoes it. (i.) But would not a perfectly sinless character be proof of a revelation ? Undoubtedly that would be as great a miracle as any that coidd be conceived ; but where is the proof of perfect sinlessness ? No outward life and conduct, how- ever just, benevolent, and irreproachable, could prove tliis, because goodness depends upon the inward motive, and the perfection of the inward motive is not proved by the out- ward act. Exactly the same act may be perfect or imper- 12 Miracles necessary [Lect. feet according to the spirit of the doer. The same language of indignation against the wicked which issues from our Lord's mouth might be uttered by an imperfect good man, who mixed human frailty with the emotion. We accept our Lord's perfect goodness then upon the same evidence upon which we admit the rest of His supernatural charac- ter; but not as proved by the ovitv/ard goodness of His life, by His character, sublime as that was, as it presented itself to the eye. On the subject, however, of the necessity of miracles to a revelation, the ground has been taken by some that this necessity is displaced by the strength of the interned evi- dence of Christianity. And first, it is urged that the in- trinsic nature of the doctrines, and their adaptation to the human heart, supplies of itself the proof of their truth. But the proof of a revelation which is contained in the substance of a revelation has this inherent check or limit in it, viz., that it cannot reach to what is undiscoverable by reason. Internal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, be- cause at every step the test is our own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fit- ness ; but human reason cannot in the nature of the case prove that wliicli, by the very hypothesis, lies beyond human reason. Let us take, e.g., the doctrine of the Incarnation. The idea of a union of the Divine nature with the human has approved itself to the mind of mankind as a grand and sublime idea ; in debased shapes it has prevailed in almost every religion of the heathen world, and it occupies a marked space in the history of human thought. The Christian doctrine appeals to every lofty aspiration of the human heart ; it exalts our nature, places us in intimate relation to God, and inspires us with a sense of His love. The human heart therefore responds to the doctrine of the Incarnation, and feels that doctrine to be adapted to it. I] for a Revelation But because the idea is thus adapted to it, is that a proof that it has been chosen in the Divine counsels to be put into execution ? No : it would be wild reasoning to infer from the sublimity of a supposition, as a mere conception of the mind, that that conception had been embodied in a Divine dispensation, and to conclude from a thought of man an act of God. To do this is to attribute to ourselves perceptions of the Divine will beyond our conscience ; i.e., to attribute to ourselves supernatural perceptions. So, again, that the human heart responds to an Atonement supposed to be revealed, is no proof that that Divine act has taken place ; because the human heart has no power by its mere longings of penetrating into the supernatural world, and seeing what takes place there. But the internal evidences of Christianity include, beside the intrinsic nature of the doctrines, the fruits of Christianity — its historical development. However necessary, it is said, the evidence of miracles was upon the first promulgation of the Gospel, when the new faith was but just sown, and its marvellous growth, its great results, its mighty conquests over the human heart were not yet before the eye, it is no longer necessary now, when we have these effects before us. This is a kind of proof then of a revelation which is peculiarly adapted to produce inward conviction — a persuasion of the truth of that religion which produces such results. No member of the Christian evidence taken singly has perhaps so much strength as this ; nor can we well rest too much upon it, so long as we do not charge it with more of the burden of proof than it is in its own nature equal to — viz. the whole. But that it cannot bear. If the sincere belief of persons in something does not prove that thing, can the natural consequences of that belief of themselves prove it ? If I am asked for the proof of a doctrine, and I say simply, " I believe it," that is obviously no proof; but if I go on to say, " This belief has had in my own case a connexion with 14 Miracles necessary [Lect. devout practice," that alone is not adequate proof either, even though this connexion has taken place in others as well on a large scale. We can indeed in imagination con- ceive such a universal spread of individual holiness and goodness as would amount to a supernatural manifestation: as, e.g. if we supposed that the description of the Christian Church given in parts of prophecy was literally fulfilled, and "the people were all righteous."^ But the actual result of Christianity is very different from this. There are two sides of the historical development of Christianity ; one of success and one of failure. What proportion of nominal Christians in every age have been real Christians ? Has Christianity stopped war, persecution, tyranny, injustice, and the dominion of selfish passion in the world which it has professedly converted ? No ; nor is that the fault of Christianity, but of man. But if the appeal is made to the result of Christianity as the proof of the supernatural truths of Christianity, we must take that result as it stands. What is that result ? It is that amidst the general deflec- tion of Christians from the Gospel standard, a certain number — so large indeed in comparison with the corres- ponding class among the heathen as to surprise us, but small as compared with the whole body — are seen in every age directing their lives upon religious principles and motives. But we cannot safely pronounce this to be a standing supernatural phenomenon, equivalent to, and superseding the need of miraculous evidence. Taken indeed in connexion with prophecy, the results of Chris- tianity stand upon a stronger ground as Christian evidence ; but it must be remembered that this connexion introduces another element into the argument, different from and additional to the simple fact -of the results, viz. the fulfil- ment of prophecy contained in them, — an element of proof which is in essence niirandous proof. (2.) ^ Isaiali Ix. 2i. I] for a Revelation 15 It must be remembered that when this part of Christian evidence comes so forcibly home to iis, and creates that inward assurance which it does, it does this in connexion with the proof of miracles in the background; which though it may not for the time be brought into actual view, is still known to be there, and to be ready for use upon being wanted. The mdirect proof from results has the greater force, and carries with it the deeper persuasion, because it is additional and auxiliary to the direct proof behind it upon which it leans all the time, though we may not distinctly notice and estimate this advantage. Were the evidence of moral result to be taken rigidly alone, as the one single guarantee for a Divine revelation, it would then be seen that we had calculated its single strength too highly. If there is a species of evidence which is directly appropriate to the thing believed, we cannot suppose, on the strength of the indirect evidence we possess, that we can do without the direct. But miracles are the direct credentials of a revelation ; the visible supernatural is the appropriate witness to the invisible supernatural — that proof which goes straight to the point, and, a token being- wanted of a Divine communication, is that token. We cannot, therefore, dispense with this evidence. The position that the revelation proves the miracles, and not the miracles the revelation, admits of a good qualified meaning; but taken literally, it is a double offence against the rule, that things are properly proved by the proper proof of them ; for a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural doctrine ; while a supernatural doctrine, on the other hand, is certainly not the proper proof of a super- natural fact. But suppose a person to say, and to say with trr.th, that his own indi\ddual faith does not rest upon miracles; is he therefore released from the defence of miracles ? Is the question of their truth or falsehood an irrelevant one to him? 1 6 Miracles necessary [Lect. Is his faith secure if they are disproved ? By no means : if miracles were, although only at the commencement, necessary to Christianity; and if they were actually wrought and there- fore form part of the Gospel record and are bound up with the Gospel scheme and doctrines ; this part of the structure cannot be abandoned without the sacrifice of the other too. To shake the authority of one-half of this body of statement is to shake the authority of the whole. Whether or not the individual makes use. of them for tlie support of his own faith, the miracles are there; and if they are there they must be there either as true miracles or as false ones. If he does not avail himself of their evidence, his belief is still affected by their refutation. Accepting as he does the supernatural truths of Christianity and its miracles upon the same report, from the same witnesses, npon the authority of the same documents, he cannot help having at any rate this negative interest in them. For if those witnesses and documents deceive us with regard to the miracles, how can we trust them with regard to the doctrines ? If they are wrong upon the evidences of a revelation, how can we depend upon their being right as to the nature of that revelation ? If their account of visible facts is to be received with an explanation, is not their account of doctrines liable to a like explanation ? Eevelation then , even if it does not need the truth of miracles for the benefit of their proof, still requires it in order not to be crushed under the weight of their falsehood. Or do persons prefer resting doctrine upon the ground more particularly of tradition ? The result is still the same. For the Christian miracles are bound up insei'iarably witli the whole corjms of Cliristian tradition. But if tradition has been mistaken with respect to facts, how can we trust it witli respect to doctrines ? Indeed, not only are miracles conjoined with doctrine in Christianity, but miracles are inserted m the doctrine and are part of its contents. A I] for a Revelation 1 7 man cannot state his belief as a Christian in the terms of the Apostles' Creed without asserting them. Can the doctrine of our Lord's Incarnation be disjoined from one physical miracle ? Can the doctrine of His justification of us, and intercession for us, be disjoined from another ? This insertion of the great miracles of our Lord's life in the Christian Creed itself serves to explain some language in the Fathers which otherwise might be thought to indicate an inferior and ambiguous estimate of the effect of miracles as evidence. They sometimes speak of the miracles per- formed by our Lord during His ministry as if they were evidence of His mission rather as the fulfilment of prophecy, than upon their own account. Upon this head, then, it must be remembered, first, that to subordinate miracles as evidence to prophecy is not to supersede miraculous evidence ; for propliecy is one department of the miraculous. But, in the next place, the miraculous Birth of our Lord, His Besurrection and Ascension, were inserted in the Chris- tian Creed ; which cardinal miracles being accepted, the lesser miracles of our Lord's ministry had naturally a sub- ordinate place as evidence. If a miracle is incorporated as an article in a creed, that article of the creed, the miracle, and the proof of it by a miracle, are all one thing. The great miracles therefore, upon the evidence of which the Christian scheme rested, being thus inserted in the Christian Creed, the belief in the Creed was of itself the belief in the miraculous evidence of it. The doctrinal truth of the Atonement, its acceptance, and the enthronement of the Son of God in heaven at His Father's right hand, is indeed in the abstract separable from the visible miracles of the Eesurrection and Ascension which were tlie evidence of it; but actually in the Christian Church this evidence of the doctrine is the very form of the doctrine too ; and the Fathers in holding the doctrine held the evidence of miracles to it. (3.) B 1 8 Miracles necessary [Lect. Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Chris- tianity must stand or fall together. These two questions — the nature of the revelation, and the evidence of the revela- tion — cannot be disjoined. Christianity as a dispensation undiscoverable by human reason, and Christianity as a dis- pensation authenticated by miracles — these two are in necessary combination. If any do not include the super- natural character of Christianity in their definition of it, re- garding the former only as one interpretation of it or one particular traditional form of it, which is separable from the essence, — for Christianity as thus defined, the support of miracles is not wanted, because the moral truths are their own evidence. But Christianity cannot be maintained as a revelation undiscoverable by human reason, a revelation of a supernatural scheme for man's salvation, without the evidence of miracles. And hence it follows that upon the supposition of the Divine design of a revelation, a miracle is not an anomaly or irregularity, but part of the system of the universe ; be- cause, though an irregularity and an anomaly in relation to either part, it has a complete adaptation to the whole. There being two worlds, a visible and invisible, and a communication between the two being wanted, a miracle is the instrument of that communication. An exception to each order of things separately, it is in perfect keeping with both taken together, as being the link or medium between them. This is, indeed, the form and mode of order which belongs to instruments as a class. A key is out of relation, either to the inside or outside taken separately of the inclosure which it opens ; but it is in relation to both taken together as being the instrument of admission from the one to the other. Take any tool or implement of art, handicraft, or husbandry, and look at it by itself; what an eccentric and unmeaning thing it is, wholly out of order and place ; but it is in exact order and place as the medium between I] for a Revelatio7i 19 the workman and the material. And a miracle is in perfect order and place as the medium between two worlds, though it is an anomaly with respect to one of them alone. Spinoza, indeed, upon this ground of order, That nothing can be out of the order of the universe that takes place in the universe, denies the possibility of a miracle ; but the truth of this inference depends entirely on the definition we give of a miracle. If a miracle is defined to be something which contradicts the order of the whole, then, we admit that nothing which is out of the order of the whole can exist or take place, and therefore we allow that there can he no such thing as a miracle. But if a miracle is only a con- tradiction to one part, i.e. the visible portion of the whole, this conclusion does not follow. And thus, according as we define a miracle, this ground of universal order becomes either a ground for refuting the miraculous or a ground for defending it. The defect of Spinoza's view is that he will not look upon a miracle as an instrument, a means to an end, but will only look upon it as a marvel beginning and ending with itself " A miracle," he says, " as an interrup- tion to the order of nature, cannot give us any knowledge of God, nor can we understand anything from it." (4.) It is true we cannot understand anything from an interrup- tion of the order of nature, simply as such ; but if this interruption has an evidential function attaching to it, then something may be understood from it, and something of vast importance. We must admit, indeed, an inherent modification in the function of a miracle as an instrument of proof To a simple religious mind not acquainted with ulterior con siderations a miracle appears to be immediate, conclusive, unconditional proof of the doctrine for which it is wrought; but, on reflection, we see that it is checked by conditions ; that it cannot oblige us to accept any doctrine which is 20 Miracles necessary [Lect. contrary to our moral nature, or to a fundamental principle of religion. But this is only a limitation of the function of a miracle as evidence, and no disproof of it ; for conditions, thougli they interfere with the force of a principle where they are not complied with, do not detract from it where they arc. We liave constantly to limit the force of particular principles, whetlier of evidence, or morals, or law, which at first strike us as absolute, but which upon examination are seen to be checked; but these principles still remain in substantial strength. Has not the autliority of conscience itself checks and qualifications ? And were a person so disposed, could he not make out an apparent case against the use of conscience at all — that there were so many con- ditions from this quarter and the other quarter limiting it, that it was really left almost without value as a guide ? The same remark applies to some extent to the evidence of memory. The evidence of miracles, then, is not negatived because it has conditions. The question may at first sight create a dilemma — If a miracle is nugatory on the side of one doctrine, what cogency has it on the side of another ? Is it legitimate to accept its evidence when we please, and reject it when we please ? But in truth, a miracle is never without an argumentative force, although that force may be counterbalanced. Any physical force may be counteracted by an impediment, but it exists all the while, and resumes its action upon that impediment being removed. A miracle has a natural argumentative force on the side of that doctrine for which it is wrought ; if the doctrine is such that we cannot accept it, we resist the force of a miracle in that in- stance; still that force remains and produces its natural effect when there is no such obstruction. If I am obliged by the incredible nature of an assertion to explain the miracle for it upon another principle than the evidential, I do so ; but in the absence of this necessity, I give it its natural explanation. A rule gives way when tliere is an IJ for a Revelation 2 r exception to it made out ; but otherwise it stands. AVhen we know upon antecedent grounds that the doctrine is false, the miracle admits of a secondary explanation, viz. as a trial of faith ; but the first and most natural explanation of it is still as evidence of the doctrine, and that remains in force when there is no intrinsic objection to the doctrine. When, then, a revelation is made to man by the only in- strument by which it can be made, that that instrument should be an anomaly, an irregularity relatively to this visible order of things, is necessary ; and all we are con- cerned with is its competency. Is it a good instrument ? is it effective ? does it answer its purpose ? does it do w^hat it is wanted to do ? This instrument, then, has certainly one important note or token of a Divine instrument ; — it bears upon it the stamp oi power. Does a miracle, regarded as mere prodigy or portent, appear to be a mean, rude, petty, and childish thing ? Turn away from that untrue because inadequate aspect of it, to that which is indeed the true aspect of a miracle. Look at it as an instrument, as a powerful instru- ment, as an instrument which has shewn and proved its power in the actual result of Christendom. Christianity is the religion of the civilized v/orld, and it is believed upon its miraculous evidence. Now for a set of miracles to be accepted in a rude age, and to retain their authority throughout a succession of such ages, and over the ignorant and superstitious part of mankind, may be no such great result for the miracle to accomplish, because it is easy to satisfy those who do not inquire. But this is not the state of the case which we have to meet on the subject of the Christian miracles. The Christian being the most intelli- gent, the civilized portion of the world, these miracles are accepted by the Christian body as a whole, by the thinking and educated as well as the uneducated part of it, and the Gospel is believed upon that evidence. Allowance made 2 2 Miracles necessary [Lect. for certain schools of thought in it, this age in which we live accepts the Christian miracles as the foundation of its faith. But this is a great result — the establishment and the continuance of a religion in the world, — as the religion too of the intelligent as well as of the simpler portion of society. Indeed, in connexion with this point, may we not observe that the evidence of miracles has been taken up by the most inquiring and considerate portion of the Christian body; by that portion especially which was anxious that its belief should be rational, and should rest upon evidence ? Of that great school of writers which has dealt with miracles, the conspicuous characteristics have been certainly no childish or superstitious love of the marvellous, but the judicial faculty, strong reasoning powers, strong critical powers, the power of estimating and weighing evidence. May we not then, when the miracle is represented as a mere childish desideratum, take these important circumstances into consideration, — the object which the Christian miracles have actually effected ; their actual result in the world ; the use which has been made of them by reasonable and reflecting minds; the source which they have been of reasonable and reflecting belief; their whole history, in short, as the basis, along with other considerations, of the Christian belief of the civilized world, educated and un- educated ? May we not call attention to the Gospel miracle in its actual working, — that it has been connected not with fanciful, childish, credulous, and superstitious, but with rational religion ; that it has been accepted by those whose determination it has been only to believe upon rational grounds ; that indeed, if there is a difference, it has been the instrument of conviction rather to the reasoning class of minds than the unreasoning. A miracle is in its own nature an appeal to the reason ; and its evidence contrasts in this respect with the mere influence of sentiment and tradition. These are stronff witnesses to the nature of a I] for a Revelation 23 miracle as an instrument, and shew that a miracle is a great instrument, and worthy of the Divine employment. For — and this largely constitutes the greatness and efficacy of the instrument — the evidence of a miracle is not only contemporary with the miracle, but extends in the nature of the case through all subsequent ages into which the original testimony to such miracle is transmitted. The chain of testimony is indeed more and more lengthened out, and every fresh liuk which is added is a step further from the starting-point ; but so long as the original testimony reaches us, through however may links, the miracle which it attests is the same evidence that it ever was. Scientific men have sometimes, indeed, speculated upon the effect of time upon the value of historical evidence; practically speaking, however, between an event's first standing in re- gular history, and its very latest which is at this very moment, we see no difference. The testimony to the battle of Pharsalia is as strong now, as at its first insertion in the page of history ; nor can we entertain the notion of a time, however remote, when it will not be as strong as it is now. Whatever value, then, the testimony to the Christian miracles had when tliat testimony first took its place in public records, that it has now, and that it will continue to have so long as the world lasts. But such a prospect raises our estimate of the importance and the greatness of a miracle as an instrument indefinitely, for indeed we do not know its full effects, we are in the middle, or perhaps only as yet in the very beginning of its history as a providential engine for the preservation of a religion in the world. A miracle is remarkably adapted for the original propagation of a religion, but this is only its first work. The question must still always arise, and must be always rising afresh in every generation afterwards, — Why must I believe in this revelation ? So far, then, from the use of miracles being limited to a first start, even supposing a religion 24 Miracles necessary [Lect. could spread at first Ly excitement and sympathy without them, a time must come Avhen rational and inquiring minds would demand a guarantee ; and when that demand Avas made a miracle alone could answer it. The miracle then enters at its hirth upon a long career, to supply ground for rational belief throughout all time. INfahometanism, indeed, established itself in the world without even any pretence on the part of its founder to miraculous powers. But the triumph of !Mahometanism over human belief, striking as it has been, cannot blind us to the fact that the belief of the Mahometan is in its very principle irrational, because he accepts IMahomet's super- natural account of himself, as the conductor of a new dis- pensation, upon Mahomet's own assertion simply, joined to his success. (5.) But this belief is in its very form irra- tional ; and whatever may be the apparent present strength and prospects of Mahometanism, this defect must cling to its very foundation, with this corollary attaching to it, viz. that t/the law of reason is allowed to work itself out in the history of human religions, the ultimate dissolution of the Mahometan fabric of belief is certain, because its very existence is an offence against tliat law. But the belief of the Christian is, at all events in form, a rational belief, which tlie Mahometan's is not ; because the Christian believes in a sujDernatural dispensation, upon the proper evidence of such a dispensation, viz. the miraculous. Ante- cedently, indeed, to all examination into the particiilars of the Christian evidence, Christianity is the only religion in the world which professes to possess a body of direct exter- nal evidence to its having come from God. Mahometanism avows the want of this ; and the pretensions of other reli- gions to it are mockery. One religion alone produces a body of testimony — testimony doubtless open to criticism — but still solid, authentic, contemporaneous testimony, to miracles — a body of evidence which makes a stand, and I] for a Revelation 25 upholds with a natural and genuine strength certain facts. And in this distinction alone between Mahometanism and Christianity, we see a different estimate of the claims of reason, lying at the foundation of these two religions and entertained by their respective founders. Doubtless the founder of Mahometanism could have contrived false miracles had he chosen, but the fact that he did not con- sider miraculous evidence at all wanted to attest a super- natural dispensation, but that his word was enough, shews an utterly barbarous idea of evidence and a total miscal- culation of the claims of reason which uufits his religion for the acceptance of an enlightened age and people ; Avhereas the Gospel is adapted to perpetuity for this cause especially, with others, that it was founded upon a true calculation, and a foresight of the permanent need of evi- dence ; our Lord admitting the inadequacy of His own mere word, and the necessity of a rational guarantee to His re- velation of His own nature and commission. " If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin;"^ "The works that I do bear wit- ness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me." ^ 1 St. John XV. 24. 2 iti^ y, 36. LECTURE II OEDER or NATUEE Gen. viii. 22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime aiid harvest, and cold and heat, and sii/mraer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. WHATEVEE difficulty there is in believing in miracles in general arises from the circumstance that they are in contradiction to or unlike the order of nature. To estimate the force of this difficulty, then, we must first understand what kind of belief it is which we have in the order of nature ; for the weight of the objection to the mir- aculous must depend on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous is opposed. And first, what is meant by the order of nature ? It will be answered, That succession and recurrence of physical events of which we have had experience. But this, though true as far as it goes, would be a very inadequate definition of what we mean by that important phrase — ^just omitting indeed the main point. Eor that order of nature which we assume in all our purposes and plans in life is not a past but a future. That which is actually known and has been observed is over and gone, and we have nothing more to do with it : it is that which has not come under our obser- vation, and which is as yet no part of our knowledge, which concerns us ; not yesterday's but to-morrow's state of the case. We entertain a certain belief respecting what will be the state of the case to-morrow with reference to the Order of Nature rising of the sun and other things : and that is the order of nature witli which we are practically concerned, not that part of it which we know, but that part of it of which we are ignorant. "What we mean, then, by the phrase ' order of nature ' is the connection of that part of the order of nature of which we are ignorant with that part of it which we knoAV — the former being expected to be such and such 'because the latter is. But this being the case, how do we justify this expectation, i.e. how do we account for the belief in the order of nature ? This belief, then, is defined as consisting in an expecta- tion of likeness — that the unknown is lihe tlie known, that the utterly invisible future will be lihe the past. " This," says Bishop Butler, "is that presumption or probability from analogy expressed in the very word continuance which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow as it has done, so far as our experience and knowledge of history can carry us back." (I.) But though the fact is very obvious that we do exjDect the unknown to be like the known, the future like the past, why is it that we do ? on what ground does this ex- pectation arise ? whence is it " that likeness should beget this presumption ? " The answer to this question will decide the mental character of our belief in the uniformity of nature, and so enable us to estimate the weight of the objection to the miraculous thence arising. On asking ourselves the question, then, why we believe that the future order of nature will be like the past, why such and such a physical fact will go on repeating itself as it has done, say the rising of the sun, or the ebb and flow of the tide, our first imjDulse is to say that it is self-evident it will do so. But such a ground gives way upon a moment's reflection. We mean by self-evident that of which the 28 Order of Nature [Lect. opposite is self-contradictory ; but though the fact that the sun rose to-day would be contradicted by the fact that it did not rise to-day, it is in no way contradicted by the fact that it will not rise to-morrow. These two facts are quite consistent with each other, as much so as any other two facts that could be mentioned. But thougli the connexion in our minds between the past recurrence of a physical fact up to this very day, and its future recurrence to-morrow, is not a self-evident one, is there any reason of any kind tliat can be assigned for it ? I apprehend that when we examine the different reasons Avliich may be assigned for this connexion, i.e. for this belief that the future will be like the past, they all come at last to be mere statements of the belief itself, and not reasons to account for it. It may be said, e..g. that when a fact of nature has gone on repeating itself a certain time, such repetition shews that there is a permanent cause at work ; and that a per- manent cause produces permanently recurring effects. But what is there to vshew the existence of a pejjiianent cause ? Nothing. The effects which have taken place shew a cause at work to the extent of those effects, and those particular instances of repetition, but not at all further. That this cause is of a nature more permanent, than its existing or known effects, extending further, and about to produce other and more instances besides those it has produced already, we have no evidence. Why then do we expect with such certainty the further continuance of tliem ? "We can only say, because we believe the future will be like the past. We have professed, then, to give a reason why we believe this, and we have only at last stated the fact that we do. Let us imagine the occurrence of a particular physical phenomenon for the first time. Upon that singular occur- rence we should have but the very faintest expectation of II] Order of Nature 1 9 another. If it did occur again once or twice, so far from counting on another recurrence, a cessation would come as the more natural event to us. But let it occur a hundred times and we should feel no hesitation in inviting persons from a distance to see it ; and if it occurred every day for years, its recurrence would then be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel. But what has taken place in the in- terim to produce this total change in our belief ? From the mere repetition do we know anything more about its cause? No. Then what have we got besides the past repetition itself ? Nothing. Why then are we so certain of its future repetition ? All we can say is that the known casts its shadow before ; we project into unborn time the existing types, and the secret skill of nature intercepts the darkness of the future by ever suspending before our eyes, as it were in a mirror, a reflexion of the past. We really look at a blank before us, but the mind, full of the scene behind, sees it again in front. Or is it to give a reason why we believe that the order of nature will be like what it has been, to say that we do not know of this constancy of nature at first, but that we get to know it by experience ? What do we mean by know- ing from experience ? We cannot mean that the future facts of nature have fallen within our experience, or under our cognizance ; for that would be to say that a future fact is a past fact. We can only mean, then, that from our past experience of the facts of nature, we form our expecta- tion of the future ; which is the same as saying that we believe the future will be like the past : but to say this is not to give a reason for this belief, but only to state it. Or do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that though " no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had experience of what was future ? " This is a true assertion, but it does not help us at all out of the present difficulty, because the confidence 30 Order of Nature [Lect. of wliich we speak relates not to what was future, but to what is future. It is true, indeed, that what is future becomes at every step of our advance what loas future, but that which is now still future, is not the least altered by that circumstance ; it is as invisible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if not one single moment of the past had preceded it, and as if it were the very beginning and the very starting-point of nature. Let any one place himself in imagination at the first commencement of this course of nature, at the very first opening of the great roll of time, before any of its contents had been disclosed, — what would he know of the then future course of nature ? Xothing. At this moment he knows no more of its future course dat- ing from this moment. However at each jiresent instant the future emerges into light, this only moves forward the starting-point of darkness; at every fresh step into the future the future begins afresh, and is as unknown a future as ever, behind the same impenetrable veil which has always hid it. Whatever time converts into the known we are always on the confines of the unknown ; and what- ever tracts of this country w^e discover, the rest is as much undiscovered ground as ever. That " every man then has had experience of what was future," is no reason for his confidence in what is future, except upon one assumption, viz. that the future will be like the past. But, such being so, this professed reason for the belief in question does not account for it, but assumes it. What ground of reason, then, can we assign for our expectation that any part of the course of nature will the next moment be like what it has been up to this moment, i.e. for our belief in the uniformity of nature ? None. No demonstrative reason can be given, for the contrary to the recurrence of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No probable reason can be given, for all probable reasoning respecting the course of nature is founded upon this pre- II] 07'der of Nature 31 sumption of likeness, and therefore cannot be the founda- tion of it. No reason can be given for this belief. It is without a reason. It rests upon no rational ground and can be traced to no rational principle. Everything con- nected with human life depends upon this belief, every practical plan or purpose that we form implies it ; every provision we make for the future, every safeguard and cau- tion we employ against it, all calculation, all adjustment of means to ends, supposes this belief; it is this principle alone which renders our experience of the slightest use to us, and without it there would be, so far as we are con- cerned, no order of nature and no laws of nature ; and yet this belief has no more producible reason for it, than a speculation of fancy. A natural fact has been repeated ; it will be repeated : — I am conscious of utter darkness when I try to see why one of these follows from the other : I not only see no reason, but I perceive that I see none, though I can no more help the expectation than I can stop the circulation of my blood. There is a premiss and there is a conclusion, but there is a total want of connexion between the two. The inference, then, from the one of these to the other rests upon no ground of the understanding ; by no search or analysis, however subtle or minute, can we extract from any corner of the human mind and intelli- gence, however remote, the very faintest reason for it. Such was the conclusion of a great philosopher of the last century, after an examination of the foundation upon which the belief in the order of nature rested. " When it is asked," says Hume, " what is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning the relation of cause and effect, it may be replied in one word — Experience. But if we ask. What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience ? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution. . . . Experience can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those pre- 32 Order of Nature [Lect, cise objects only, and that precise period of time which fell under its cognizance ; but wliy should this experience be extended to future times and to other objects ? It must be acknowledged that there is here a consequence drawn by the mind, that there is a certain step taken, a process of thouglit and an inference which wants to be explained. These two propositions are far from the same. I have found that such and such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee that other objects which are in appearance similar will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other ; I know in fact that it always is inferred : but if you insist that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning. The connexion between these propositions is not intuitive. Tliere is required a medium which may enable the mind to draw such an in- ference, if, indeed, it can be draM^n by reasoning and argu- ment. What that medium is I must confess passes my comprehension. I cannot find, I cannot imagine any such reasoning. You say that the one proposition is an infer- ence from the other ; but you must confess that the infer- ence is not intuitive, neither is it demonstrative. Of what nature is it then ? To say it is experimental is begging the question. For all inferences from experience suppose as their foundation that the future will resemble the past : it is impossible therefore that any arguments from experi- ence can prove this resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular, that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that for the future it will continue so. As an agent I am quite satis- fied on the point, but as a philosopher I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading nor inquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty. Can I do more than propose it to the public, even though perhaps I have II] Order of N attire 33 small hopes of obtaining a solution ? AVe sliall at all events by this means be sensible of our ignorance, if we do not augment our knowledoe." 1 Such is the nature of this remarkable and momentous inference and belief — necessary, all important for the purposes of life, but solely practical and possessing no intellectual character. Will it be said that this unintel- lectual and unreasoning character belonsjs to it in common with all the original perceptions of our nature, which cannot, as being original, rest upon any argumentative foundation ? This would not be a true or correct account of the character of this j)articular inference, and the absence of the rational quality in it. For there is this important difference between the rational or intellectual perceptions which cannot be traced further back than themselves, and this inference we are speaking of, viz. that those perceptions cannot be contradicted without an absolute absurdity, whereas an event in contradiction to this inference is no absurdity at all. The truth of a mathematical axiom can- not be traced further back than itself; but then an axiom is self-evidently true, and a contradiction to it is as self- evidently false. And, to go out of the sphere of strict demonstration, the inference from the coincidence of one part with another in organized matter, to design or law as distinguished from chance, is an inference which cannot be traced further back than itself; but then this inference cannot be contradicted without a shock to reason. The sujDposition that this whole world came together by chance is an absurdity. But the inference from the past to the future wants this intrinsic note and test of an inference of reason, that the contradictory to it is in no collision with reason. There is no violence to reason in the supposition that the world will come to an end, and the sun will one day not rise, notwithstanding the increasing presumption 1 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. iv. C 34 Order of Nature [Lect. from repetition up to that very day that it will rise. Indeed, it is not wholly unmeaning to observe that the great meta- physician himself, who analyzed the argument from experi- ence, has unconsciously tested that argument by this very case. Two famous atheistical pTiilosophers have predicted the end of the world and the dissolution of all things. The grand and striking prophecy of Lucretius is given with an almost oracular solemnity ; hut the vaticination of our own philosopher, based upon hints and analogies in nature, is also delivered with a grave and serious voice, which arrests attention. " Suppose," says Hume, " all authors in all languages agree that from the 1st of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days : suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people: that all travellers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction : it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon which seems to have a tendency towards that catastrophe comes within the reach of human testimony." ^ The end of the world, then, so far from being impossible, is here contem- plated as likely ; and yet up to the very moment of the end — for if it comes at all, it may come in a moment — the argument from experience that it will continue will be in full force, — nay, in the very greatest force that it has ever been in since the beginning of things. The argument from mere experience, then, intrinsically differs in the quality of reasoning, not only from mathematical reasoning, but even, as has been noticed, from the other great department of prohdble reasoning. ^ Essny on Miracles. II] Order of Nature 35 Indeed, that this belief in the uniformity of nature is not a part of reason is shewn by the circumstance that even the brute animals are possessed with it, apparently quite as much as man is. This is indeed the very first and most obvious trait of their instinct ; for it must strike the most ordinary observers that all animals show by their actions that from the past they infer the future, and that they calculate, just in the same way in which we do, upon the constancy of that part of the course of nature with which they are concerned. Xor can we by the very minutest analysis discover the slightest difference in tlie nature of this par- ticular instinct in the two cases, however different may be the range and rank of the facts to which it is applied. How- ever limited the experience of animals as compared with man's, the inference from experience is the same in them as in man. " We admire," says Hume, " the instincts of animals as something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of the human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish, when we con- sider that experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves."^ I would add, to this statement one remark. Some faint elements of reason being discernible in the brute, it is not enough to prove that a process is not a process of reason, that something approaching to it is seen in the brute. But allowing tliis, still a mental act which an animal performs in a mode which we cannot see to differ from the human mode of it, however valuable an act, is not what we popularly call and mean by an act of reason. Under what head, then, shall we bring this mysterious and incomprehensible inference from the known to the unknown, from the objects and time of which we have had experience to other objects and other times of which we ^ Enquiry, &c., sect. ix. 2,6 Order of Nature [Lect. have none ; — that which we call belief in the order of nature ? To what general principle si mil we refer this common primordial property of rational and irrational natures which lies at the basement of the whole pyramid of life ? It is not of importance to bring it under any regular head, so long as we understand its general character. We may observe that our nature, though endowed with reason, contains constitutionally large irrational depart- ments, and includes within it, as a true and genuine part of itself, nay, and a most valuable part, many processes which are entirely spontaneous, irresistible, and, so to call it, of the automaton kind. Such, e.g. is the impression which time makes upon us, by which it relieves our sorrows and moderates our joys. The loss of a relative or friend is in point of reason the same loss years hence that it is now, but we can no more prevent the effect of time upon our mind, than we can the spontaneous action of an internal bodily organ. So, again, tlie force of association is an irresistible principle. The ties of place and of country are in one respect irresistible ; men may act against them, but can never cancel or annihilate tliem in their own minds. And — to take a signal instance — custom or , habit is an irresistible principle. No reason can be given why acts should become easier by repetition, i.e. for the force of habit. The acts, however, being done, the formation of a habit is as sjjontaneous and irresistible a process as the growth of a vegetable. Under which head the belief now spoken of would appear to come. " Whenever," says the philosopher I have quoted, "the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or process of the understanding, we always say that this propensity is the efi'ect of custom. By employing that word we do not pretend to have given the ultimate reason of such a propensity. AVe only point out a principle which II] Order of Nature 3 7 is universally acknowledged, and which is well known by its effects. Perhaps we can push our inquiries no further or pretend to give the cause of this cause ; but must rest contented with it as the ultimate principle which we can assign to all our conclusions from experience. This hypothesis seems even the only one which explains the difficulty why we draw from a thousand instances an inference which M^e are not able to draw from one instance."^ ^ Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. v. It will be observed that this argument from experience of which we are speaking, is different from, and must not be confounded with, what we call the argu- ment of analogy. The term analogy itself may indeed be applied to any case of likeness : on which account the inference from like past to like future, or the argument of experience, may be and is sometimes called an argument of analogy. But it must be seen that it makes all the difference in the nature of the argument whether it is applied to like fliysical facts or like acts of a moral being. What we call by distinction the argument of analogy is concerned with the latter : it is an argument from an act of the Divine Being in one case to the probability of a like act in another W'hich appears to us a similar case. The validity of this argument, then, depends entirely upon the similarity of these two cases ; the resemblance in the two sets of circumstances and nature of the two objects to which the two acts belong — the two acts from the one of which we argue to the other. Nothing could be more absurd than to argue from one act to another like it, if there were no resemblance in the cases in and objects for which the two acts were j^erformed. And the same with respect to the negative side of analogy. Nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that, to prove the tenableness of one course of action, attributed to the Deity, in one case, it was enough to point to even the most admitted similar course of Divine action in a totally different case. The whole validity, then, of the argument of analogy depends upon the establishment of a parallel case, i.e. though not absolutely identical, substantially similar : and for the correctness of this resemblance in the two cases we make ourselves responsible when we use the argument. But the selection of a real parallel or like case, such as this argument stands in need of, is an act of reason and judgment, requiring thought and comparison ; it is indeed an act wliich exercises the utmost discrimination ; and is therefore an act of another kind wholly to the mechanical expectation of like events or recurrences in nature. Whence it appears that the argument of analogy, as it is called, is a fundamentally different argument from the argument of experience. 38 Order of Nature [Lect. Aud now, the belief in the order of nature being thus, however powerful and useful, an unintelligent impulse of which we can give no rational account, in what way does this discovery affect the question of miracles ? In this way: that this belief not having itself its foundation in reason, the ground is gone upon which it could be main- tained that miracles as opposed to the order of nature were opposed to reason. There being no prodiTcible reason why a new event should be like the hitherto course of nature, no decision of reason is contradicted by its unlikeness. A miracle in being opposed to our experience is not only not opposed to necessary reasoning, but to any reasoning. Do I see by a certain perception the connexion between these two — It lias happened so : it loill happen so ; then may I reject a new reported fact which has not happened so, as an impossibility. But if I do not see the connexion between these two by a certain perception, or by any perception, I cannot. For a miracle to be rejected as such there must at any rate be some proposition in the mind of man which is opposed to it : and tliat proposition can only spring from the quarter to which we have been referring, viz. that of elementary experimental reasoning. But if this experi- mental reasoning is of that nature which philosophy describes it as being of, i.e. if it is not itself a process of reason, how can there from an irrational process of the mind arise a proposition at all, — to make which is the function of the rational faculty alone ? There cannot ; and it is evident that the miraculous does not stand in any opposition whatever to reason. I have spoken throughout this argument of the belief in the order of nature as the expectation of continuance., of a like f^iture ; but it makes no difference whether the unlike event is a future or a reported past one : in either case it comes into collision with the expectation of likeness, which takes within its scope alike the future and the past. II] Order of Nature 39 The report of a past unlike event encounters the same resistance in the mind as the idea of a future one. Thus step by step has philosophy loosened the connexion of the order of nature with the ground of reason, befriend- ing, in exact proportion as it has done this, the principle of miracles. In the argument against miracles the first objection is that they are against law ; and this is answered by saying that we know nothing in nature of law in the sense in which it prevents miracles. Law can only pre- vent miracles by compeMing and making necessary the succession of nature, i.e. in the sense of causation ; but science has itself proclaimed the trath that we see no causes in nature;^ that the whole chain of physical succession is to the eye of reason a rope of sand, consisting of ante- cedents and consequents, but without a rational link or trace of necessary connexion between them. We only know of law in nature in the sense of recurrences in nature, classes of facts, like facts in nature — a chain of which, the junction not being reducible to reason, the interruption is not against reason. The claim of law settled, the next ob- jection in the argument against miracles is that they are against experience ; because we expect facts like to those of our experience, and miracles are unlike ones. The weight, then, of the objection of unlikeness to experience depends on the reason which can be produced for the expectation of likeness : and to this call philosophy has replied by the summary confession that we have no reason. Philosophy, then, could not have overthrown more thoroughly than it has done the order of nature as a necessary course of things, or cleared the ground more effectually for the principle of miracles. ' Taking ** cause" not in an absolute sense as necessarily containing its effect, but in the popular sense of secondary cause, which may be suspended by a higher cause, the idea of real causation in nature is not opposed to the miraculous ; and general belief has united the two. 40 Order of Nature [Lect. Hitherto, however, we have beeu dealing with the infer- ence from the known to the unknown, or the belief in the uniformity of nature, in connexion only M'ith the facts of vulgar sensible experience. Let us now regard the same inference and principle in connexion with science; in which connexion it .receives a more imposing name, and is called the inductive principle. The inductive inference or principle is that act of the mind by which, when the philosopher has ascertained by discovery a particular fact in nature, and its recurrence in the same connexion within his own observation, he forthwith infers that this fact will universally take place, or converts it into a law. Does this inference from past experience, then, in connexion with science pass into a new phase and become luminous and intellectual, or does it remain the same blind and un- reasoning instinct as before ? Wlien we examine, then, what it is which composes that process which is called inductive reasoning, we find that it consists of two parts, and that the first of these two parts is the simple discovery of a fact. There is wanted the physical cause of some known fact, and this cause is another fact not known as yet in this relation, for Avhich accordingly the philosopher institutes a search. It must be a fact which fulfils certain conditions, must always pre- cede the known fact when tlie latter takes place, and always omit this precedence when it does not take place. The test of invariable antecedence puts aside as causes on the one hand all the facts which the event ^«/i'cs place ?nV7i- oxit, and on the other hand all which the event does not take place vntli, till it gets at the residuum which is the pliysical cause. The sagacity of the man of science, then, is shewn in hitting upon and singling out the fact whicii fulfils these conditions from the midst of the whole pro- miscuous crowd of facts which surround the phenomenon before him — a process which severely tries his powers of II] Order of Nature 4 1 observation, force and steadiness of attention, quickness of apprehension, watchfulness, accuracy ; his powers of com- parison, of seeing things in relation, and detecting hidden relationships and connexions in things. He has to extract the real key to the enigma out of a quantity of deceptive and misleading promises of solution, which take him in dif- ferent directions only to retrace his steps ; he has to repeat again and again the selection of facts which he brings to the test, to see if they answer to it ; he has to carry in his mind a large body of old observations, in order to provide connexion and productiveness to the new. This is the first part, then, of the inductive process ; but as yet we have only ascertained a fact — a fact indeed which fulfils peculiar conditions, and therefore has not been observed by the ordinary use of the eyes, but by a process of selection ; but still no more than a fact, that is to say, a particular past occurrence which has been often repeated ; that the pursuit of it has been regular and systematic does not alter the particularity of the fact, or make it at all the more a universal or a law. To take the familiar instance of the discovery of vaccination. In this instance it was discovered that in all the observed cases of freedom from a particular complaint, a certain fact preceded that fact ; but that was only a particular observa- tion : how was it converted into a universal, or into the law that, where that fact or something equivalent to it pre- ceded, that freedom would always follow ? The inference, then, which converts scientific observation into law, which we call the inductive principle, and is the second part of the inductive process, is exactly the same instinct which converts ordinary and common experience into law ; viz., that habit by which we always extend any existing recurrent fact of nature into the future. The in- ductive principle is only this unreasoning impulse applied , to a scientifically ascertained fact, instead of to a vulgarly 42 Order of NaUire [Lect. ascertained fact. Science is only a method of ascertaining the fact, which when once ascertained is the same as any common fact, and dealt with by our nature in the same way. Science has led up to the fact, but there it stops, and for converting the fact into a law, a totally unscientific principle comes in, the same as that which generalizes the commonest observation in nature. The one is a selected fact indeed, the other an obvious palpable fact, but that which gives constancy and future recurrence to each — the prediction attaching to them, is a simple impression of which we can give no rational account, which likens the future to the past. The naturalist obtains his fact by his own sagacity, but the generalization of it is done for him, and this spontaneous addition is the same in the discovery of a philosopher and the observation of a savage. There is all the difference in the philosophical rank of the two ob- servations, their transition from fact into law is one common mechanical appendage. That which stereotypes them both is the same, and for his future or universal the scientific man falls back upon the same instinct as that which sup- plies the physical prospect of the peasant. (2.) And here it may be remarked by the way, that what is called inductive reasoning is not, strictly speaking, reason- ing. It is called so because an inference is made in it, a general conclusion is drawn from particulars. But the first part of the inductive process is not reasoning but ob- servation ; the second part is not reasoning but instinct : the scientific part is not inductive, the inductive part is not scientific. (3.) Hence we cannot attribute to scientific men, by however penetrating and lofty faculties they may have discovered facts, any peculiar perception of recurrence or law. Language has been used as if science generated a perception of mathematical or necessary sequence in the order of nature. (4.) But science has herself proclaimed the truth that there is no necessary connexion in nature ; II] Order of Nature 43 nor has science to do with generalization at all, but only with discovery. And I may add, that though science avails herself of the inductive principle and depends for all her utility upon it, still to ascertain the nature of this principle is not the province of physical but of mental science. It must be observed, again, that the inductive principle thus spoken of as unscientific, upon which the order of nature is founded, is totally different from the perception of harmony and relation in nature. We use the phrase 'order of nature' in two senses; that of arrangement, and that of recurrence. I see relation amongst different things, and I call that the order of nature ; and I see the repetition of the same thing, and I call that the order of nature too. I examine the component parts, and see their wonderful and subtle adjustment ; and I take everything in a lump, and expect its uniform continuance ; and both of these I call the order of nature. But in one of these senses order is a scientific perception, in the other it is not : and though philosophers have a far deeper insight into the order of nature in the one sense than common people have, they have not in the other. Their knowledge of nature enables them to unravel the multiplicity of relations in her, and so to see a more wonderful and nicer agreement or system in her ; but gives them no greater light whereby to prophesy her continuance or repetition. While we also remark that it is not in the sense of harmony and system that the order of nature is opposed to the miraculous at all. The action of some intricate engine is interrupted designedly for some purpose ; is the admirable perfection of the machinery at all interfered with by that fact ? Do I see its order and arrangement the less ? Does even an injurious interrup- tion of the relations of the internal organs of the body, as disease is, make our bodily structure at all less wonderful a contrivance ? The order of nature, then, in the sense of 44 Order of Nature [Lect. its harmony, is not disturbed by a miracle ; the interruption of a train of relations in one instance leaves them standing in every other, i.e. leaves the system as such untouched. Xature is the same surprising exhibition of mutual relation and adjustment, whether in one instance or so the action of the machine is or is not interrupted. What is disturbed by a miracle is the m.echanical expectation of recurrence, from which, and not from the system and arrangement in nature, the notion of immutability proceeds. "What is the conclusion, then, to be drawn from this statement of the process of induction ? It is this. The scientific part of induction being only the pursuit of a particular .fact, miracles cannot in the nature of tlie case receive any blow from the scientific part of induction ; be- cause the existence of one fact does not interfere with the existence of another dissimilar fact. That which docs resist the miraculous is the ?t?iscientific part of induction, or the instinctive generalization upon this fact. The inductive principle being that which assimilates the unknown to the known, or establishes the order of nature, is opposed to any dissimilar fact or interruption of that order, whether we think of it as going to be, or wdiether we think of it as having by report taken place. A reported miracle is a re- ported case in which the oixler of nature did not for that instance continue, but was interrupted. The inductive principle therefore resists that miracle. But what is the inductive principle ? What is its nature ? what is its force ? what is its weiglit upon such a question ? Tlie in- ductive principle is simply the mechanical expectation of the likeness of the unknown to the known, not become any more luminous than it was before because its subject-mat- ter is higher; but being in the most vulgar and the most scientific material alike unreasoning, i.e. no part of the dis- tinctive reason of man. When, then, there is nothing on the side of reason opposed to it, as is the case commonly II] Order of Nature 45 we follow it absolutely. But supposing there should arise a call of reason to us to believe what is opposite to it ; sup- posing there is the evidence of testimony, w^hich is an aj)- peal to our proper reason, that an event has taken place which is opposed to this impression — it is evident then that our reason must prevail in the encounter, i.e., that if there is on one side positive evidence, the antecedent counter-expectation of instinct must give way. And thus we come round to Butler's statement of the ground of ex- perience, that " there is a probability that all things will continue as we experience they are, except in those re- spects in wdiich we have some reason to think they will be altered." This definition of the force of experience is an appeal to our consciousness, and our consciousness responds to it, recognising no other belief in the order of nature but the one thus described. But as thus described this belief is self-limited, and intrinsically admits of events contrary to it ; within its very body and substance is contained the confession of its own possible error, the anticipation of rea- sonable contradiction to it. The proper function of the inductive principle, the argu- ment from experience, or the belief in the order of nature — by whatever phrase we designate the same instinct — is to operate as a practical basis for the affairs of life and the carrying on of human society. Without it it would be im- possible for the world to go on, because without it we should have no future before us to calculate upon; we should not feel any assurance of the continuance of the world itself from moment to moment. This principle it is, then, which makes human life practicable ; which utilizes all our knowledge ; which makes the past anything more than an irrelevant picture to us ; for of what use is the ex- perience of the past to us unless we believe the future will be like it ? But it is also evident what is not the proper function of this principle. It does not belong to this prin- 46 Order of Nature [Lect. ciple to lay down speculative positions, and to say what can or cannot take place in the world. It does not belong to it to control religious belief, or to determine that certain acts of God for the revelation of His will to man, reported to have taken place, have not taken place. Such decisions are totally out of its sphere ; it can assert the universal as a law ; but the universal as a law and the universal as a proposition are wholly distinct. The proposition is the universal as a fact, the law is the universal as a presump- tion ; the one is an absolute certainty, the other is a prac- tical certainty, Mdien there is no reason to expect the con- trary. The one contains and includes the particular, the other does not : from the one we argue mathematically to the falsehood of any opposite particular ; from the otlier we do not. Yet there has existed virtually in the speculations of some philosophers an identification of a universal as a law, with a universal proposition ; by which summary ex- pedient they enclosed the world in iron, and bound the Deity in adamantine fetters ; for such a law forestalls all exception to it. An apparently counter-process has indeed accompanied this elevation of induction to mathematics, viz., the lowering of mathematics to induction. But either form of identification has the same result, for if demon- strable and experimental reasoning stand on the same ground, an alchemical process is obtained for transmuting the blind inference from experience into demonstration, and thus endowing the order of nature which rests upon that experience with the character of immutable and neces- sary law. (5.) For example, one signal miracle, pre-eminent for its grandeur, crowned the evidence of the supernatural char- acter and office of our Lord — our Lord's ascension — His going up with His body of flesh and bones into the sky, in the presence of His disciples. " He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And while He blessed them, He was II] Order of Nature 47 parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." ^ Here is an amazing scene, which strikes even the devout believer, coming across it in the sacred page suddenly or by chance, amid the routine of life, with a fresh surprise. Did, then, this event really take place ? Or is the evidence of it forestalled by the inductive principle compelling us to remove the scene as such out of the category of matters of fact ? The answer is, that the inductive principle is in its own nature only an expectation ; and that the expectation, that what is unlike our experience will not happen, is quite consistent with its occurrence in fact. This principle does not pretend to decide the question of fact ; which is wholly out of its province and beyond its function. It can only decide the fact by the medium of a universal ; the universal proposition that no man has ascended to heaven. But this is a statement which exceeds its power ; it is as radically incompetent to pronounce it as the taste or smell is to decide on matters of sight; its function is practical, not logical. No antecedent statement, then, which touches my belief in this scene, is allowed by the laws of thought. Converted indeed into a universal proposition, the induc- tive principle is omnipotent, and totally annihilates every particular which does not come within its range. The uni- versal statement that no man has ascended into heaven, absolutely falsifies the fact that One Man has. But thus transmuted, the inductive principle issues out of this meta- morphose, a fiction not a truth ; a weapon of air, which even in the hand of a giant can inflict no blow because it is itself a shadow. The object of assault receives the un- substantial thrust without a shock, only exposing the want of solidity in the implement of war. The battle against ^ Luke xxiv. 50, 51 ; Acts i. 9, 10. 48 Order of Nature the supernatural has been going on long, and strong men have conducted it and are conducting it — hut what they want is a weapon. Tlie logic of unbelief wants a universal. But no real universal is forthcoming, and it only wastes its streuuth in wielding a fictitious one. LECTURE III INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION ON BELIEF Psalm cxxxix. 14 Marvellous are Thy tvorks, and that my soul hnoweth right well. IT is evident that the effect which the visible order of nature has upon some minds is, that as soon as they realize what a miracle is, they are stopped by what appears to them a simple sense of its impossibility. So long as they only believe by habit and education, they accept a miracle without difiiculty, because they do not realize it as an event which actually took place in the world ; the alter- ation of the face of the world, and the whole growth of in- tervening history, throw the miracles of the Gospel into a remote perspective in which they are rather seen as a pic- ture than as real occurrences. But as soon as they see that, if these miracles are true, they once really happened, what they feel then is the apparent sense of their impossi- bility. It is not a question of evidence with them : when they realize, e.g., that our Lord's resurrection, if true, was a visible fact or occurrence, they have the seeming certain perception that it is an impossible occurrence. " I cannot," a person says to himself in effect, " tear myself from the type of experience, and join myself to another. I cannot quit order and law for what is eccentric. There is a repul- sion between such facts and my belief as strong as that between physical substances. In the mere effort to con- D 50 Influence of the [Lect. ceive these amazing scenes as real ones, I fall back upon myself and upon that type of reality which the order of nature has impressed upon me." Now when such a person proceeds to probe the ground of his deep objection to a miracle, the first thing, I think, that cannot but strike him is how very poor any reason he can allege and specify is, compared with the amount of his own inward feeling of certainty. If he is a reflecting per- son, he cannot but be struck of his own accord with this singular disproportion between the two — on the one hand an overpowering prepossession, on the other hardly anything to sustain it. The form in which he will first put his reason to himself will perhaps be that miracles are inconceivable to him. But what is meant by this assertion ? That the causes are inconceivable ? But the causes of the commonest physical facts are the same. That the facts are inconceiv- able ? But the facts are not inconceivable, but conceiv- able. I can conceive the change of water into wine just as easily as I can conceive any chemical conversion ; i.e. I can first conceive water, and then I can conceive wine in the place of water ; and that is all I can do in the case of any change of one substance into another in chemistry. The absence of the medium of an artificial process only makes the cause inconceivable, not the fact. So I can form the idea of a dead man alive again, just as easily as I can of the process of decay ; one fact is as conceivable as another, while the causes are alike inconceivable of both. We cannot rest, then, at the reason of inconceivableness, but must go on to some further one. Is it that miracles are physical results produced without means, without a physical m.edium intervening between the Divine will and the result ? But we cannot pronounce upon the fact of the total absence of means, but only on their invisibility, Avhich belongs to many steps and media in nature. Nor can we pronounce upon the necessity of physical means ; for even Ill] Imagination on Belief 51 in the natural action of will or spirit upon matter, there must be a point at which the one acts on the other without a medium, however inconceivable that may be ; otherwise if the media never end, the one never gets at the other at all. The reason then against miracles that we come to at last, and in which all these vaguer reasons end, is simply their urdikcncss to the order of nature. A suspension of tlie order of nature is the ordinary phrase in which we express this unlikeness to the order of nature (i) ; but whether or not we call unlikeness by this term, the fact itself is the ulti- mate objection to a miracle. It was shewn, however, in my last lecture, what the expectation of likeness was, and that no reason against an unlike event as such was pro- ducible or even imaginable. The rejecter of miracles has indeed, in the overpowering force of an impression upon his liiind, something to which argument is hardly adapted. Every time he recalls a miracle to his imagination, he recalls a felt something at the bottom which in his own idea closes the door against it ; something at the root of the matter which is untouched, a true cause of conviction which is unanswered ; he cannot conceive that so strong a rejecting influence as he feels can be without rational necessity ; that the force of the resis- tance in his mind is not its own vindication. And yet the question of the possibility of anything — possibility — i.e. as far as we know — is a judicial question which must be decided in the same way as a question of fact. There is a court which decides this question — the inner court of our own mind, in which witnesses are cited and evidence is heard. The witnesses cited into this court are all the faculties and perceptions of our minds ; and when they have answered to the summons, one question is put to them, — Does any reason exist why a miracle is im- possible ? If they know of none, the case is over. The 52 Influence of the [Lect. court of possibility decides in the same way in which a court of fact does. It is an open court into which all mankind are admitted, for indeed the witness in that court is the collective reason of mankind, which appears there to give an account of itself, to declare to its own known contents, and whether amongst them all there is found a reason for the im- possibility of a miracle. Science has its summary evidence of fact by which it challenges foregone conclusions; and reason has the same. What has been, then, in the present instance the cause at work — that which has made a reason, when there was none, against the miraculous as such ? I cannot but think that under an intellectual disguise it is the imagination. The design, as I have stated, of the inductive principle or belief in the order of nature is a practical one — to enable provision to be made for human life and welfare ; which could not be done unless we could reckon upon the likeness of the past to the future. For without this expectation, wliat would be our prospect ? Every moment of nature might be its last, and we shou.ld live upon the constant brink of utter change and dissolution, which would paralyze all action in us. But the impression as it exists in us by nature being entirely a practical one, and this being its legitimate and constitutional scope, imagination seizes hold of it and diverts it from its scope ; by brooding upon it exaggerates it ; converts a practical expectation into a scientific truth, and extracts from an unreasoning instinct what it cannot by its very nature contain — a universal intellectual proposi- tion, that the order of nature is immutable. We apply the term imagination to denote that faculty by which the mind adds anything out of itself to a fact or truth, whether that fact or truth be a visible object, or an idea or motive within us. Being such, however, the ima- gination has a very different moral aspect according as it acts in one or other of two ways ; that is to say, actively. Ill] Imagination on Belief 53 by energy and self-exertion from within, or passively, by yielding to an impulse or impression from without. In either case it adds to a fact something which that fact does not supply of itself ; for to yield too much to an impression is to exaggerate it : but the two cases of addition widely differ. When the imagination acts by energy from within, when it enables us to see the force and extent of some truth, to grasp a condition of things external to ourselves, to understand the feelings and the wants of others, to ad- mire nature, to sympathize with man ; or when it aids in the work of combination, construction, invention ; in thus actively imparting meaning and life to facts, imagination is a noble and effective instrument, if indeed we may not call it a part, of reason. But when the imagination exaggerates an impression by passively submitting and surrendering itself to it, when it gives way to the mere force of attrac- tion, and instead of grasping something else, is itself grasped and mastered by some dominant idea — it is then not a power, but a failing and a weakness of nature. We may call these respectively active and passive imagination. When imagination is spoken of in books of morals as a common source of delusion and unhappiness in men, who are carried away by their joys and griefs, their hopes and fears, and allow impressions to fasten upon them till they cannot shake them off, it is not the active imagination which is meant, but the passive. The passive imagination, then, in the present case exag- gerates a practical expectation of the uniformity of nature, implanted in us for practical ends, into a scientific or uni- versal proposition ; and it does this by surrendering itself to the impression produced by the constant spectacle of the regularity of visible nature. By such a course a person allows the weight and pressure of this idea to grow upon him till it reaches the point of actually restricting his sense of possibility to the mould of physical order. It is a 54 Infiiience of the [Lect. common remark that repetition as such tends to make itself believed ; and that if an assertion is simply reiterated often enough it makes its way to acceptance ; which is to say that the force of impression produces belief independently of reason. The order of nature thus stamps upon some minds the idea of its immutability simply by its repetition. The imagination we usually indeed associate with tlie ac- ceptance of the supernatural rather than with the denial of it ; but the passive imagination is in truth neutral ; it only increases the force and tightens the hold of any impression upon us, to whatever class the impression may belong ; and surrenders itself to a superstitious or a physical idea, as it may be. Materialism itself is the result of imagina- tion, which is so impressed by matter that it cannot realize the existence of spirit. The passive imagination thus accounts for the rise of the apparent perception of the impossibility of a miracle. For what is this perception in those who have it, and what is the actual form which it takes ? The form which it takes is this, that, upon the image of a miracle occurring to the mind, there is at once an entire starting back and repulsion from it, as from sometliing radically antagonistic to the very type of reality and matter of fact. Xow, that a contradiction to the order of nature should excite a provisionary resis- tance in our minds is inevitable ; because we possess the instinctive expectation of uniformity, unlikeness disagrees with that expectation, this disagreement creates surprise, and surprise is provisionary resistance. But what is it that makes this provisionary resistance final ? Is it reason ? No. Eeason imposes no veto upon unlikeness. Then it is the imagination. Eeason may reject that unlike event for want of evidence, imagination alone can reject it as such. Is it not true, indeed, that the intellect, like the feelings and affections, is capable of contracting bad habits, which need not at all interfere with the soundness and acuteness of Ill] Imagination 07t Belief 55 it in general, but may only corrupt and disable the judg- ment upon particular subjects ? If then, when there is no producible reason why a miracle should be impossible, a person appears to himself to perceive that it is ; if the in- tellect is so bound to the order of nature that it rejects by an instantaneous impulse a fact of a contrary type as such, it can only be because the intellect has contracted an imsound habit upon that subject-matter. It will be replied, however, " We do not reject strange and anomalous facts as such, we receive many such ; and therefore our disbelief in miracles is not the effect of ima- gination starting back from an eccentric type." But I answer, that the acceptance of eccentric facts solely upon the hypothesis that they are ultimately reducible to the order of nature, is not an acceptance of really eccentric facts. They are admitted and receive assent only upon the idea that their eccentricity is a temporary mask, underneath which really lie facts which come under the head of existing classes and known laws. They are accepted as hypothetically like, facts to known ones, not as unlike ones. Notwithstand- ing all the admission which is extended to such pheno- mena, facts ultimately eccentric excite as such a final resistance in the minds to which we are alluding, although no reason for their impossibility is forthcoming. And yet we may see how the imagination is compelled to confront and consent to the most inconceivable things, because it is dragged by the reason to do it. Two great counteracting influences appeal to it to preserve its balance against the impression from the uniformity of nature, and to rouse it from its lethargic submission to custom and recur- rence. One is the wonders of the visible world, the other is — for in this discussion I assume the doctrines of natural religion — the wonders of the invisible world. First the wonders of nature appeal to the imagination, in counteraction to the yoke of physical law. If we 56 Influence of the [Lect. examine into the nature of the sense of wonder, we see that it implies a kind of resistance in the mind, — often, indeed more generally, a pleased resistance, — but still a resistance to the facts which excite it. There is an ele- ment of doubt in wonder, a hesitation, a difficulty in taking in the new material and incoi'porating it in the existing body of belief There is a sense of strangeness in wonder, of something to overcome in the character of the fact presented to it. All wonder therefore, where the facts are, as they are in the case of natural marvels, admitted, is a precedent for facts resisted and yet believed, resisted on one side of our nature, believed on another; all wonder therefore tends to dispose us to the supernatural. We see that in nature God acts in modes which astonish us, which startle us. On every side are seeming incredibilities. Why should this be so ? Why is nature such a dispensation of surprises ? Why is it that no processes, no methods, no means to ends go on in her which do not contain this element ? Is it the unavoidable condition of existence at all that it should be wonderful, and that all its mechanism should be wonderfid. ? Whether it is or no, the wonders of nature are precedents of the kind which I mention. But we have no sooner said thus much than we are im- mediately met by the fact that many men who have had the deepest sense of the wonderful in nature have been disbelievers in the supernatural : and the names of some great poets, and men of powerful imagination in the realm of science, will occur as familiar instances of this. What, then, is the difference in the sense of wonder in these two spheres such as would account for this fact ; and what is the relation in which the wonderful in nature stands to the supernatural ? The old saying then, that nature is as wonderful really as any miracle, were we not so accustomed to her, omits the task of comparison, and does not bring out an im- Ill] Imagination on Belief 57 portant distinction which exists between these two kinds of the wonderful. A wonder of natural science is wonder- ful on its own account, and by reason of what is actually seen in it. In some vast disposition of nature for supply- ing the eye with light, or the vegetable with proper nutri- ment, or the limbs with active power, or for providing the breath of life itself, or for communicating heat, or distribut- ing colour, or for sustaining the motions of the heavens, or for any of those innumerable purposes for which the physical universe is adapted and contrived — it is the incredible power which comes out and exhibits and ex- presses itself in the arrangement which constitutes the subject of wonder. The effect is like that of looking on some gigantic machine in motion : it is the regulated force in action before our eyes that arrests us, which we admire for its own sake. The greatness lies in what is present and addresses itself to our perceptions, as power in execu- tion. This is the case especially in the impression made upon ns by those extraordinary revelations of science w^hich divulge as it were the miracles of nature, — the dis- closures, e.g. of the velocity of some of the motions of nature, or the magic of her metamorphoses and conver- sions. Even in the region of rude nature the source of wonder is in this respect the same, that that emotion arises in consequence of some signal force of nature which comes out and is manifested and expressed; which thus strikes us with astonishment on its own account. Such is the impression produced by the speed of lightning, the rage of winds, the weight of waters, even the great sounds of nature. And the same remark applies to the ]Derception of the obvious and palpable features of order, beauty, and grandeur in nature ; viz. that the effect which they pro- duce upon our minds is an effect arising from something which is expressed and which comes out before ovir eyes. But while the marvel of nature surprises on account of 58 Influence of the [Lect. what is visible and expressed in it, a miracle, on the other hand, excites our ■svonder less as a visible fact than as the sign of an invisible one : the wonderful really lies behind it ; for that which lies behind a miracle, the true reality of which the eccentric sign is but the veil and front, is the world supernatural. A miracle shows design and inten- tion, i.e. is the act of a Personal Being. Some one, there- fore, there is who is moving behind it, with whom it brings us in relation, a spiritual agent of whose presence it speaks. A miracle is thus, if true, an indication of another world, and an unseen state of being, containing personality and will; of another world of moral being besides this visible one ; and this is the overawing and impressing con- sideration in it; in the wonder excited by it, the mind rests only momentarily on the external fact, and passes on immediately to that mysterious personal power out of nature of which it is the token. Hence we obtain the true scope and character of that affection or propensity of the human mind which we call the love of the supernatural. It is impossible to question the existence and universality of this aflection, and that it is an affection which is productive of a characteristic sensa- tion of pleasure. And when we examine and analyze this sensation, and investigate the source of this gratification — one instance of which indeed we may say we have even in the interest which attaches to those reported cases of supernatural communications and visits from the unseen world, upon whatever evidence resting, which we have all heard in conversation — when we trace, I say, this emotion to its source, we find it deeply and intimately connected with the sense of eternity in our minds, the desire for our own future existence. Any communication from the un- seen world — supposing it for an instant to be true — is a token of personal existence going on in that world, and so a pledge, as it were, of the continuation of our own per- Ill] Imagination on Belief 59 sonal life when we depart hence. We are interested parties therefore. How indeed do we see people super- stitiously, fancifully, and therefore wrongly, catching at such signs of another world as if for safety ; at anything which promises a rescue from the absorption of the grave. But the very morbid excess of such longings shows that the love of the supernatural is no fictitious feeling. A miracle then, besides all the other purposes which it serves, is an answer to this affection ; it speaks to us of a power out of this order of things, of will, of Moral Being, of Personal Being in another world — of His existence, whose existence, according to our Lord's argument, is a security for the continuance of our own. Thus a miracle has an awe and a wonder attaching to it which is peculiarly its own, and is in marked contrast with physical wonder ; because it is a sign of an invisible world. It speaks to us in a manner and to a purpose, which all the astonishing forces of nature collected together cannot reach to : because it is addressed immediately to the soul, to the sense of immor- tality. The marvels of nature do not address themselves immediately to this part of us. Physical wonder is simply an entering into present reality, into loliat things are ; the sense is part of our very understanding ; for though great intellects have it most, a man must be without intellect at all who has no wonder. And therefore all the marvels and all the stupendous facts in nature do not speak to us in that way in which one miracle speaks to us ; because thei/ do not speak to us directly of eternity ; t?oe'i/ do not tell us that we are not like themselves — passing waves of the vast tide of physical life. And here I will just remark upon the perverse deter- mination of Spinoza to look at miracles in that aspect which does not belong to them, and not to look at them in that aspect which does. He compares miracles with nature, and then says how wise is the order of nature, how 6o Injiucnce of the [Lect. meaningless the violation of it; how expressive of the Almighty ]\Iind the one, what a concealment of it the other ! But no one pretends to say that a miracle com- petes with nature, in physical purpose and effectiveness. That is not its object. But a miracle, though it does not profess to compete with nature upon its rival's own ground, has a ghostly force and import which nature has not. If real, it is a token, more pointed and direct than physical order can be, of another world, and of ]\foral Being and Will in that world. And I may add, that for this effect of a miracle the benevolent and philanthropical type is not necessary, however befitting such miracles as are intended to be emblems of Divine love : it is enough for this function of a miracle that 'power is shown : nor do we on that accoimt bow down to the tmre power in a miracle, but only to that power as the sign and evidence of a truth beyond it. Wonder in the natural world, then, differs from that wonder which has for its object the supernatural; and this accounts for the fact, referred to above, of some men of great genius not having been believers in the supernatural, though they had the deepest sense of the wonderful. But, although the two wonders are not the same, it is not the less time that one of them points to the other, that physical wonder is an introduction to the belief in the supernatural. It is an introduction to it in this way, that it tends to raise in the mind a larger idea of possi- bility — that idea which is expressed in the old quota- tion, that " there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy;" the notion of the potential as distinguished from what is actual ; the sense of the unknown. The same faculty of imagination which causes wonder also naturally produces this larger •sense of possibility ; for indeed this latter is a 'kind of negative imagination; which without framing positive Ill] Iniagmation on Belief 6i images or figures of things, or putting contingencies into shajDe, distinctly contemplates the idea of what is out of sight, and raises up a vivid sense of the unknown region of what may be. This negative imagination is in the affairs of this world the groundwork of a worldly sagacity ; for those who are conscious of surrounding darkness, though they do not shape to themselves the contents of it, catch the more readily at such facts as emerge to light, and are more cautious under their concealment ; and in spiritual things partakes of the nature of faith ; for a sense of the possible unknown enters largely into our notion of faith. Nor is this connection of the sense of wonder with this sense of possibility shown by a common source only in the imagination; it is also proved by a common foe, which acts as the stupifier and suppressor of them both — viz. custom. Custom proverbially diminishes wonder. It is commonly noticed as a deteriorating effect of custom, that it benumbs the faculty of admiration. The case has been often put, that could we imagine ourselves with our mature faculties seeing nature for the first time, the sight of her glory would act irresistibly upon us like a splendid vision, and raise the most powerful emotions ; but that we are accustomed to her and therefore our perception of her sublimity is dead- ened.^ We would fain release ourselves from the thraldom of this stupor, unwind to its very last link the chain of ^ " Nil aJeo magnum nee tarn mirabile quicquam Principio, quod non minuant mirarier omnes Paulatim ; ut coeli clarum purumque colorem Quemque in se cohibent paluutia sidera passim Luuseque et sulis pra?clara luce nitorem : Omnia quse si nunc primum mortalibus adsint Ex iniproviso ceu sint objecta repente ; Quid magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici, Aut minus ante cpiod auderent fore credere gentes ? Nil ut opinor, ita htec species miranda fuisset ; Quom tibi jam nemo fessus satiate videndi Suspicere iu cceli dignatur lucida templa." — Lucretius, ii. 1027. 62 Injiueiice of the [Lect. custom by which we are bound, and win back the original perception; but we are held in the iron grasp of necessity. The efl'ect of constant repetition is that the impression wears off, and our admiration becomes not so much admiring as the consciousness that we ought to admire. And yet if God, in planting us here, has set us down before a spectacle which is designed to elicit our admiration, it is plain that this de- fect of it is a confession that we are so far inadequate to the situation in which we are placed. I do not say that it may not be partially remedied by effort and culture. So the awe which moral and religious truths inspire wears off by repetition, till they become mere words ; unless a counter- acting force is found in our own minds. And thus the same person may exemplify the simultaneous growth of the strengthening and M'eakening effect of custom ; deriving from this power an extraordinary facility and readiness in the use of particular faculties, while the same power has deadened in him the impression of every high truth. But if custom proverbially diminishes wonder, its effect in limiting the idea of possibility is equally proverbial : for it is the most familiar observation, that when we are accus- tomed to certain modes of doing things we get to think no other mode possible. No incongruity so glaring but that it is harmony itself to the eye of custom ; no combination so true but that it looks to it an impossibility : because the mind has surrendered itself captive to one form and mould, and cannot conceive anything different from what it is. And here I observe the questionable company in which the imjjression of immutability in the order of nature, i.e. of the possibility of nothing out of it, comes ; for the same principle that limits the sense of possibility also deadens the sense of wonder, and blunts the perception of beauty and truth. There is an evident analogy in these two effects of custom ; its effect upon sensibility, and its effect upon belief. For I have shown that the innnutability of the order Ill] Imagination on Belief 63 of nature is the decision of custom, only custom operating on the area of all nature instead of a small and local scale.^ A common source and a common foe then alike shew the connection of the sense of ^^ onder with the larger sense of possibility; while the connection of this latter with the belief in the supernatural is obvious. The sense of |)hysical wonder therefore is through this medium intrinsically allied to and introductory to the belief in the supernatural. It is an attitude of mind which favours the latter belief. We may observe that some old religions, e.g. the Scandinavian, and the still earlier Aryan, seem to have been almost founded upon the sense of physical wonder. At the same time the sense of wonder in nature may stop at a first stage and not reach this further one which naturally succeeds to it. Having followed its object up to the gates of dark- ness, there the imagination of the poet rested ; and it was the more likely to do so if his mind was under the in- fluence of sensual passion or — what is a better though still a bad reason — a deep prejudice against the supernatural arising from passionate indignation at the abuses of religion, and hypocrisy in the profession of it. But the miraculous having a natural ally in the marvels of nature, has in the next place a still stronger support and a more direct parallel in the wonderful truths of the invisible world, which in this inquiry we assume. Upon this head, then, a ground has been recentl}^ taken which deserves notice. " We are ready," it has been said, " to admit the existence of an invisible world totally differ- ent from this visible one- we do not object to aiiy thing inconceivable in that world ; to the most mysterious and 1 " Quelle raison ont-ils de dire qu'on ne peut ressusciter ? Quel est plus difficile de luaitre ou de ressusciter, que ce qui n'a jamais ete soit, ou que ce qui a ete soit encore ? Est il plus difficile de venir en etre que d'y revenir ? La coutume nous rend I'un facile ; la manque de coutume rend I'autre impossible. Populaire facon de juger." — Pascal, cd. Faugcrc,\ol. ii. p. 323- 64 Injiue7ice of the [Lect. incomprehensible doctrines relating to it ; "we leave un- touched the whole domain of the spiritual and invisible. But the existence of another world or order of things is another thing altogether from the interruption of this. What staggers our reason is not the invisible supernatural, but the violation of physical law." (2.) This position, then, breaks down with respect to the doctrines of revelation, for the simple reason that those doctrines require miracles for their proof, and therefore cannot consist with the rejection of the miraculous. But how does it stand as a simple comparison of the belief in the miraculous with the belief in an invisible world ? It is quite true, then, that if there is any intrinsic absur- dity in the interruption of order as such, the absurdity of the interruption of order in one world is not cancelled by the existence of another and a second world: and it is irrelevant to bring forward the latter fact as any extenua- tion of the former. But if the objection to the interruption of order is only a certain resistance of the mind, in that case, in admitting so astonishing a conception as the exis- tence of an invisible world, we have already got over the resistance of our minds in one most singular and remarkable instance ; which is a precedent for our getting over it in another instance. The natural effect of the mind taking in one strange and surprising truth, is that it entertains less opposition to another truth, on account of its being strange and surprising. The parallel holds in this impor- tant respect, even if the two instances are distinguished from each other in some points. For what image can be presented to the mind which more confounds the imagination than personal existence after the body's dissolution ? What can go more counter to the impress of experience ? What, if we did not believe it to be the most serious of all facts, would be a more wild and eccentric conception, more like a dream of imagination 4 Ill] Imaginatiojt on Belief 65 and a visionary creation of the poet, than the existence of another invisible world of created beings ? If a reflecting person is asked what it is absolutely easy to believe in, his answer is short, — Matter, and life connected with matter. If he is asked what it is not absolutely easy to believe in, his answer is equally short, — Everything else. The real belief in invisible things is, and is intended to be, and is represented in Scripture as being, not entirely easy, but requiring an effort and ascent of the mind. To a carnal imagination an invisible world is a contradiction in terms — another world besides the wlioU world. ISTor is there much difference upon this head between the unseen world of natural religion and the unseen world of the Nicene Creed. The notion of a fixed and final state which absorbs all transitory life ; of an eternal world and consummation of all things which gathers into itself the whole spiritual population of the universe, and distributes into its infinite realms of endless life the countless millions of personal beings who pass into it out of this state of mortality — this or the Christian doctrine of another world is a far sublimer conception than any pagan one ; but another world at all is a marvellous, astonishing, and supernatural conception. And if we go into particulars, we know that there must be forms of life in that world, conditions of intelligence, sights and objects in it which follow inconceivable types. And we allow all this to be a reality, and innumerable hosts to be living now in that unseen sphere which is only divided from us by the veil of the flesh. Now a person may say that a marvellous condition of things in another world is not the same with the miraculous in this, but can he embrace the former conception as an actual truth, without a general effect on his standard of credibility ? Could he avoid, while this idea was vividly upon him, feeling less resistance in the mind to the miraculous ? Could a mir- acle look otherwise than Uss strange to him with the E 66 Influence of the [Lect. strong impression of an existing different world at the moment upon Lis mind ? Has not the obstacle of unlike- ness to the known had to give way, and has there not been already introduced into his mind something wholly alien to the experimental contents of it ? That which is repul- sive in a miracle is the eccentricity of type in the fact ; this provokes the rejecting instinct, the antagonism of custom or experience; but in the admission of another world he has already passed through the shock of this col- lision. If an eternal invisible world indeed is admitted at all, it is so vast a conception, that this visible world floats like a mere fragment upon the unfathomable depths of that great mystery ; and its laws assume a subordinate rank. When, then, the distinction is drawn between the exist- ence of another world and the violation of order in this world; between the invisible and inconceivable, and the miraculous; it must be remembered that in both cases alike there is a difficulty of belief, arising from the common source of that mental habit which visible order engenders. If, then, I yield to this habit in the one instance, why may I not yield to it in the other, and an invisible world be- come an unreal conception to me ? An historical imagina- tion throws itself back into the Gospel era, pictures the people, the city, the passing day of the time and country ; then when it has made that time as real as possible, as truly present time once as to-day is now, the doubt arises — How can I believe that this stupendous miracle was a real occurrence ? But exactly the same ord(;al will disturb the belief in the invisible world. Let a person try to think it real ; let him say to hmiself — ' Is the whole multitude that has passed away from this earthly scene since the race of man existed, in existence now, every one of them a living person in the realms of spirit ; is this person, is tliat person at this moment living, this great monarch, that sagacious statesman, that sublime philosopher or poet, that Ill] hnaginatioii on Belief 67 heroic soldier of antiquity ? Are the men of all ages, from tlie earliest pastoral tribe to the generation that has only just departed from us, enjoying a simultaneous existence in that world? Are such things conceivable?' As such thoughts crowd upon his mind will he not find it as difti- cult to think all this a reality, as he does the miraculous to be such ? And yet if he does not think it a reality, what has he to look forward to himself when this passing scene is over ? This resistance, then, of the imagination to the miraculous is either no test of its truth, or a test which endangers the existence of the invisible world as well. When we reduce the broad distinction drawn between the invisible world and the miraculous as objects of belief to its first principle, that principle would seem to be the principle of unity, or, if we, may so express it, one xcorhl at a time, — that the two worlds admitted to exist, must exist in absolute disconnexion. The objection felt against a miracle is that it offends against this principle, that it puts the two worlds into communication and junction with each other, whereas they are intrinsically separate ; that it is an interpolation from one order of things into another, an in- jection of the supernatural into the sphere of the natural, thus confounding two systems which are perfectly distinct. Can the Supreme Mind or Will in the invisible world declare itself by the insertion of an anomalous fact in nature ? It is boldly answered, No. With respect, then, to this objection to a miracle, that it is a transgTession against the anity of nature, I observe that nature, so far from being constructed upon any prin- ciple of unity or simplicity in its contents, is itself the first great transgressor of that principle, being as mixed and heterogeneous a composition as can be imagined; and that therefore the introduction of a miracle into this sceiie is not a sudden incongruity, but that we are prepared for it by the miscellaneous and dissimilar physical and 68 Iiifiiience of the [Lect. spiritual material of this world itself. It would indeed be a contradiction in terms to say that nature had anything in it supernatural ; because the fact of the constant appearance of anything in nature makes it natural, and that only is supernatural which is out of the order of nature.^ But though the contents of nature are all in common natural, as being its contents, they are of such totally different types, and some so mucli higher than others, that some as compared to and in relation to others are supernatural. A miracle is therefore no discordant isolation in a system of mere matter, but blends with and carries out the diversity of nature, which takes off the edge of the resistance to it. It would be cognate to this observation to notice that which has been so much dwelt upon by many, that nature hordcrs everywhere upon the supernatural ; that the supernatural is not removed to an impassable distance from her, but stands at her very portals and touches her veiy outskirts. God is not in nature ; nevertheless the evidence of a God is. But what does evidence imply ? It implies a light breaking through nature, revealing that which is the subject of this light ; that nature is tracked to the edge of an incomprehensible truth. Wherever evidences of design, then, appear in the world, there nature borders upon mystery — the mystery of the Universal ]\Iiud and Will. And what, again, is the very infinity of the material world ? Do we not think of it as a kind of impossibility, so extravagant and eccentric a fact it is, and replete witli extravagant results ? (3.) Space itself, divested ^ We mean by the supernatural tliat wliicli is out of the order of nature. God, angels, departed spirits, heaven and hell, are out of the order of nature because they are not in nature at all ; a miracle is in nature in the sense of visibility, but is not in the order of nature ; tlie invisible world therefore, and miracles, are supernatural. But life, the human soul, conscience, reason, will, are natural, because they are in the order of nature or part of our constant experience. Ill] Imagination on Belief 69 of the limit of sense, seems incredible. Yet this space is not a mere idea but ^fad of this ■world ; for not anywhere out of nature, but in whatever direction I point my finger, lies that enigma of infinite space which is as insoluble and mysterious as an apparition. But I revert to the topic of the mixed physical and spiritual contents of nature ; which comes to a head in the situation of man in nature. The record which this earth gives of itself shows that after a succession of stages and periods of vegetable and animal change, a new being made his appearance in nature. Those who profess to trace the bodily frame of man to a common animal source, still admit that the rational and moral icing man is separated from all other animal natures by a chasm in the chain of causation which cannot be filled up ; and that even if such a transition is only con- ceived as a leap from a lower to a higher level in the same species, such a leap is only another word for an inexplic- able mystery. But such a change cuts asunder the identity of the being which precedes it and the being which succeeds it. (4.) The first appearance, then, of man in nature was the appearance of a new being in nature ; and this fact was relatively to the then order of things miraculous ; no more physical account can be given of it than could be given of a resurrection to life now. What more entirely new and eccentric fact indeed can be imagined than a human soul first rising up amidst an animal and vegetable world ? Mere consciousness — was not that of itself a new world within the old one ? Mere knowledge — that nature her- self became known to a being within herself, was not that the same ? Certainly man was not all at once the skilled interpreter of nature, and yet there is some interpretation of nature to which man as such is equal in some degree. He derives an impression from the sight of nature which 70 Influence of the [Lect. an animal does not derive ; for though the material spec- tacle is imprinted on its retina, as it is on man's, the brute does not see what man sees. The sun rose then, and the sun descended, the stars looked down upon the earth, the mountains climbed to heaven, the cliffs stood upon the shore, the same as now, countless ages before a single being existed who saio it. The counterpart of this whole scene was wanting — the understanding mind ; that mirror in which the whole was to be reflected; and when this arose, it was a new birth for creation itself, that it became Tcnown, — an image in the mind of a conscious being. But even consciousness and knowledge were a less strange and miraculous introduction into the world than conscience. Thus wholly mysterious in his entrance into this scene, man is now an insulation in it : he came in by no physical law, and his freewill is in utter contrast to that law. "What can be more incomprehensible, more heterogeneous, a more ghostly resident in nature, than the sense of right and wrong? What is it ? Whence is it? The obligation of man to sacrifice himself for right is a truth which springs out of an abyss, the mere attempt to look down into which confuses the reason. (5.) Such is the juxtaposition of mysterious and physical contents in the same system. Man is alone, then, in nature ; he alone of all the creatures com- munes with a Being out of nature ; and he divides himself from all other physical life by prophesying, in the face of uni- versal visible decay, his own immortality. But man's situation in nature being such, his original entrance a miracle, his sojourn an interpolation in the phy- sical system, a world within a world — a life of conscious- ness, freewill, conscience, reason, communion with God, sense of immortality insulated as an anomaly in the midst of matter and material law ; is it otherwise than in accor- dance with this fact that the Divine method of training and educating this creature should be marked by distinctive and Ill] Imagination on Belief 71 anomalous features ? If man himseK is an exception to nature, why should not his providential treatment be the same ? Why should not that economy be divided occa- sionally from the order of nature by the same mystery and chasm which divides its subject from it ? The being is an isolated being — isolated in his commencement and in his destiny — for whom miracles are designed. These Divine acts are concerned with the education of man, his instruc- tion, the revelation of important truths to him, and his whole preparation and training for another world ; but this being the case, what does such a dispensation of miracles amount to but this, that man has been educated in connec- tion with his own mysterious origin and fountain-head, and that the same extraordinary agency which produced his first entrance into the world directed his course in it. An anomalous situation bears corresponding fruits. " The soul of man," says Lord Bacon, "was not produced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God : so that the ways and proceedings of God with spirits are not included in nature ; that is in the laws of heaven and earth ; but are reserved to the law of His secret will and grace. 1 It is indeed avowed by those who reduce man in common with matter to law, and abolish his insulation in nature, that upon the admission of freewill, the objection to the miraculous is over ; and that it is absurd to allow exception to law in man, and reject it in nature. (6.) What has been said may be collected and abridged in one pregnant position — that man while in this world is placed in relations to another ; which is a supernatural relation- ship within nature. Could we imagine a person, who had not conceived the idea of religion, seeing for the first time the act of prayer — his surprise and perplexity at the sight would truly indicate what a remarkable insertion in nature ^ A Confession of Faith, vol. ii. p. 482. 72 Influence of the [Lect. this relationship to the unseen world was. So far from the two worlds standing totally apart, human reason itself places them in connexion ; and this connexion naturalizes a miracle. The same Divine policy which has imparted this double scope to reason, and instituted in this world our relations to another, only goes a step further when it gives us a message or communication from that world. The school which calls itself Secularist sees this result involved in this premiss, and therefore cuts off revelation at the root by denying that we have any relations to another world at all ; by the maxim, " Act for the world in which you live ; while you are in this world you have nothing to do with another." (7.) To conclude, then, let us suppose an intelligent Christian of the present day asked, not what evidence he has of miracles, but how he can antecedently to all evidence think such amazing occurrences possible ; he would reply, ' You refer me to a certain sense of impossibility which you sup- pose me to possess, applying not to mathematics but to facts. Now on this head I am conscious of a certain natu- ral resistance in my mind to events unlike the order of nature. But I resist many things which I know to be cer- tain ; infinity of space, infinity of time, eternity past, eternity future, the very idea of a God and another world. If I take mere resistance therefore for denial, I am confined in every quarter of my mind, I cannot carry out the very laws of reason, I am placed under conditions which are obviously false. I conclude, therefore, that I may resist and believe at the same time. If Providence has implanted in me a certain expectation of uniformity or likeness in nature, there is implied in that very expectation resistance to an unYikQ, event ; which resistance does not cease even when upon evidence I believe the event, but goes on as a mechanical impression, though the reason counterbalances it. Kesistance therefore is not disbelief, unless by an act Ill] Imagmation on Belief 73 of my own reason I gim it an absolute veto, which I do not do. My reason is clear upon the point, that there is no disagreement between itself and a miracle as such.' Such a reply would be both true itself, and also a caution against a mistake which both younger and older minds are apt to fall into, that of confounding the resistance of im- pression to a miracle with the veto of reason. Upon the facts of the Gospel history being first realized, they neces- sarily excite this resistance to a greater extent than they did when they were mainly accepted by habit ; but this resistance is in itself no disbelief, though some by the very mistake of confounding it with disbelief at last make it such, when in consequence of this misconception they begin to doubt about their own faith. Nor is it dealing artificially with ourselves to exert a force upon our minds against the false certainty of the resisting imagination — such a force as is necessary to enable reason to stand its ground, and bend back again that spring of im- pression against the miraculous which has illegally tight- ened itself into a law to the understanding, Reason does not always prevail spontaneously and without effort even in questions of belief; so far from it, that the question of faith against reason may often be more properly termed the question of reason against imagination. It does not seldom require faith to believe reason, isolated as she may be amid vast irrational influences, the weight of custom, the power of association, the strength of passion, the vis inertim of sense, the mere force of the uniformity of nature as a spectacle — those influences which make up that power of the world which Scripture always speaks of as the anta- gonist of faith. LECTURE IV BELIEF IN A GOD Hebrews xi. 3 Through failh inc undcrsiaml that the worlds were framed by the word of God. THE peculiarity of the argument of miracles is that it begins and ends with an assumption; I mean an assumption relatively to that argument. We assume the existence of a Personal Deity prior to the proof of miracles in the religious sense; but with this assumption the question of miracles is at an end ; because such a Being has necessarily the power to suspend those laws of nature which He has Himself enacted. For, the Divine f)owcr assumed, vain would it be to throw the impossibility of such an interruption on the Divine will — as if the act were contrary to the Divine perfections ; and as if it argued inconsistency and unsteadiness in the Deity thai, having established the order of nature, He should disturb it by exceptional acts. For it can argue no inconsistency in the Divine will to institute an order of nature for one purpose and suspend it for another. The essential uniformity and regularity of Divine action is a purely arbitrary conception, and certainly one not borrowed from any criterion of excellence in human conduct. God cannot depart indeed from His absolute purpose, but it does not follow from that, that an unvaried course of action is His purpose. The order of nature is not founded upon a Belief in a God 75 tlieatrical principle, as if it were a grand procession, any interruption of which was in itself desecration : its merit lies in its utility ; it is necessary for human life, and animal life too, which otherv/ise could not be sustained, because there would be no knowing what to expect or what to provide against from hour to hovir. But for this practical use, nothing would signify less than whether the whole material universe were in order or disorder. But if the merit of the order of nature lies in its use, there is no reason why it should not be suspended, if there is use in suspending it. The question of miracles is thus shut up within the inclosure of one assumption, viz. that of the existence of a God. When we state this, however, it is replied that this very conception of God, as a personal omnipotent Being, is a peculiar conception for which there is no evidence in material nature. ' Everybody,' it is said, 'must collect from the order and harmony of the physical universe the exist- ence of a God, but in acknoMdedging a God, we do not there- by acknowledge this peculiar or doctrinal conception of a God. We see in the structure of nature a Mind, a universal ]\Iind, but still a Mind which only operates and expresses itself by law. Nature only does and only can inform us of mind in nature, the partner and correlative of organized matter. Nature, therefore, can speak to the existence of a God in this sense, and can speak to the omnipotence of God in a sense coinciding with the actual facts of nature ; but in no other sense does nature witness to the existence of an Omnipotent Supreme Being. Of a universal Mind out of nature nature says nothing, and of an Omnipotence which does not possess an inherent limit in nature, she says nothing either. And therefore that conception of a Supreme Being which represents Him as a Spirit inde- pendent of the physical universe, and able from a standing-place external to nature to interrupt its order, is 76 Belief in a God [Lect. a conception of God for which we must go elsewhere. That conception is obtained from revelation, wliich is asserted to be proved by miracles. But tliat being the case, this doctrine of Theism rests itself upon miracles, and therefore miracles cannot rest upon this doctrine of Theism.' (i.) If the premiss then of this argument is correct, and this doctrine of Theism is from its standing-ground in nature thrown back upon the ground of revelation, this conse- quence follows ; and more, for miracles being thrown back upon the same ground on which Theism is, the whole evidence of revelation becomes a vicious circle; and the fabric is left suspended in space, revelation resting on miracles and miracles resting on revelation. But is this premiss correct ? It is then to be admitted that historically, and looking to the general actual reception of it, this conception of God was obtained from revelation. Not from the first dawn of history to the spread of Christianity in the world, do we see in mankind at large any belief in such a Being. The vulgar believed in many gods, the philosopher believed in a Universal Cause ; but neither believed in God. The philosopher only regarded the Universal Cause as the spring of the Universal machine, which was necessary to the working of all the parts, but was not thereby raised to a separate order of being from them. Theism was dis- cussed as a philosophical not as a religious question, as one rationale among others of the origin of the material uni- verse, but as no more affecting practice than any great scientific hypothesis does now. Theism was not a test which separated the orthodox philosopher from the hetero- dox, which distinguished belief from disbelief; it estab- lished no breach between the two opposing theorists; it was discussed amicably as an open question ; and well it might be, for of all questions there was not one IV] Belief in a God 77 which could make less practical difference to the philoso- pher, or, upon his view, to anybody, than whether there was or was not a God. Nothing would have astonished him more than, when he had proved in the lecture hall the existence of a God, to have been told to worship Him. 'Worship whom?' he would have exclaimed: 'worship what ? worship how ?' Would you picture him indignant at the polytheistic superstition of the crowd and manifest- ing some spark of the fire of St. Paul, " when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry," you could not be more mis- taken. He would have said that you did not see a plain distinction; that the crowd was right on the religious question, and the philosopher right on the philosophical ; that however men might uphold in argument an infinite abstraction, they could not worship it ; and that the hero was much better fitted for worship than the Universal Cause ; fitted for it not in spite of but in consequence of his want of true divinity. The same question was decided in the same w^ay in the speculations of the Brahmans. There the Supreme Being figures as a characterless imper- sonal essence, the mere residuum of intellectual analysis, pure unity, pure simplicity. No temple is raised to him, no knee is bended to him. Without action, without will, without affection, without thought, he is the substratum of everything, himself a nothing. The Universal Soul is the unconscious Omnipresent Loolicr-on ; the complement, as co-extensive spectator, of the universal drama of nature ; the motionless mirror upon which her boundless play and sport, her versatile postures, her multitudinous evolutious are reflected, as the image of the rich and changing sky is received into the passive bosom of the lake. Thus the idea of God, so far from calling forth in the ancient world the idea of worship, ever stood in antagonism wdth it : the idol was worshipped because he was not God, God was not worshipped because He was. One small nation alone out 78 Belief in a God [Lect. of all antiquity worshipped God, believed the universal Being to be a personal Being. That nation was looked upon as a most eccentric and unintelligible specimen of humanity for doing so ; but this whimsical fancy, as it appeared in the eyes of the rest, was cherished by it as the most sacred deposit ; it was the foundation of its laws and polity; and from this narrow stock this conception was engrafted upon the human race. But although this conception of the Deity has been re- ceived through the channel of the Bible, what communi- cates a truth is one thing, what proves it is another : the truth once possessed is seen to rest upon grounds of natural reason. The theory of a blind plastic nature might account for some imaginable world, but^ does not account for this world. For we naturally attribute to the design of a per- sonal Being, a contrivance which is directed to the exist- ence of a personal Being ; if an elaborate bodily organiza- tion issues in the life of myself — a person, I cannot avoid concluding that there is at the bottom of it the intention of a personal being that I should live. From personality at one end, I infer personality at the other ; and cannot svippose that the existence which is contrived should be intelligent and moral, and the contriver of it a blind irrational force. The proof of a personal Deity does not rest upon physical organization ^alone, but on physical organization adapted to the wants of moral beings. The Bible therefore assumes this truth rather than formally com- municates it ; the first chapter of Genesis proceeds upon it as proved ; and the prophet though he speaks as a prophet, still also speaks as a man on this subject. He proclaims this idea of God as a plain truth of iiuman reason, whicli the world did not see only because it was blinded by folly ; he ridicules polytheism with indignation and sarcasm ; he foretells the ultimate universal worship of the One God. He sees with the eye of prophecy, and of reason too, that IV] Belief in a God ' 79 the true idea of God cannot remain for ever in a corner, but must some day find access to the whole mind of the human race, which is made for its reception ; to the expul- sion of the false religions of the world. Not, however, that the existence of a God is so clearly seen by reason as to dispense with faith (2) ; not from any want of cogency in the reasons, but from the amazing nature of the conclusion — that it is so unparalleled, tran- scendent, and inconceivable a truth to believe. It requires trust to commit one's self to the conclusion of any reason- ing, however strong, when such as this is the conclusion ; to put enough dependence and reliance upon any premisses to accept upon the strength of them so immense a result. The issue of the argument is so astonishing, that if we do not tremble for its safety, it must be on account of a prac- tical principle in our minds which enables us to confide and trust in reasons, when they are really strong and good ones. Which principle of trust is faith — the same principle by which we repose in a witness of good character who in- forms us of a marvellous occurrence — so marvellous that the trust in his testimony has to be sustained by a certain effort of the reasonable will. The belief, therefore, in the existence of a God is not because it is an act of reason, any the less an act of faitli. Because faith is reason, only reason acting under particular circumstances. When reason draws conclusions which are in accordance with experience, which have their parallels in the facts which we are conversant with in the order of nature and in common life, then reason is called reason : when reason draws conclusions which are not backed by experience, and which are not paralleled by similar facts within our ordinary cognizance, then reason is called faith. Faith, when for convenience' sake we do distinguish it from reason, is not distinguished from reason by the want of premisses, but by the nature of the conclusions. Are our 8o Belief in a God [Lect. conclusions of the customary type ? Then custom imparts the full sense of security. Are they not of the customary but of a strange and unknown type ? Then the mechani- cal sense of security is wanting, and a certain trust is re- quired for reposing in them, which we call faith. But that which draws these conclusions is in either case reason. We infer, we go upon reasons, we use premisses in either case. The premisses of faith are not so palpable as those of ordinary reason, but they are as real and solid premisses all the same. Our faith in the existence of a God and a future state is founded upon reasons, as much so as the belief in the commonest kind of facts. The reasons are in themselves as strong, but because the conclusions are mar- vellous and are not seconded and backed by known parallels or by experience, we do not so passively acquiesce in them: there is an exertion of confidence in depending upon them and assuring ourselves of their force. The inward energy of the reason has to be evoked, when she can no longer lean upon the outward prop of custom, but is thrown back upon herself, and the intrinsic force of her premisses. Which reason not leaning upon custom is faith : she obtains the latter name wlien she depends entirely upon her own in- sight into certain grounds, premisses, and evidences, and follows it, though it leads to transcendent, unparalleled, and supernatural conclusions. We may remark that when reason even in ordinary life or in physical inquiry is placed under circumstances at all analogous to those of religion, reason becomes, as a conse- quence of tliat situation, a kind of faith. We have a very different way of yielding to reasons in common life, accord- ing as the conclusions to which they lead accord with or diverge from the type of custom. We accept them as a matter of course in the former case, it requires an effort to accept them and place dependence upon them in the latter ; which dependence upon them in the latter case IV] Belief in a God therefore is a kind of faith. Indeed, the remark may be made that a kind of faith appears to be essential for prac- tical confidence in any reasoning whatever and any pre- misses, when we are thrown back upon ourselves and do not act mechanically in concert with others. And we fre- quently see persons who, when they are in possession of the best arguments, and, what is more, understand those arguments, are still shaken by almost any opposition, be- cause they want the faculty to trust an argument, when they have got one ; which is not the case with others who can both understand and trust too ; wherein we see the link which connects faith with self-confidence and strength of will. In religion, then, where conclusions are so totally removed from the type of custom, and are so vast and stupendous, this applies the more strongly ; but in truth, all untried conclusions need faith, whatever strong argu- ments there may be for them. When a scientific man sees various premisses conspiring to direct him to some new truth or law in nature, the aptness with which these coin- cide and fall in with each other may amount to such strong evidence, that he may feel virtually certain of his dis- covery, and yet he does not feel it quite secure till it has stood the test of some crowning experiment. His reason, then, in the interim, is faith, he trusts his premisses, he feels practically sure that they cannot mislead him, he sees in their whole mode of combining and concurring a warrant for the issue, although the final criterion is still in pros- pect. Such a condition of mind is analogous to that of the religious believer, who perceives in nature, moral and physical (for we are speaking only of natural religion at present), the strongest arguments for certain religious con- clusions — such as the existence of a God, and a future life; and yet waits for that final certification of these great truths, which wiU be given in another world. " For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope : for what F 82 Belief in a God [Lect. a man seetli, why doth he yet hope for ? But if Me hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Faith, then, is unverified reason ; reason which has not yet received the verification of the final test, but is still ex- pectant. Indeed, does not our heart bear witness to the fact that to believe in a God is an exercise of faith ? That the uni- verse was produced by the will of a personal Being, that its infinite forces are all the power of that one Being, its infinite relations the perception of one Mind — would not this, if any truth could, demand the application of the maxim — Credo quia imijossihilc ? Look at it only as a con- ception, and does the wildest fiction of the imagination equal it ? No premisses, no arguments therefore, can so accommodate this truth to us, as not to leave the belief in it an act of mental ascent and trust ; of faith as distin- guished from sight. Divest reason of its trust, and the universe stops at the impersonal stage — there is no God. And yet if the first step in religion is the gi^eatest, how is it that the freest and boldest speculator rarely declines it? How is it that the most mysterious of all truths is a uni- versally accepted one ? "What is it which guards this truth ? What is it which makes men shrink from deny- ing it ? Why is atheism a crime ? Is it that authority still reigns upon one question, and that the voice of all ages is too potent to be withstood ? But this belief, however obtained, being assumed in the argument of miracles, in discussing this argument, we have to do not with the proof of a personal Deity, but only with the natural consequences of this belief, supposed to be true. To extract consequences indeed out of admissions before the sense of such admissions is defined or under- stood, is an illegitimate proceeding ; and from the mere ad- mission of a God in some sense, we could not thus argue. But if not only the existence of a Deity in some sense is IV] Belief m a God 83 admitted, but if that sense is defined, and the religious con- ception of the Deity as a moral and personal Being is admitted to be true ; this is a ground uj)on which we may fairly argue, and from which we may deduce consequences ; that is to say, we may examine what the belief means, and what is necessarily and naturally implied in this belief supposed to be true. But this conception of a God necessarily implies omni- potence ; because the Universal Cause must have power, and universal power, if He has will ; which, according to this religious and moral conception of Him, He has. No will, no power, indeed, for oar very idea of power im- plies will; but together with will the Universal Being possesses power, and power commensurate with Himself ; including the particular power involved in a miracle. For any cause has as such the power to suspend its own effects, depending as these do altogether upon it, provided only it has the will ; if voluntary power set them going the same power can stop them. The Universal Cause therefore has the same power ; and either God has will and He can inter- rupt the order of nature ; or He has not a will and He is not in the religious sense God. A personal Deity, therefore, can suspend the order of nature ; but all admit a personal Deity who admit the principle of religious worship. We use the word ' per- sonal ' only to denote that in the Deity which constitutes Him more than a force, to express that He is a moral Being, a Being with will. AU worship implies such a personal Being to whom it is addressed. For I do not, of course, include under worship that passionate contemplation of nature which is sometimes called worship. The ecstacy of atheistic poets at the sight of nature was the effect indeed of beholding a real manifestation of the Divine glory; nor can we witness without emotion their absorption in the sublime vision and spectacle, which transfixed them and 84 Belief in a God [Legt. made them mute, imparting to their wild insatiable life its one solitary rest ; but this ecstacy was not worship, because it only contemplated the Divine glory as impressed upon matter, and not in relation to its Fountain-head. Worship as a religious act implies a personal object. Can we — I do not say ought, but can we worship a force, a law, a prin- ciple ? One who professed to do so would stand convicted not of a foolish act, or of a fanciful act, or of a superstitious act, but of a total mistake in imagining that he had done tlie act at all. Because it is an impossible act. If men worship, then, if they pray, if they address themselves to the Deity, if they make petitions to Him, they acknowledge Him in that very act as a personal Deity. Whatever doubts mere philosophers and inquirers may entertain, believers and worshippers, those who admit, rather I should say who de- mand religion, who feel it to be necessary for them, a want of their nature, which nothing else can supply — in a word, religious men — grant a Deity in the special sense now mentioned ; but in this special sense is involved the con- sequence now mentioned, viz. that a Deity in this sense must possess omnipotence, and power over nature, to sus- pend her laws. The primary difficulty of philosophy indeed relating to the Deity is action at all ; from the inconceivableuess of which, in connection with the Divine nature, it was that the ancient subtle philosophical conception of God as a mere universal substratum arose. If action is conceded at all, there is no difficulty about miraculous action. But prayer certainly implies a Deity who can act, who can do something for us ; prayer, therefore, concedes the first great point relating to the Deity, and in conceding that concedes the whole. What, indeed, is a Deity deprived of miraculous action but a Deity deprived of action ; and what is a Deity deprived of action but an impersonal force which is no object of prayer ? (3.) IV] Belief in a God 85 • Is this consequence then of the acceptance of a personal Deity intercepted by saying that this special conception of a Deity is derived from " mystery and faith," and that " all religion as such ever has been and must be a thing entirely sui generis V (4.) No: because the evidence or the foun- dation of a conception has nothing to do with the natural consequence of that conception if admitted ; the pledge which is contained in believing and acting upon that con- ception. Let the believer say that his belief in such a Being is founded upon " mystery and faith;" well, but upon whatever ground he believes this truth, he believes it ; and if he believes it, he believes it with its natural con- sequence involved in it. Can it be said that religion does not interfere with physics ? (5.) Not if the religion be the belief here mentioned ; for this belief is the belief in a God who can interfere with nature, — in a Universal Cause who has a ivill ; and who has, with that will, the poioer to suspend physical effects. On the fundamental question, indeed, of the Divine Omnipotence, we assent to some known familiar limitations ; such as that God cannot do what is contrary to His will and nature, and cannot do what is contradictory to neces- sary truth : but these are no precedents for the kind of limitation which the withdrawal of an interrupting physical power from the Divine Omnipotence is. Because these are only verbal and apparent limitations ; power implying will, it is no real restraint upon Divine power that it cannot oppose will ; and a contradiction to necessary truth being nothing, nothing is taken away in the abstraction of the power to effect it. Whereas the other is a real and actual limitation of the Divine power — unless indeed it is as- sumed that the order of nature is necessary, and therefore its case a case of necessary or mathematical truth. Upon the assumption that these two cases stand upon the same ground, it would indeed foUow that the denial of the Divine 86 Belief in a God [Lect. power to interrupt the order of nature was no more a real limitation of it, than the denial of the power to contradict a mathematical truth. But this assumption is self-evideutly untenable and absurd. If, therefore, the power of interrupting the order of nature is to be severed from the stock of the Divine Omni- potence, it can only be done by one of two conceptions, either the conception of an im'pdrsonal Deity, or the con- ception of a confessedly and avowedly limited Deity — limited in reality, I mean, and not only verbally. With the former I have upon my assumption nothing to do. The latter is an attempted compromise between an Omnipo- tent God and no God : denying Him absolute power over the material universe, while professing to leave Him such power as to constitute Him an object of prayer and worship. A limited Deity was a recognised conception of antiquity. Confounded and astonished by the vastness of a real Omni- potence, and the inconceivableness of the acts involved in it, the ancients took refuge in this idea as all that reason could afford of that Godship M^hich reason could not deny. Two great difficulties lay at the bottom of this conception, the creation of matter and the existence of evil ; the former producing the doctrine of the coeternity of matter with the Deity ; the latter producing the doctrine of the coeternity of evil with the Deity, as a rival, antagonist, and check upon Him : whether in the modified form of an original irrational soul or refractoriness of matter; or the more developed form of Ditheism and Manichaeanism. Of these two great ancient difficulties one is now obsolete. A man of science now only professes to ground an hesitation to admit a leginning in nature upon observation, not upon any antecedent objection to creation. It is indeed an instruc- tive fact, and shows how little dependence can be placed upon first-sight notions of impossibility which reign supreme IV] Belief in a God 87 in many minds for their day, that this great impossibility of antiquity, the difficulty of difficulties which had brooded like a nightmare upon the philosophers of ages, was dis- missed by Hume in these two words of a footnote, — " That impious maxim of ancient philosophy e,x nihilo nihil Jit, by which the creation of matter was excluded, ceases to be a maxim according to this philosophy." ^ The existence of evil, however, is no obsolete difficulty, but still retains its ground, and suggests even to modern perplexity the idea of a limited Deity. One who excepts the physical world from the Divine power may still appeal to the alleged parallel of evil. ' Here, at any rate,' he may say, * is no shadow of fiction, or empty abstraction ; evil is not, like a mathe- matical contradiction, a nothing, however called so by the Schoolmen, but plainly something, a fact, a palpable fact. The inability to prevent evil, therefore, cannot be dealt witli as a verbal limit only to the Divine power, like the inability to accomplish a mathematical contradiction ; it is a real limit : and one real limit is a precedent for another.' But the answer to this is, that with reference to the higher ends of the universe, we do not know that evil is not necessary, and its prevention a contradiction to neces- sary truth — that we do not know, therefore, that the ina- bility to dispense with it does not come under the head of a verbal limit to Divine omnipotence, like the inability to accomplish a mathematical contradiction. Assuming the existing constitution of man, we see the necessity here mentioned for evil. Any plain man would say that for high moral virtue to be produced without evil, either as a contingency in the shape of trial or a fact in the shape of suffering, was upon the existing constitution of man an utter impossibility : that upon this datum evil was a condition of the problem. ^or is this only a didactic truth of the moralist, but a ^ EncLuiry concerning the Human Understanding, sec. 12. Belief m a God [Lect. descriptive one of poetry. Dramatic poetry, by "which I mean all which takes man and human character as its sub- ject, produces its captivating impression and effect, by a representation of the issue of the struggle with evil ; by the final image which it leaves on the mind of the human character as it comes out of that struggle, strengthened by difficulty, softened by grief, or calmed by misfortune. The truth it communicates is the same as the moralist's, only put into a pictorial instead of a disciplinarian form, and in- tended mainly to impart not the sense of responsibility, but pleasure. The spectacle which delights is a human character which is the production of trial. Secure for the moment ourselves, we enjoy the sight of the sublime result of the contest with evil in others, the conclusion in which the process of pain issues. And thus it is that men admire the very opposites of themselves. The proud who shrink as from a knife from their own slightest humiliation, are captivated by the spectacle of humility in another. The moral images of the ambitious man, which he raises in his own mind to look at with affection, are they likenesses of himseK? No: they are the suffering, the sad, the fallen, those who by adversity have been raised above the world. He is a pleased beholder of the moral effect of life's evils, himseK only grasping at its prizes ; and the very depriva- tions which are death to himself, are his gratification in their result upon the character of another. He bears wit- ness against himself, and " delights in the law of God after the inner man, but sees another law in his members." Assuming the existing constitution then of man, we account for evil — forevil in the general, though the particulars are be- yond us — as a necessary contingency attaching to trial, a ne- cessary fact for discipline. The Bible, in assuming this con- stitution of man, assumes with it this solution of evil, and incorporates evil in the Divine scheme. The ancient philo- sopher had but an imperfect discernment of the necessity of IV] Belief in a God 89 evil even xvipon this assumption, even unde,r the actual con- ditions of man's nature ; not being able to rid himself com- pletely of the idea that human nature could be cured by- philosophy, instead of by the chastening rod. He did but half see that which the Christian philosopher sees with the utmost distinctness — the use in fact of evil ; the want of which partial satisfaction was the cause of the desperate- ness of his rationale of evil, as a rival of the Deity ; for had he distinctly seen its conditional necessity, he would not have despaired about the root of the enigma. It is indeed true that to the question why man %oas so constituted as to render evil thus necessary, no answer can be given. TJ'pon this condition evil is no insoluble mys- tery, but is accounted for ; upon abstract grounds it is an insoluble mystery. The argument, however, of the Divine Omnipotence does not require that we should know that evil is necessary ; but only that we should not know that it is not: because even in the latter case we are under the check of a prohibition; we cannot assert that the exist- ence of evil does not stand upon the same grounds as necessary truth, and therefore that the inability to dispense with it is not, like the inability to contradict necessary truth, a mere verbal limitation of the Divine power. The same answer applies to the objection to the Divine Omnipotence arising from man's free-will. Is a physical limitation of that Divine attribute, it may be asked, any greater limitation than the moral one involved in the power of the human will to resist the Divine ? But although the existence of such a power in the creature is incomprehensible to us, we do not know that his posses- sion of this liberty is not necessary for the ultimate forma- tion of his moral character ; and therefore that the forma- tion of that character without it is not a contradiction to necessary truth ; analogous to a mathematical absurdity. Does an opponent demand the same rights of ignorance 90 Belief in a God [Lect. on the side of liis own position ? Tliey are not enough for him ; for his argument requires that he should make the positive assertion of a contradiction to necessary truth in a suspension of physical law; nor indeed can he claim them, for by our reason we see there is no such contradiction. The conception of a limited Deity then, i.e. a Being really circumscribed in power, and not verbally only by a confinement to necessary truth, is at variance with our fundamental idea of a God ; to depart from which is to retrograde from modern thought to ancient, and to go from Christianity back again to Paganism. The God of ancient religion was either not a personal Being or not an omni- potent Being ; the God of modern religion is both. For, indeed, civilization is not opposed to faith. The idea of the Supreme Being in the mind of European society now is more primitive, more childlike, more imaginative, than the idea of the ancient Brahman or Alexandrian philoso- pher : it is an idea which both of these would have derided as the notion of a child — a ncgotiosns Deus, who interposes in human affairs and answers prayers. So far from the philosophical conception of the Deity having advanced with civilization, and the poetical receded, the philoso- phical has receded and the poetical advanced. The God of whom it is said, " Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God ; but even the very hairs of your head are numbered," is the object of modern worship. Nor, again, has civilization shewn any signs of rejecting doctrine. Certain ages are indeed called the ages of faith ; but the bulk of society in this age believes that it lives under a supernatural dispen- sation ; and accepts truths which are not less supernatural, though they have more proof, than some doctrines of the middle ages : and if so, this is an age of faith. It is true most people do not live up to their faith now; neither did they in the middle ages. IV] Belief in a God 91 Has not modern philosophy, again, shewn both more strength and acuteness, and also more faith, than the ancient? I speak of the main current. Those ancient thinkers who reduced the Supreme Being to a negation, with all their subtlety wanted strength, and settled questions by an easier test than that of modern philosophy. The merit of a modern metaphysician is, like that of a good chemist or naturalist, accurate observation in noting the facts of mind. Is there a contradiction in the idea of creation ? Is there a contradiction in the idea of a personal Infinite Being ? He examines his own mind, and if he does not see one, he passes the idea. But the ancient speculators decided, with- out examination of the true facts of mind, by a kind of philosophical fancy ; and according to this loose criterion, the creation of matter and a personal Infinite Being were impossibilities ; for they mistook the inconceivable for the impossible. And thus a stringent test has admitted what a loose but capricious test discarded ; and the true notion of God has issued safe out of the crucible of modern meta- physics. Eeason has shewn its strength, but then it has turned that strength back upon itself; it has become its own critic ; and in becoming its own critic it has become its own check. If the belief then in a personal Deity lies at the bottom of all religious and virtuous practice, and if the removal of it would be a descent for human nature, the withdrawal of its inspiration and support, and a fall in its whole standard; the failure of the very breath of moral life in the individual and in society; the decay and degeneration of the very stock of mankind ; — does a theory which would withdraw miraculous action from the Deity interfere with that belief ? If it would, it is but prudent to count the cost of that interference. Would a Deity deprived of miraculous action possess action at all ? And would a God who can- not act be God ? If this would be the issue, such an issue 92 Belief in a God is the very last which religious men can desire. The question here has been all throughout, not whether upon any ground, but whether upon a religious ground and by religious believers, the miraculous as such could be rejected. But to that there is but one answer, that it is impossible in reason to separate religion from the supernatural, and upon a religious basis to overthrow miracles. LECTURE V TESTIMONY Acts i. 8 Yc shall be witnesses itnto Me loth in Jerusalem, ami in all Judcca, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. THE force of testimony rests upon a ground of reason ; because our reason enables us to discern men's char- acters and understandings— that they are honest men and men of sufficient understanding ; which being assumed, the truth of their reports is implied and included in this original observation respecting the men themselves, and may be depended upon so far as this observation may be depended upon. It is true we believe many things which are told us without previous knowledge of the persons who are our informants, but ordinarily we assume honesty and competency in men, unless we have reason to suppose the contrary. But such being the nature of testimony, it may be asked, ' Do we receive through this second-hand channel of know- ledge, truths upon which our eternal interests depend ? In other words, can we suppose that these truths would be embodied in visible occurrences, which can only reach us through testimony ? Can we think that our own relations to the Divine Being depend upon such a medium, that is to say, upon facts brought to us through it ? that human testimony interposes between ourselves and God, and that His communications to us travel by this circuitous route. 94 Testimo7iy [Lect. going Lack to a distant point in history, and returning thence to us by a train of historical evidence?' The answer to tliis is, that certainly testimony does not satisfy all the wants of the human mind in the matter of evidence, because upon the supposition that a most wonderful event of the deepest importance to us has taken place, we have naturally a longing for direct and immediate knowledge of that event, as distinguished from knowing of it through the medium of other persons, especially if the intervening chain of testimony is long. In the matter of evidence, however, the question is not what satisfies, but what is suf- ficient ; and therefore if God has adopted any medium or channel of evidence by which to convey His communica- tions to us, all that we are practically concerned to ask is — is it a reasonaUe one ? is it a proof of a natural force and weight, such as is accommodated to the constitution of our minds ? If testimony be this kind of proof, there is nothing incongruous in its being chosen to convey even the most important spiritual truths to us ; it is enough if, how- ever secondary a channel, it docs convey them to us. It is to be admitted, however, that the force of testimony has certain inherent limits or conditions when applied to the proof of miracles. And first, I would observe in limine that that which testimony is capable of proving must be something within the bounds of reason; i.e. something which, in the fair exercise of reasonable supposition, we can imagine possible. The question is sometimes put — ' What if so many apparently competent witnesses were to assure you that they had seen such and svich a miracle — mentioning the most monstrous, absurd, fantastic, and ludicrous confusion of nature, of which mere arbitrary conception could raise the idea in the mind — would you believe them V But the test of mere conception is not in its own nature a legitimate test of the force of testimony ; because conception or fancy is a simply wild and unlimited V] Testimony 95 power of imagining anything whatever, and putting to- gether any forms we please in our minds ; but such a power is in no sort of correspondence with actual possi- bility in nature. In the universe, under the Divine government, there can be nothing absolutely wild or out- landish : if physical lav/ does not constitute the bound of possibility, some measure of possibility there must be, and our very idea of God is such a measure. Pure, boundless enormity, then, is itself incredible, and therefore out of the reach of testimony, although it is imaginable. Nor indeed is the supposition of sound and competent testimony to such merely imaginable extravagances and excesses of deviation from order a lawful one, because it is practically impossible that there should be a body of men of good repute for understanding and honesty to witness to what is intrinsically incredible. We are only concerned with the miraculous under that form and those conditions under which it has actually by trustworthy report taken place, as subordinated to what has been called " a general law of wisdom," i.e. to a wise plan and design in the Divine Mind ; under which check the course of miracles has, so to speak, kept near to nature, just diverging enough for the purpose and no more. But besides this preliminary limit to the force of testi- mony, which excludes simple monstrosity and absurdity, another condition has also been attached to it by divines, which applies to it in the case of any miracle whatever, viz. that all evidence of miracles assumes the belief in the existence of a God. (i.) It may be urged that, according to the argument of design (which does not apply to the coincidences in nature only, but to any case of coincidence whatever), a miracle, supposing it true, j9?-ovcs and need not assume a supernatural agent. But were this granted, the evidence of a Universal Being must still rest on a universal basis ; a miracle being only a particular local occurrence ; 96 Testimony [Lect. and therefore for the proof of a God we should still have to fall back upon the evidence of natvire. Even the imaginary case, which has been put, of its being written in our very- sight on the sky by a wonder-working agency — There is a God, could not upon this account prove the existence of a God. But even could a miracle legitimately prove it, it must still assume the belief in it to begin with ; because it could not prove it to an atheist who had already v:itli- stood the proof of it in nature. A mind that had not been convinced by the primary evidence of a Deity, must con- sistently reject such a second evidence, and therefore unless a man brings the belief in a God to a miracle, he does not get it from the miracle. But the admission of divines that the evidence of miracles assumes the belief in a God was not made with a view to an imaginary instance, but with reference to the actual situation of mankind at large upon this subject, and the medium through which in the nature of the case the evidence of miracles must ordinarily be received, which is testimony. This admission is based upon the relations in which an atheist necessarily stands to human testimony upon this subject, and the mode in which his want of belief in a God affects the value of that testimony. The effect, then, of atheism upon the value and weight of human testimony to miracles must be, as regards the atheist himself, that of invalidating such testimony, and depriving it of all cogency. For consider the light in which an atheist must regard the whole body and system of religious belief in the world, and the whole mass of religious believers, so far as they are affected by their belief. Wliat other view can he take of religion but that it is simple fanaticism, or of religious men but that they are well meaning but unreasonable and mistaken enthu- siasts ? Let a man decide, not that there is not a God, but oulv that there is no evidence that there is one, and what V] Testimony 97 is the immediate result ? He looks around him, and he sees that a conclusion which in his own judgment stands upon no rational grounds, is embraced by all religious people with the firmest practical certainty, and treated as a truth, which it is almost madness to doubt of. But though he could not condemn men as enthusiasts for taking a different view of evidence from himself, provided they only maintained their own view of the question as the preferable and more probable one, he must look upon this absolute unhesitating and vehement faith in that which he considers to be without rational proof, as passionate and blind zeal. He must regard systematic devotion, constant addresses, prayer and service to a Being of whose existence there is not evidence, as downright fanaticism. But this being the case, he must necessarily estimate the testimony of such persons in matters specially connected with this credulous belief of theirs, at a very light rate : upon his own ground it is only reasonable that he should treat with the greatest suspicion all reports of miraculous occurrences from re- ligious believers; whose evidence upon ordinary subjects he will admit to be as sound as his own, inasmuch as in the common affairs of life they show discretion enough ; but whom he must, upon his own liypothesis, regard as utterly untrustworthy upon the particular topic of religion. That is their weak point, the subject upon which they go wild. Are we to believe a man upon the very theme upon which he is deluded ? No : upon other questions he may be as competent a witness as anybody else, but upon this particular one he is the victim of hallucinations. Such is the unavoidable judgment of an atheist, and upon his own ground a correct judgment, upon the testimony of religious and devout men to miraculous interpositions of the Deity. Suppose one of these to come to him and say, ' I have seen a miracle;' he would reply, 'I will believe you or not according to what you mean by a miracle : if this mu'acle G 98 Tcstini07iy [Lect. which you come to tell me of is only an extraordinary natural fact, and has nothing to do with religion, I will believe you as readily as I would anybody else ; but if it is a miracle in a religious sense, I do not consider you a trust- worthy witness to such a fact ; you are in an unreasonable condition of mind upon the question of religion altogether ; and being under a delusion upon the very evidence of a God at all, you are not likely to possess discretion or sobriety as a spectator of what you call an interposition of His. Upon that subject you are a partial, fancifid, and liighty witness.' The evidence of miracles thus assumes the belief in a God, because in the absence of that belief all the testimony upon which miracles are received labours under an incur- able stigma. And this it is which constitutes the real argument of the celebrated Essay of Hume. This essay is a philosophical attempt, indeed, to decide the question whether certain events took place eighteen centuries ago by a formula; and as the inductive formula places a miracle outside of possibility, Hume's evidential formula secures a balance of evidence against it. It does this by establishing a common measure and criterion of proba- bility, by which both the miracle and the testimony to it are to be tried, viz. experience.^ ' The source of our belief in the uniformity of nature is experience, and this experi- ence is constant ; the source of our belief in testimony is also experience, but this experience is variable, because testimony has sometimes deceived us : we follow the con- stant experience which is against the miracle in preference -to the variable which is in favour of it.' Testimony is thus reduced to a mere derivative of experience ; and then the ^ Because, although this philosopher has expunged the argument of experience out of the tablet of human reason, he professes that he has no other test of truth to fall back upon but that, and that he must take either that or none. V] Testimony 99 formula, that the falsehood of the testimony is less contra- dictory to experience than the truth of the miracle settles the question. But in the first place belief in testimony is not a mere derivative from experience, but is an original principle in our nature and has an antecedent ground of reason ; inasmuch as prior to all observation of the results of testimony, or the combinations of testimony with truth viewed as a series of conjunctions, we believe an apparently honest man because he is such. And in the next place a rule which would oblige everybody to disbelieve fresh intel- ligence, W'henever the facts were unprecedented, is an im- possible one ; it could not work in human affairs ; and it in fact breaks down in the writer's own hands ; who gives in an hypothetical instance a formal specimen of that kind of marvel which is capable of being proved by testimony ; and in so doing describes a fact which is totally contrary to human experience. But though his formula encounters the natural fate of infallible rdcipes and solutions, every reflecting reader must see the force and the truth, upon the writer's own ground, of his assertion of the obliquity, the exaggeration, and the passion of religious testimony ; and must admit that a philosopher who thinks that mankind are under a delusion in worshipping God, has a right to think them under an equal delusion when they testify to Divine interpositions. Having stated the fundamental admission of divines that the evidence of miracles assumes the belief in Supernatural Power, I next observe that this condition of miraculous evidence gives us the distinction between miracles and ordinary facts as matters of credit. A miracle differs from an ordinary fact in the first place as a subject of credit, simply as being an extraordinary fact, and we naturally re- quire a greater amount of evidence for it on that account. There is, indeed, the greatest unlikeliness that any occur- rence whatever, which comes into our head by chance or I oo Testi7nony [Lect. intentional conception, though it is of the commonest kind, will really happen as it is imagined ; and from this great antecedent improbability of the most ordinary events, it has been inferred that no calculable difference exists be- tween the improbability of ordinary facts and the impro- bability of miracles ; or therefore in the amount of evidence required for them. But to draw such an inference is to confound two totally distinct grounds of improbability. If all that I can say of the likelihood of an event's occun-ence is that it comes into my head to imagine it, that is no reason whatever for it, and the absence of all reason for expecting an event constitutes of itself the improbability of that event. But this kind of antecedent improbability, being simply the absence of evidence, is immediately neutralized by the appearance of evidence, to which it offers no resistance : while that improbability which arises from the marvellous character of an event naturally offers a resistance to evidence, which must therefore be the stronger in order to overcome such resistance. (2.) But if we take in the whole notion of a miracle not as a marvellous event only, but the act of a Supernatural Being, a miracle is still more widely distinguished from an ordinary event as a subject of credit and evidence. The evidence of an ordinary fact does not assume any ground or principle of faith for the reception of it. It is true that all belief in testimony implies faith in this sense, that we accept upon the report of other persons the occurrence of some event or the existence of some object which we have not seen with our own eyes. But common testimony is so complete a part of the present order of things and of the M'hole agency by which natural life is conducted, and the belief in it is so necessary and so matter-of-course an act in us, that we cannot regard the mere belief in testimony as faith in the received sense of that word. We may never have seen a well-knoM'n place in our own country or V] Testimony i o i abroad, but if the place is universally talked of, if it appears in all maps and books of travels and geography, and if anybody would be considered to be out of his mind if he doubted its existence ; it would be a misapplication of language to call the journey thither an act of faith. The very merit of faith is that we make something of a venture in it ; which we do when we believe in testimony against our experience. But when the facts which are the subject of testimony are in full accordance with our experi- ence, then, the testimony being competent and sufficient, belief is unavoidable, it is as natural to an atheist or a materialist as it is to a believer ; and therefore in such cases belief in testimony does not involve the principle of faith. But a miracle in assuming the existence of super- natural power, assumes a basis of faith. A miracle has a foot, so to speak, in each world ; one part of it resting upon earth, while the other goes down beyond our intellectual reach into the depths of the invisible world. The sensible fact is subject to the natural law of testimony, the Divine intervention rests upon another ground. A miracle is both an outward fact, and also an invisible and spiritual fact, and to embrace the twofold whole, both testimony and faith are wanted. It has been a fault in one school of writers on evidence, that in urging the just weight of testimony, they have not sufficiently attended to this distinction, and have over- looked the deep gulf which divides facts, which assume a basis of religious faith, from ordinary facts as subjects of evidence. These writers are too apt to speak of miracles as if they stood completely on a par with other events as matters of credit, and as if the reception of them only drew upon that usual and acknowledged belief in testi- mony by which we accept the facts of ordinary history. But this is to forget the important point that a miracle is on one side of it not a fact of this world, but of the in- I02 Testimony [Lect. visible world ; the Divine interposition in it being a super- natural and mysterious act : that therefore the evidence for a miracle does not stand exactly on the same ground as the evidence of the witness-box, which only appeals to our common sense as men of the world and actors in ordinary life ; but that it requires a great religious assumption in our minds to begin with, without which no testimony in the case can avail ; and consequently that the acceptance of a miracle exercises more than tlie ordinary qualities of candour and fairness used in estimating historical evidence generally, having, in the previous admission of a Super- natural Power, hrst tried our faith. This admission of divines, again, that the evidence of miracles assumes the belief in a Personal Deity, supplies us with the proper ground on which to judge of some posi- . tions which have been recently promulgated on the subject of miracles and their evidence. " No testimony," it has been said, " can reach to the supernatural : testimony can only apply to an apparent sensible fact ; that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumption of the parties." (3.) Does then this statement only mean to distinguish in the case of a miracle between the fact and the cause, that the fact alone can be a subject of testimony, not a super- natural cause ? It is, in that case, an undeniably true statement ; for the supernatural cause of a fact is a truth which in its own nature cannot be reached by ocular evi- dence or attestation. Testimony does not pretend to in- clude in its report of an extraordinary fact the rationale of that fact ; it does not j)rofess to penetrate beyond the phenomenon, and put itself in contact with the source and original of it, and thence bring back the intelligence that that source lies outside of physical law in a special act of tlie Divine M'ill. This species of evidence has its own office, whicli is to attest visible and sensible occurrences ; V] Teslimony 1 03 unless it is worthless testimony it can do no less, and if it is the best conceivable testimony it can do no more. What those facts amount to, how they are to be interpreted, what they prove, depends upon another argument altogether than that of testimony. I accept upon the report of eye- witnesses certain miraculous occurrences ; that these occur- rences are interpositions of the Deity depends upon the existence of a Deity to begin with, and next upon the argument of design or iinal causes ; because the extra- ordinary coincidence of miraculous occurrences with a pro- fessed Divine commission on the part of the person who announces or commands them, proves a Divine intention and act. That which constitutes a miraculous occurrence a miracle in the common or theological acceptation, is therefore not obtained from simple testimony ; though it is obtained immediately by our reason from the data which testimony supplies. Thus understood, the position to wliich I have referred amounts to the statement that testimony is testimony, and not another kind of evidence ; it does not deny the supernatural cause of the occurrences in question, but only that testimony itself proves it ; the supernatural explanation of a miracle depending upon reasons which are at hand, but which are not contained within the simple report of the witness. 2. The position, therefore, that " no testimony can reach to the supernatural," if it accepts recorded miracles as facts, and only excludes from the department of testimony their cause, is a true though an unpractical distinction. Xor can this position be objected to again if it is only to be understood as meaning that testimony is not sutiicient to prove the facts, without the previous assumption of Supernatural Power or the existence of God in the mind of the receiver of such testimony. For in that case it only amounts to the admission which divines have always made upon the very threshold of the subject of miracles. The I04 Testhnony [Lect. great truth upon wliich the evidence of all lesser instances of supernatural power depends is the truth of the super- natural origin of this world — that this world is caused by the will of a Personal Being ; that it is sustained by that will, and that therefore there is a God who is the object of prayer and worship. A man who does not hold the exist- ence of this Supernatural Being cannot reasonably be ex- pected to attach much weight to reports of amazing preternatural occurrences, laid before him as rclirjious facts connected with their own religious interests and feelings and persuasions by earnest believers in religion, who can only figure in his eye as devotees and enthusiasts. And if atheism thus invalidates the testimony to miracles, the be- lief in a God is wanted as a condition of its validity. 3. But is the statement that no " testimony can reach to the supernatural" made upon the ground that the mira- culous fact is intrinsically incredible and impossible, and that a violation of pliysical law is no more capable of being proved by testimony than a mathematical absurdity ? In that case the position is both religiously and philosophically untenable ; because a fact which is contrary to the order of nature is not thereby contradictory to reason ; and what is not contradictory to reason is a subject of testimony. But it is replied that the rule that " no testimony can reach to the supernatural" does not exclude the miraculous fact from the province of testimony, but only the interpretation of that fact as a violation of laio ; that the extraordinary occurrence need not be in reality a physical anomaly, in which case this rule still leaves it a subject of testimony ; " that it is not the mere fact but the cause or explanation of it which is the point at issue." (4.) If this however is to be taken as the intended scope and force of this rule, it escapes the charge of violating common sense only to incur that of being futile, unmeaning, and nugatory. Testimony cannot, as has been said, reach to more than the occurrence V] Testimony 105 itself; the explanation of this occurrence, whether it is or is not anomalous, and whether it does or does not proceed from a supernatural cause, depends on other considerations which are not included in the report of a witness. If this rule then means no more than this, its meaning is a great falling short of its pretension. It certainly appears at first sight to deny that miraculous facts are subjects of testi- mony, and with this meaning it is a distinct and intelli- gible position, though a false one. If it only signifies that testimony cannot reach to more than its very nature admits of its reaching to, the rule is in that case chargeable with the great fault of appearing to mean a great deal, and really meaning nothing. It may however be suggested that in many cases cer- tainly this distinction between miraculous facts and viola- tions of law is practically untenable, because whatever may be said of some kind of miracles, others are — the fads themselves are — plainly violations of physical law, and can be nothing else ; they are plainly outstanding and anoma- lous facts, which admit of no sort of physical explanation. Admit the real external occurrence of our Lord's Eesurrec- tion and Ascension, and the interpretation of it as a miracle or contradiction to the laws of nature is inevitable. Lan- guage has been used indeed as if all the facts of the Gos- pel history could be admitted and the miracles denied ; but when we examine the sense in which the word ' fact ' is used in that language, we find that it is not used in the ordinary sense, but in the sense of an inexplicable erroneous impression on the minds of the witnesses. For, indeed, this distinction is no sooner made than abandoned; it is asserted that some kind of miraculous facts are intrinsically as facts incredible ; and in the place of the distinction between the miraculous fact and the vio- lation of law, is substituted the distinction between the fact, and the impression of the fact upon the minds of the io6 Testimo7iy [Lect. witnesses. (5.) Testimony, it is said, can prove the im- pression npon tlie minds of the witnesses, but cannot " from the nature of our antecedent convictions" prove the real occurrence of the fact, that " the event really happened in the way assigned." This indeed, upon the supposition of the intrinsic incredibility of the facts, is the only hypo- thesis left to account for honest testimony to them. We have no alternative then but to fall back upon something unknown, obscure, and excejjtional in the action of human nature, in the case of the witnesses ; some hidden root of delusion, some secret disorganization in the structure of reason itself, or interference with the medium and cliannel between it and the organs of sense ; whence it must have arisen that those wdio did not see certain occurrences, were fully persuaded that they did see them. But such an explanation requires the intrinsic incredibility of the facts, and is illegitimate without it ; because if they are not in their own nature incredible, no occasion has come for re- sorting to such an explanation ; there is no reason why I should resist the natural effect of testimony, and institute tliis unnatural divorce between the impression and the fact at all. The position then that "no testimony can reach to the supernatural," is correct or incorrect according as it is based upon the impossibility of the supernatural, or the inadequacy of mere testimony — its inherent defectiveness upon such subject-matter, unless supplemented by a ground of faith within ourselves. We allow the need of a pre- vious assumption to give force to the evidence of miracles ; at the same time we are prepared to vindicate the validity and the force of testimony, upon that previous assumption being made. Upon tl^e supposition of the existence of a God and of Supernatural Power in the first instance, com- petent testimony to miraculous facts possesses an obliga- tory force; it becomes by virtue of that supposition the VJ Testimony 107 testimony of credible witnesses to credible facts ; for the facts are credible if there is a power equal to being their cause ; and the witnesses are credible if we assume the truth and reasonableness of their religious faith and wor- ship. Untrustworthy and passionate informants upon the atheistic theory, liable to any delusion and mistake, because upon this theory their very belief in religion in the first instance is a delusion ; upon the assumption of the truth of religion they become sound informants ; the change of the hypothesis is a change in the character of the testi- mony ; the stigma which attached to it upon the one basis is reversed upon the other, and what was bad evidence upon the irreligious is good upon the religious rationale of the world. In this state of the case, then, testimony, when it speaks to the miraculous, has a natural weight and credit of the same kind as that which it possesses in ordinary matters: and the attested visible fact is the important thing, upon the truth of which the conclusion that it is a miracle follows by the natural laws of reasoning. For I have shewn it to be a practically untenable distinction that " it is not the mere fact, but the cause or explanation of it, which is the point at issue." But if the evidence of miracles demands in the first instance, as the condition of its validity and force, the belief in the existence of a God ; if it begs the question at the very outset of Infinite and Supernatural Power, as involved in a personal Author of the universe; it may be urged that so great, so inconceivable an assumption as this, amounts to placing miracles upon a ground of faith instead of a ground of historical evidence. You profess, it may be said, to prove the credibility of the supernatural, and you do so by assuming in limine the actual existence of it — the exist- ence of supernatural power. Let this only be understood, then, and there need be no further controversy on this sub- ject. " A miracle ceases to be capable of investigation by io8 Testi77iony [Lect. reason or to own its dominion : it is accepted on religious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and influ- ence of faitli." (6.) I reply that miracles undoubtedly rest upon a ground of faith so far as they assume a truth which it requires faith to adopt, viz. the existence of a God : but that such a ground of faith is compatible with historical evidence for them. Do we mean by faith, a faculty wholly distinct from reason, which without the aid of premisses founds conclusions purely upon itself, which can give no account of itself, or its own convictions ? Is faith, in short, only another word for arbitrary supposition ? In that case to relegate miracles to a ground of faith is simply to deprive them of all character of matters of fact. A matter of faith is then specially not a matter of fact, and miracles could only take place in the region and sphere of faith by not taking place at all. The individual uses the totally dis- tinct principles of faith and reason according to the sub- ject-matter before him. In the world of reason he judges according to evidence, he believes wliatever he believes on account of certain reasons ; in the world of faith he believes because he believes. Faith in this case is no basis for a matter of fact ; a miracle of this sphere is not an occur- rence of time and place, within the pale of history and geo- graphy, but an airy vision which evaporates as the eye of reason rests upon it, and melts into space. The fact of faith is adapted to the eye of faith only. But does faith mean belief upon reasonable grounds ? Is it as much reason as the most practical common sense is, though its grounds are less sensible and more connected with our moral nature ? In this sense faith can support matter of fact, and a miracle in resting upon it, is not thereby not an event of history. If a God who made the world is not a mere supposition, a notion of the mind, but a really existing Being, this Being can act upon matter V] Testimony 109 either in an ordinary way or in an extraordinary way ; and His extraordinary action on matter is a visible and his- torical miracle, " For evidence," it has been said, " of a Deity working miracles, we must go out of nature and be- yond reason." (7.) If this is true, a miracle cannot rest upon rational evidence ; but if an Omnipotent Deity is a conclusion of reason, it can. But if a miracle is itself a trial of faith, how, it is asked, can it serve as the evidence of something farther to be believed ? " You admit," it is said, " that this evidence of a revelation is itself the subject of evidence, and that not certain but only probable evidence ; that it is received through a chain of human testimony ; that the belief in it is against all our experience, and demands in the first instance the assumption of the existence of supernatural power ; in a word, that a miracle must be proved in spite of difficulties itself, before it can prove anything else. But how can a species of evidence which is thus encum- bered itself, be effective as the support of something else ? So far from miracles being the evidence of revelation, are they not themselves difficulties attaching to revelation ? " (8 ) This double capacity, then, of a miracle as an object of faith, and yet evidence of faith, is inherent in the principle of miraculous evidence; for belief in testimony against experience being faith, a miracle which reaches us through testimony is necessarily an obicd of faith ; while the very purpose of the miracle being to prove a revelation, the same miracle again is evidence, of faith. But the objection to this double attitude of a miracle admits of a natural answer. My own reflection indeed upon my own act of belief here, my own consciousness of the kind of act which it is in me, is witness enough that belief in a miracle is an exercise and a trial of faith. But if faith is not mere supposition, but reasonable belief upon premisses, there is no reason why a conclusion of faith should not be itself the evidence of 1 1 o Testimony [Lect. something else. It is sufficient that I am rationally con- vinced that such an event happened ; that whatever diffi- culties I have had in arriving at it that is my conclusion. That being the case, I cannot help myself, if I would, using it as a true fact, for the proof of something farther of which it is calculated in its own nature to be proof. A probable fact is probable evidence. I may therefore use a miracle as evidence of a revelation, though I have only probable evidence for the miracle. The same fact may try faith in one stage and ground faith in another, be the conclusion of certain premisses and the premiss for a farther conclusion ; i.e. may be an object of faith and yet an evidence of faith. It is not indeed consistent with truth, nor would it con- duce to the real defence of Christianity, to underrate the difficulties of the Christian evidence ; or to disguise this characteristic of it, that the very facts which constitute the evidence of revelati(jn have to be accepted by an act of faith tliemselves, before they can operate as a proof of that further truth. More than two centuries ago this subject exercised the deep thoughts of one whom we may almost call the founder of the philosopliy of Christian evidence ; and who now in the writings of Bishop Butler rules in our schools, gives us our point of view, and moulds our form of reflection on this subject. The answer of Pascal to the objection of the difficulties of the Christian evidence, was that that evidence was not designed for producing belief as such, but for producing belief in connection with, and as the token of, a certain moral disposition ; that that moral temper imparted a real insight into the reasons for and the marks of truth in the Christian scheme, and brought out proof which was hidden without it : which proof, therefore, though it did not answer every purpose which evidence can answer, answered its designed purpose : in other words that the purpose of evidence was qualified by the purpose of trial; it being the Divine intention that the human heart V] Testimony 1 1 1 itself should be the illuminating principle, throwing light upon that evidence, and presenting it in its real strength.^ This position then requires the caution to go along with it, that we have no general liberty in individual cases of unbelief to attribute this result to moral defects, because we do not know what latent obstructions of another kind there may have been to the perception of truth; but with this caution it is a valid reply to the objection made ; because it supplies a reason which accounts for the want of more full and complete evidence than we possess, and a reason which is in consistency with the Divine attributes. (9.) It pre- sents the Christian evidence as under Providence limited and measured for our use. One school of writers on Christian evidence has assumed too confidently that any average man, taken out of the crowd, who has sufficient common sense to conduct his own affairs, is a fit judge of that evi- dence — such a judge as was contemplated in the original design of it. One great writer especially, of matchless argu- mentative powers, betrays this defect in his point of view : and in bringing out the common-sense side of the Christian evidence — the value of human testimony — with irresist- ible truth and force, allows his very success to conceal from him the insufficiency of common sense alone. The ground of Pascal is in effect that, as an original means of persuasion, the Christian evidence is designed for the few, and not for the many. Because Christianity is the religion ^ " II n'etait done pas juste qu'il pariit d'une maniere manifestement divine et absoluraent capable de convaincre tons les hommes ; mais il n'etait pas juste aussi qu'il vint d'une maniere si cachee, qu'il ne put etre reconnu de ceux qui le chereheraient siucerement. II a voulu se rendre parfaitement connaissable a ceux-la ; et aiusi, voulant paraitre a decouvert a ceux qui le cherclient de tout leur cceur, et cache a ceux qui le fuient de tout leur cceur, il tempere sa connaissance en sorte qu'il a donne des marques de soi visibles a ceux qui le cherchent, et obscures a ceux qui ne le cherchent pas. II y a assez de lumiere pour ceux qui ne desirent que de voir, et assez d'obscurite pour ceux qui ont uue disposition contraire. " — Pascal, cd. Faucjcrc, vol. ii. p. 151. (9.) 1 1 2 Testimony [Lect. of a large part of the world, and prophesies its own p ses- sion of the whole world, it does not follow that the evio ',e of it must be adaj)ted to convince the mass ; — I mef i convince them, on the supposition of their coming wj any bias of custom and education to decide the questic evidence alone. It is enough if that argument is addrei to the few, and if, as the few of ever}' generation are cc vinced, their faith becomes a permanent and hereditary belief by a natural law of transmission. The Christian body is enlarged by growth and stationariness combined ; each successive age contributing its quota, and the acquisi- tion once made remaining. This is the way in which, as a matter of fact, Christianity became the religion of the Eoman empire. In no age, from the apostolic downwards, I did the evidence of the Gospel profess to be adapted to j convince the mass ; it addressed itself to the few, and the ' hereditary belief of the mass followed, Christianity; has indeed at times spread by other means than its evidences, by the sword, and by the rude impulse of un- civilized people to follow their chiefs ; but whenever it has j spread by the power of its evidences, this has been their 5 scope. The profession of the world has been the result, but the faith of the few has been the original mark of the Gospel argument ; though doubtless many who would not have had the strength of mind to acknowledge the force of that argument, by an original act of their own, have by a Christian education grown to a real inward perception of it ; and hereditary belief has thus, by providing a more indul- gent trial, sheltered individual faith. And the same prin- ciple of growth can at last convert the world ; however slow the process the result will come, if Christianity always keeps the ground it gets ; for that which always gains and never loses must ultimately win the whole. LECTURE yi T UNKNOWN LAW St. John v. 17 My Father icorkcth hitherto, and I worTc. MIEACLES are summarily characterized as violations of the laws of nature. But may not the Scripture mir- acles, however apparently at variance with the laws of nature, be instances of unknown law ? This question is proposed in a different spirit by different persons ; by some as a question upon which their belief in these miracles depends ; by others only as a speculative question, though one answer to it would be more in accordance with their intellectual predilections than another. In entering upon this question, however, we must at the outset settle one important preliminary, viz. what we mean by the Scripture miracles. The distinction proposed in our question is a distinction between those miracles as facts, and those miracles as miracles, in the popular sense ; but if we only regard the miracles as facts at first, we must still know what those facts are respecting which the question, whether they are properly miraculous, i.e. violations of law or not, is raised. Are we to take those facts as they stand in Scripture, or as seen to begin with through an interpre- tative medium of our own, reduced to certain supposed rue and original events, of which the Scripture narrative ^s a transcendental representation ? As a previous condi- H 114 Unknown Law [Lect. tiou of the consistency of those facts with law, are the facts themselves to undergo an alteration ? I reply, that in an inquiry into the particular question whether the Scripture miracles may or may not be instances of unknown law, the question whether those miracles originally took place, or not, in the way in which they are recorded — in other words, the question of the authenticity of those miracles, is one with which I have nothing to do. Whether or not the facts of the Scripture narrative are the true and original facts which took place is a question which belongs to the department of evidence, and one which must be met in its own place ; but a philosophical inquiry into the consistency or not of the Scripture miracles with law must take those miracles as they stand. If not, what are, the facts, the physical interpretation of which is in dispute ? We have not got them before us, and the inquiry must stop for want of material. It is important to understand the necessity which there is for separating these two questions, because the mind of an inquirer at first is very apt to confuse them, and to suppose that the speculation upon the question of unknown law gives him a right in the first instance par- tially to reduce the facts of Scripture, in order to accommo- date them to the inquiry. It must therefore be understood that the ulterior question as to law in miracles assumes the miraculous facts as recorded. Even if the unknown law affects the facts themselves, as, upon the theory that they are only impressions upon the mind of the witnesses, it does, still the facts which are supposed to be accounted for hy impression are the facts stated in Scripture, and not other facts. Upon the question then of the referribleness of miracles to unknown law, we must first observe that the expression ' unknown law,' as used here, has two meanings, be- tween which it is important to distinguish ; i.e. that it means either iinhwwn law, or unknown connexion with VI] Unknown Law 1 1 5 known law. I will take the latter of these two meanings first. 1. With respect then to unknown connexion with known law, the test of the claim of any extraordinary isolated and anomalous fact to this connexion is, whether it admits of any hypothesis being made respecting it, any possible physical explanation, which would bring it under the head of any known law. A law of nature in the scientific sense, which is the sense in which we understand the term in this inquiry, is in its very essence incapable of producing single or insulated facts ; because it is the very repetition and recurrence of the facts which makes the law, which law therefore implies and is a class of facts. It follows that no single or exceptional event can come ly direct observation under a law of nature; but that if it comes under it at all it can only do so by the medium of some explanation by which it is brought out of its apparent isolation and singularity into the same situation with a class of facts, i.e. some explanation which shows that the exceptional character of the fact is owing to a peculiarity in the situation of its subject-matter, and not in tlie laws which act upon it. It may be that there is something ex- traordinary in the position of a natural substance, upon which, however, the known laws of nature are operating all the time, producing their proper effects only under un- wonted circumstances ; as in the case of the explained descent of a meteoric stone, where the laws which act are the common laws of gravity and motion, and the only thing singular is the situation of the stone. There is thus an important distinction between insulated and anomalous facts, and the common current facts of nature, with respect to their reduction to law. Tlie common current facts of nature, where not yet reduced to law, are brought under law, if they are brought under it, by direct observation ; by fixing upon the invariable conjunctions of antecedent and Ii6 Unknown Law [Lect. consequent, wliicli are really happening, and only are not as yet observed. The weather, e.g. is part of the order of nature of which the law alone is unknown to us, the facts being of constant occurrence; tlie weather therefore comes under law, to whatever extent it does come under it at present, by direct observation ; the invariable conjunctions being of real occurrence, and only rec^uiring to be seen. By tracing those conjunctions back we should have the law of weather from that point ; and could we trace them back up to the point at which they link on to the ascer- tained series of natural causes, then we should have the full law of weather. But single or exceptional facts only come under a law of nature by the medium of an explana- tion or hypotliesis, which connects the deviation with the main line, and engrafts the anomaly upon a known stock. There is, indeed, besides a regular hypothetical explana- tion of an anomalous fact in the physical world, another and more obscure condition in which a fact may lie without suffering total disjunction from law : — when no formal hypothesis is at present forthcoming, but the fact holds out a promise of one ; presents the hints or beginnings of one, though they cannot yet be worked up into a scientific whole. The phenomenon is not wholly dark and wanting in all trace and vestige of physical type, but is said to await solu'.'^n. It will be enougli, however, if without express me 'on we understand this modification as in- cluded unc^' le head of an explanation or liyiiothesis. So long' as an eccentric fact admits of an explana- tion in 1- "ith known law, we are not justified in pronounr be contradictory to known law ; for though'. ;'planation is liypothetical, so long as it is admissiL »' 'e prohibited from asserting tlie contrary to it, or t J a. iute lawlessness of the fact. But, on the other ha i, take a supposed or imaginary anomalous occurrcnc —and many such are conceivable — to which this VI] Utiknown Law 117 whole ground of scientific explanation and anticipation would not apply, and in the case of which it would be all obviously out of place. Such an anomalous occurrence would be lawless, and a contradiction to known law, and must be set down as such. Thus, according as there is room or no room for scientific explanation, one kind of physical miracle ranks as in latent connexion with the system, another as outside of it. A scientific judgment discriminates between different types of physical marvels. An eccentric phenomenon within the region of man — his bodily and mental affections and impressions — is set down as an ultimately natural fact ; because there the system of nature is elastic, and is enabled by its elasticity to accom- modate and afford a place for it; while no such prospect is held out to an imagined instance of irregularity in inani- mate nature, because the system there is rigid and inflex- ible, and refuses to accommodate the alien. The most ex- traordinary case of suspended animation is an ultimately natural fact ; a real violation of the law of gravity, by the ascent of a human body into the sky, is an ultimate anomaly and outstanding fact, (i.) Upon the question, then, whether the Gospel miracles may have an unknown connexion with known law, the criterion to be applied is whether they admit or not of a physical hypothesis being constructed about them, an ex- planation being given of them, uiwn which t > connexion would follow. Upon this question then I o^ ve, to begin with, that a whole class of Gospel mirac' 'eets us in which tlie material result taken by itseF part from the manner and circumstances of its pr cannot be pronounced absolutely to be incapable ot ijlace by the laws of nature. Indeed, this observp'- , be said to embrace the largest class of miracle? . . zy to the bodily cures and restorations of the function of bodily organs, by which the blind received their sigl the lame ii8 Unktiown Law [Lect. walked, the lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard. Suppose in any of these cases the physical result to have taken place as a simple occurrence without any connexion with a personal agent — there is nothing in the nature of the fact itself to exclude the supposition that it was owing to some unknown natural cause. A blind man, even one born blind, suddenly recovers his sight. Were such an occurrence to be reported upon good evidence at the pre- sent day, it would not be received as anything physically incredible, but would be set down, however extraordinary, even if quite unique, as referrible to some natural cause : and scientific men might proceed to suggest hypothetical explanations of it. The same may be said of a sudden re- storation of hearing, of a sudden recovery of speech, of a sudden recovery of the use of a limb, of a sudden recovery from an issue of blood, from palsy, from madness. But to say that the material fact which takes place in a miracle admits of being referred to an unknown natural cause, is not to say that the miracle itself does. A miracle is the material fact as coinciding with an express announce- ment or with express supernatural pretensions in the agent. It is this correspondence of two facts which constitutes a miracle. If a person says to a blind man, ' See,' and he sees, it is not the sudden return of sight alone that we have to account for, but its return at that particular moment. For it is morally impossible that this exact agreement of an event with a command or notification could have been by a mere chance, or, as we should say, been an extraordi- nary coincidence, especially if it is repeated in other cases. The chief characteristic, indeed, of miracles and that which distinguishes them from mere marvels, is this cor- respondence of the fact with a notification ; — what we may call tlie prophetical jirinciple. For indeed, if a prophecy is a miracle, a miracle too is in essence a prophecy ; it con- VI] Unknown Law 119 tains a correspondence between an event and an announce- ment ; and the essence of prophecy is the correspondence, not the futurity, of the event predicted. Consequently, a miracle can afford to dispense with the full supernatural character of its physical result, in consideration of this other source of the miraculous character, i.e. the propheti- cal element. JSTo violation of any law of nature takes place in either of the two parts of prophecy taken separately ; none in the prediction of an event, none in its occurrence ; but the two taken together are proof of superhuman agency; and the two parts of a miracle, the event and the announce- ment of it, even if the former be in itself reducible to law, are, taken together, proof of the same. (2.) Can any physical hypothesis be framed then accounting for the apparently superhuman knowledge and power in- volved in this class of miracles, — in these instances, i.e. of fulfilled prophecy where an event takes place in correspond- ence with an announcement ; in these immediate cures of diseases by personal agency ? (3.) It must be evident that none can be, supposing the miraculous facts of Scripture to stand as they are recorded. While it must also be remem- bered that no hypothesis which ever accounted for a certain portion of the Scripture miracles, if one such could be ima- gined, would be of any service on this side, unless it also accounted for the whole. But could any scientific hypothesis be constructed, which would account for the conversion of water into wine, the multiplication of the loaves, and the resurrection of dead men to life ? Undoubtedly if the supposition could be entertained that these miracles as recorded in the Gospels were untrue and exaggerated representations of the facts which really took place, a physical explanation might be proposed, and might even be accepted as a very probable one, of the facts which were supposed to be the real ones. But in that case the reduction of the Gospel miracles to 120 Unknown Law [Lect. physical law would liave been indebted for its success, not to any hypothesis of pliilosophy, but simply to an altera- tion of the facts, in accordance with a supposed more authentic and historical estimate of them. Upon one theory alone, if a tenalile one, could such facts be reconcileable with known law ; and that is the theory that they were not facts, but impressions upon the minds of the witnesses — though impressions so strong and perfect that they were equivalent to facts to those who had them. This explanation, then, resorts for its ground to that more elastic and obscure department of nature above mentioned — the mixed bodily and mental organization of man with its liability to eccentric and abnormal conditions, and with them to delusions, and disordered relations to the external world. But this is a tlieory which is totally untenable upon the supposition of the truth of the facts of Scripture as they are recorded. An abnormal condition of the senses is in the first place connected with positive disease, and with particular diseases ; or else — if such a strange result has really ever arisen from such processes — with professedly artificial conditions of the man, produced by premeditated effort and skill ; of which even the asserted effects are very limited and fragmentary. But that numbers of men of serious character, and apparently in their ordinary natural habit, should be for years in a disordered state of relations to the outward worid ; in particular that they should think that for a certain period they had been frequently seeing and conversing with a Person, whose disciples they had been, who had returned to life again after a public death ; when they never saw Him at that time, or spoke to Him, — this is absolutely incredible. And therefore the theory of impression is untenable upon the facts of Scripture as they stand, and supposes different facts. I speak of the theory of impression as a physical theory : some speculative divines have joroposed the hypothesis of a miraculous im- VI] Uiiknoujii Law 1 2 1 pression produced for the occasion upon the minds and senses of the witnesses, as one mode of the production of miracles in certain cases ; but such a theory, to whatever criticism it may be open, has nothing in common with tlie physical explanation here noticed. (4.) 2. But now let us shift the inquiry from the ground which it has taken hitherto, to the other and different ques- tion, whether miracles may not be instances of laws which are as yet wholly unknown ; — this defers the (juestion of the physical explanation of a miracle to anotlier stage, when not only the connexion of a particular fact with law has to be discovered, but the law with which it is con- nected has to be discovered too. This question, then, is commonly called a question of "higher lav/." "All analogy," we are told, "leads us to infer, and new discoveries direct our expectation to the idea, that the most extensive laws to which we have hitherto attained converge to some few simple and general principles, by which the whole of the material universe is sustained." ^ A " higher law," then, is a law which com- prehends under itself two or more lower or less wide laws : and the way in which such a rationale of higher law would be applicable to a miracle would be this ; — that if any as yet unknown law came to light to which upon its appear- ance this or that miracle or class of miracles could be re- ferred as instances; in that case we could entertain the question whether the newly discovered law nnder which the miracles came, and the old or known law under which the common kind of facts come, were not both reducible to a still more general law, which comprehended them both. But before we can entertain the question of " higher law" as applicable to miraculous and to common facts, we must first have this lower law of the miraculous ones. Could we suppose, e.g., the possibility of some higher law ^ Babbage's Kinth Bridgwater Treatise, p. 32. 122 Unknown Law [Lect. into which both electricity and gravitation might merge ; yet the Laws of electricity and tlie law of gravitation both exist in readiness to be embraced under such higher law, should it ever be discovered. And in the same M'ay, if miracles and the laws of nature are ever to be compre- hended under a higher law, we must first have hoth the laws underneath the latter, both the laws of nature and the laws of the miracles. Could we then suppose the possibility of any unknown laws coming to light which would embrace and account for miracles, one concomitant of this discovery is inevit- able, viz., that those fresh laws will involve fresh facts. A law of nature, in the scientific sense, cannot exist without a class of facts which comes under it ; because it is these facts which arc the law. A law of nature is a repetition of the same facts with the same conjunctions ; but in order for the facts to take place with the same conjunctions, they must in tlie first instance take place. A law of miraculous recoveries of sight without such recoveries of siglit, a law of real suspensions of gravitation without such suspensions of gravitation, a law of miraculous productions of material substances without such productions, a law of resurrections from the dead without resurrections from the dead, — these laws are absurdities. To make an imaginative supposition — Could we conceive that in a future age of the world it were observed, that persons who had passed through cer- tain extraordinary diseases which had then shewed them- selves in the human frame, returned to life again after shewing the certain signs of death ; — this observation, made upon a proper induction from recurring instances, would be a law of resurrection from the dead ; but nothing short of this would be : and this would imply a new class of facts, viz., recurring resurrections. ISTo new class of facts, indeed, is required when an ex- ceptional phenomenon is explained by a hioivn law; for a VI] Uiiknoivn Law 123 known law only involves known facts : and no new class of facts is required when frequent phenomena are traced to a new law, because the new discovered law is already pro- vided with the facts which come under it, which have been seen always themselves though their law has been un- known ; but when both the phenomenon is exceptional and its law new, that new law implies a new class of facts ; for facts a law must have ; which therefore if they do not now exist, must come into existence in order to make the law.^ But such being the case, what does this whole supposi- tion of the discovery of such an unknown law of miracles amount to, but to the supposition of a future new order of nature ? It would indeed be ditticult to say what was a new order of nature, if recurrent miracles with invariable antecedents did not constitute one. But a new order of nature being involved in this supposition, it immediately follows that this whole supposition is an irrelevant, a futile, and nugatory one as regards the present question. A law of nature in the scientific sense has reference to our expe- rience alone : when I speak of a law of nature, I mean a ^ It is true that old and familiar classes of miraculous facts, so to call tlieni, exist in that constant current of supernatural pretension which is a feature of history, and has been a running accompaniment of human nature. And it is true also that a vague attempt has always been going on to con- nect this supernaturalism with law. The science of magic in its way made this profession ; it mixed this object indeed with relations to demons and unearthly beings ; but still it treated supernaturalism as a secret of nature, and pretended to search and in some degree to have penetrated into this secret. Again, the more exalted kind of heathen thaumaturgy connected miraculous powers with the development of human nature, and deduced them from a higher humanity, as a specimen of which the celebrated Apol- louius Tyanffius had them assigned to him. And the belief of rude tribes has subordinated mj'stical gifts of prophecy and second sight to the law of family descent. But, making allowance for exceptional cases in which it may have pleased the Divine power to interpose, the mature judgment of mankind has set aside the facts of current supernaturalism, except so far as they are capable of being naturally accounted for ; and has, with the facts, set aside all pretension to acquaintance with the law of them. 124 Unknown Law [Lect. law of nature with tliis reference. A miracle therefore as a violation of tlie laws of nature assumes the same condi- tion, and is relative to our knowledge. A miracle is thus not affected by any imaginary supposition of a future diffe- rent order of nature, of which it would not be a violation ; it is irrespective of such an idea. For no new order of things could make the present order different : and a miracle is constituted by no ulterior criterion, no criterion which lies beyond the course of nature as it comes under our cognizance, but simply by this matter-of-fact test. It is opposed to custom, — to that universal custom which we call experience. But experience is the experience which we liavc. A miracle, could we suppose it becoming the ordinary fact of another different order of nature, would not be the less a violation of the present one ; or therefore the less a violation of the laws of nature in the scientific sense. Bishop Butler has indeed suggested " that there may be beings in the universe whose capacities and knowledge and %dews may be so extensive as that the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural, i.e., analogous or conformable to God's dealings with other parts of His creation, as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us."^ And with respect to the beings who are here supposed, who have the knowledge of other parts of the universe, and of God's dispensations there, this sugges- tion holds good ; for the occurrence of the same dispensa- tions, with the same antecedents in the different parts of the universe, would constitute an order of nature in the universe to those who were acquainted with it. But we do not possess this knowledge, and an order of nature being relative to knowledge, in the absence of this condition there does not exist this naturalness.^ Tlie relation of a miracle to the laws of nature also fixes 1 Aualo'rv, Part i. cli. i. ^ Vid. Preface to Second Edition. VI] Unknown Law 125 its relations to general laws. Tlie only intelligible meaning which we can assign to general laws is, tliat they are the laws of nature with the addition of a particular theory of the Divine mode of conducting them ; the theory, viz., of secondary causes. The question whether the Deity operates in nature by second causes, or by immediate single acts, is not a question which at all affects the laws of nature in the scientific sense. Those laws being simply recurrent facts, are exactly the same, whatever be the Divine method em- ployed in producing those facts. But divines take up the subject at the point at which natural science stops, and inquire whether the Deity operates in the laws of nature by a constant succession of direct single acts, or through the medium of general laws or secondary causes, which, once set in motion, execute themselves. This is an entirely speculative question then, and, inasmuch as the real mode of the divine action is inconceivable, an insoluble one. The uniformity of all the facts which constitute a law of nature is suggestive of one originating act on the part of the Deity, but it is also consistent with a series of similar single acts ; nor is a universal action in particulars in the abstract more inconceivable than a Universal Beino-. The language of religion, however, has been framed upon the principle of what is most becoming to conceive respecting the Deity ; and therefore has not attributed to Him an incessant particular action in the ordinary operations of nature, which it hands over to secondary causes ; but only assigned this direct action to Him in His special inter- positions. (5.) General laws, then, being only the laws of nature with a particular conception appended to them ; if miracles are not reducible to the laws of nature, they are not reducible to general laws. Nor, indeed, considering what has been said, would such a reduction be very consistent with the reason upon which general laws stand. For if general 126 Unknown Law [Lect. laws have been separated from the direct action of the Deity for the very purpose of reserving the latter as the peculiar mark of His special interpositions ; to reduce these special interpositions back again from direct action to general law, Avould be to undo the object of this distinction, and after drawing a line of demarcation to efface it again. The notion of general laws naturally fits on indeed to God's uniform operations, but is a forced addition to irregular and extraordinary acts. The subordination of miracles indeed to " general laws of wisdom," ^ if we under- stand by that plnase a plan or scheme in tlie Divine Mind which controls the production of miracles, those considera- tions of utility which regulate their frequency, as well as limit and check their type, may well be allowed; but this is a different use of the term. The inquiry has, indeed, been raised whether in the original design and mechanism of creation, the law or prin- ciple of the system may not have been so contrived that miracles, when they occur, are as much the inevitable con- sequences of that law as its regular and ordinary effects ; the same cause or original plan which produces the order of nature, producing also the exceptions to it. It is ob- served, in the first place, that the history of our planet, being composed of successive stages or periods of animal and vegetable life, widely different from each other, these several orders of nature may have been but the gradual evolution of one primary law, impressed upon nature on its first construction ; the highest law of the system being such that it includes all these changes under it, and that no one formation singly, but the whole series, constitutes the full ^ Bishop Butler observes that "God's miraculous interpositions may have been all along by general laivs of wisdom. Thus, that miraculous powers should be exerted at such times, upon such occasions, in such degrees, and manners, and with regard to such persons, rather than to others, &c., all this may have been by general laws." — Analogy, Part ii. ch. iv, Vid. Preface to Second Edition. VI J Unknown Law 127 and adequate expression of it. And from this application to successive orders of nature, the same rationale is then applied to the order of nature and the deviation from it, or miracle. Neither the order of nature nor the exception to it alone, it is suggested, but both together, express that highest generalization in the structure of nature which is the law of the system and the whole. A calculating machine is so adjusted as to produce one unbroken chain of regularly succeeding numbers, wdien the law which governed the series fails, and another law comes in, pro- ducing another succession of numbers, or operating only in a single instance ; after which it gives way again to the first law. Neither of the two successions alone, nor the succession or the insulation alone, expresses the highest law of the machine, which includes them both. So, it is said, the order of nature and the exception to it, or miracle, may both be included under the original law which was impressed upon the structure of nature. " That one or more men at given times shall be restored to life, may be as much a consequence of the law of existence appointed for man at his creation, as the appearance and reappearance of the isolated cases of apparent exception in the arithmeti- cal machine." 1 (6.) If this hypothesis, then, of the origin of miracles is entertained as a truth of natural science,, an intermitting law of nature as much implies recurrent facts, with the same invariable antecedents, as any other law of nature does ; for if the exception is not as regular as the rule, the exception is not known as a rule or law at all. A clock is so. constructed as to strike every hour but one, when it omits the stroke ; but it always omits the same hour. A calculating engine injects into a lengthened series of regu- larly succeeding numbers an insulated deviation ; but upon ^ Passages from tlie Life of a Philosopher, p. 390. Vid. Preface to Second Edition. 128 Unknozun Lazu [Lect, the same adjustment of the machine the deviation is repeated. Upon first seeing the exceptional number, our impression would be that the machine was out of order, i.e. that this was an occurrence contrary to the law of the machine, nor should we be persuaded that it was not but by the repetition of the same exception in the same place. But miracles do not thus recur at the same physical junc- tures, and therefore do not come under an intermitting law of nature. This hypothesis, then, of the origin of miracles cannot be maintained as a truth of natural science, and can only be entertained as a speculation respecting the action of the Deity, the mode of operation attributable to tlie Universal Cause in the production of a miracle — that His action in the matter is not contemporary but original action. It can only be entertained as a speculation respecting the mode of the causation of a miracle. But all this is a distinct question for that of a miracle's referribleness to a law of nature, which law is concerned, not with causation, but with facts. As a speculation respecting the Divine action, and the mode of the causation of a miracle, this hypothesis ■would not, if adopted, make the slightest difference in the nature and character of a miracle. The date of its causa- tion would be put back, but the miracle itself would remain exactly what it was before upon the ordinary hypothesis : it would be as much an excej^tion to the order of nature as before ; an exception as much the result of tlie Divine intention and design as before ; and to answer the same specific oltject which it answered before. Indeed, it is not the design of this hypothesis to make any difi'erence in the miracle itself, or explain it away, but only, leaving it as miraculous as ever, to suggest a more jjhilosophical rationale of its origin. Nor must such an hypothesis be confounded with attempts at physical explanations of miracles. I have throughout this inquiry taken the term ' law of VI] Ufiknozvit Law 129 nature ' in the scientific sense, as referring to that order of nature of which we have experience ; but if by the laws of nature we understand the laws of the universe, w"e then arrive at a totally different conclusion upon the question of the contrariety of miracles to the laws of nature. In that case, " Nothing," as Spinoza says, " can take place in nature which is contrary to the laws of nature," and a sus- pension of the laws of nature is a contradiction in terms. A law cannot be suspended but by a force which is capable of suspending it ; and that force must act accord- ing to its own nature ; and the second force cannot sus- pend the first unless the law of its nature enables it to do so. The law of the Divine nature enables it to suspend all physical laws ; but, the existence of a God assumed, the law of the Divine nature is as much a law of nature as the laws which it suspends. Is the suspension of physical and material laws by a Spiritual Being inconceivable ? We reply, that however inconceivable this kind of suspension of physical law is, it is a fact. Physical laws are suspended any time an animate being moves any part of its body; the laws of matter are suspended by the laws of life. If there is anything I am conscious of, it is that I am a spiritual being, that no part of my tangible body is myself, and that matter and I are distinct ideas. Yet I move matter, i.e. my body, and every time I do so I suspend the laws of matter. The arm that w^ould otherwise hang down by its own w^eight, is lifted up by this spiritual being — myself. It is true my spirit is connected with the matter which it moves in a mode in which the Great Spirit who acts upon matter in a miracle is not; but to what purpose is this difference so long as any action of spirit upon matter is incomprehensible. The action of God's Spirit in the miracle of walking on the water is no more inconceivable than the action of my own spirit in holding up my own I 130 Unknown Law [Lect. hand. Antecedently one step on the ground and an ascent to heaven are alike incredible. But this appearance of incredibility is answered in one case literally amlidando. How can I place any reliance upon it in the other ? The constitution of nature, then, disproves the incredi- bility of the Divine suspension of physical law ; but more than this, it creates a presumption for it. For the laws of which we have experience are themselves in an ascend- ing scale. First come the laws which regulate unorganized matter; next the laws of vegetation; then, by an enormous leap, the laws of animal life, with its voluntary motion, desire, expectation, fear ; and above these, again, the laws of moral being which regulate a totally different order of creatures. Now suppose an intelligent being whose ex- perience was limited to one or more lower classes in this ascending scale of laws, he would be totally incapable of conceiving the action of the higher classes. A thinking piece of granite would be totally incapable of conceiving the action of chemical laws, which produce explosions, contacts, repulsions. A thinking mineral would be totally incapable of conceiving the laws of vegetable growth; a thinking vegetable could not form an idea of the laws of animal life ; a thinking animal could not form an idea of moral and intellectual truth. AU this progressive succes- sion of laws is perfectly conceivable backward and an absolute mystery forward; and therefore when in the ascending series we arrive at man, we ask. Is there no higher sphere of law as much above Mm as he is above the lower natures in the scale ? The analogy would lead us to expect that there was, and supplies a presumption in favour of such a belief And so we arrive again by another route at the old turning question ; for the question whether man is or is not the vertex of nature, is the question whether there is or is not a God. Does free agency stop at the human VI] Unknown Law 131 stage, or is there a sphere of free-will above the human, in which, as in the human, not physical law but spirit moves matter ? And does that free-will penetrate the universal frame invisibly to us, an omnipresent agent ? If so, every miracle in Scripture is as natural an event in the universe as any chemical experiment in the physical world ; if not, the seat of the great Presiding Will is empty, and nature has no Personal Head: man is her highest point ; he finishes her ascent ; though by this very supre- macy he falls, for under fate he is not free himself; all nature either ascends to God, or descends to law. Is there above the level of material causes a region of Providence ? If there is, nature there is moved by the Supreme Free Agent; and of such a realm a miracle is the natural production. (7.) Two rationales of miracles thus present themselves to our choice ; one more accommodating to the physical imagination and easy to fall in with, on a level with cus- tom, common conceptions, and ordinary history, and re- quiring no ascent of the mind to embrace, viz. the solution of miracles as the growth of fancy and legend ; the other requiring an ascent of the reason to embrace it, viz. the rationale of the supremacy of a Personal Will in nature. The one is the explanation to which we fall when we dare not trust our reason, but mistake its inconceivable truths for sublime but unsubstantial visions ; the other is that to which we rise when we dare trust our reason, and the evidences which it lays before us of the existence of a Personal Supreme Being. LECTURE VII MIRACLES EEGARDED IN THEIR PRACTICAL RESULT EOMANS vi. 17 But God be tlianlrA, that ye were the servants of siv, but ye have obeyed from the heart tliatfwm of doctrine which was delivered you. IN" judging of the truth of miracles the revelation of which they were designed to be the proof necessarily comes into consideration ; and specially the practical result of that revelation. Without assuming the truth of revela- tion, we can consider this result. It is a reasonable in- quiry which arises in the mind upon first hearing of an era of miracles— "What is the good of them ? what end and purpose have they answered ? If, then, some who had diseases were cured, that is something. But if there has been a permanent, enormous, and incalculable practical result — such a result that no other change in the world is to be compared with it — that is a very serious thing to take into account. We cannot avoid attaching weight to it, giv- ing it a place in the proof, and feeling impressed by the im- portance of such a circumstance in relation to the question. Without using — which we have no right to do — tins result as direct evidence of the facts in dispute ; if the miraculous system has been a practical one, with immense practical effects upon mankind, it plainly ought to have the benefit Miracles in their Practical Restilt 133 of this consideration in the estimate of its claims to be re- ceived as true. It is admitted, then, that Christianity has produced the greatest change that has been ever known in the world, with reference to moral standard and moral practice ; and when we inquire further, we find this change attributed by universal consent to the power of the great doctrines of Christianity upon the human heart ; which doctrines could not have been communicated without the evidence of miracles. And, first, a religion founded on miracles as compared with a religion founded upon the evidences of a God in nature, has a much superior motive power in the very fact of its supernatural origin. Undoubtedly the love of the supernatural may become a mere idle pleasure, and when it does it is condemned in Scripture. " If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." But, on the other hand, this affection is in itself religious, and a powerful instru- ment of religion. A supernatural fact, a communication from the other world, is a potent influence ; it rouses, it solemnizes ; it is a strong motive to serious action. The other w^orld stands before us in a more real aspect im- mediately. The notion of God as a Personal Being must be beyond all comparison greater in a religion founded upon miracles, than in one founded upon nature : because a miracle is itself a token of personal agency, of a Will and Spirit moving behind the veil of matter, in a way which the works of nature do not present. The tendency of a religion founded on nature, or Deism, is to establish as the world of God and man nature alone, the religious principle being adopted, but made to coincide with the sphere of this world. Such a religion is weak in influence. The voice of God must come out of another world to command with authority ; such a voice spake to Abraham, Isaac, and 1 34 Miracles regarded [Lect. Jacob ; their religion had its root in the Invisible ; but a God in nature only does not strike awe. One single real miracle is another ground in religion ; if the walls of nature have been broken through but once, we are divided by a whole world from a mere physical basis of religion. Do we in imagination assign a certain extraordinary depth and seriousness to those who have seen supernatural' facts ? The language of the Apostles embodies our idea and type of the effect of so unearthly an experience upon the recipients. But the remarkable change which Christianity made in the world was owing mainly, not to the miracles, but to the doctrines of which they were the proof. Undoubtedly the principal portion of the Go.spel miracles were, besides being proofs of doctrine, also acts of mercy, sympathy, and beneficence; and attention has been pro- perly directed to the philanthropical character of them — that they were not mere acts of power but acts of love. Indeed, the philanthropical purpose was the primary and principal purpose of each of these miracles as a single act, and with reference to the occasion on which it was wrought : while the evidential object belongs to them only as a body and a whole. The evidential object of miracles, indeed, was naturally achieved by the medium of the philanthropical object ; the general purpose was fulfilled by the very same acts which also served the special, particular, and occa- sional purposes. The one object adapted itself to the times and opportunities of the other, followed, waited upon, and linked itself on to them ; the proof of a dispensation was communicated in the form of miracles for the temporary relief and benefit of individuals. The evidential object of miracles was not executed in a forced and unnatural way, by set feats of thaumaturgy, and exhibitions of miraculous power as such, challenging the astonishment of beholders : it was accomplished in correspondence with the whole scale VII] in their Practical Residt 135 of the Divine character ; the acts of power were performed for those purposes which love pointed out, were elicited naturally by the several occasions, and fitted on to the course of events, the incidents of the hour, and the cases of infirmity which came in the way. Still, however naturally and in whatever connexion with other objects the evidential function of miracles was introduced, that function was not the less the principal object of miracles ; that on which they depended for any advantage ensuing from them extending beyond the original and local occasions, any permanent advantage to the world at large, any result affecting the interests of mankind. Will it be said that these philan- thropical miraculous acts were a revelation of the character of God to man as a God of mercy and love ? They could not be tliat, however, except by the medium of the eviden- tial function. Tor they could only be a revelation in act of the Divine character, on the supposition that the Person who wrought them was " God manifested in the flesh" — a truth for which the doctrine of the Incarnation, which is the result of evidence, is assumed. That the Gospel miracles, then, founded a system of doctrine which was lasting, and did not pass away like a creature of the day, is justly noticed by writers on evidence as an important note in favour of them ; but what I remark now is not the permanent doctrine which was the effect of the miracles, but the great permanent change which was the effect of the doctrine ; that this doctrine did not leave mankind as it found them, but was a fresh starting-point {a.<^opiir\) of moral practice, whence we date, not cer- tainly the complete regeneration of the world, but such an alteration in it as divides the world after the Christian era from the world before it. The Epistle to the Eomans is in substance a declaration of this power and effect of Christian doctrine, a prophecy, if we may call it so, of the actual result which has followed 136 Miracles regarded [Lect. it. This Epistle is distinguished as the great doctriDal Epistle, and truly ; but this is not an adequate description of it ; because the writer sets forth there Christian doctrine, not in itself as truth merely, but as tliat great new motive to action which was the prominent and conspicuous want and need of mankind. Tlie Epistle to the liomans is one long assertion of this power of doctrine as a motive to action. First comes the statement, that the world up to that moment had been, morally speaking, a failure, and had utterly disappointed the design for which it was made; not because man was without the knowledge of his duty, but because, the knowledge existing, there was between knowledge and action a total chasm, which nothing yet had been able to fill up. The Apostle looks upon that as yet unbridged gulf, this incredible inability of man to do what was right, with profound wonder ; yet such was the fact. The sublime moral maxims of Oriental nations strike us now; it is impossible to deny the liglit, the height of pure knowledge which they shew ; but can the transcendent code of duty get itself acted on ? Is it looked upon even in that point of view ? Has it even a practical intention that deserves to be called so ? No ; it is a beautiful erec- tion of moral sentiment, but there it ends. Man possesses a moral nature, and, if he has intellect enough, he can put his moral ideas into words, just as he can put metaphysical ideas ; nor is his doing so any test of his moral condition. Take any careless person of corrupt habits out of the thick of his ordinary life, and ask him to state in words what is his moral creed ? Has he any doubt about it ? None : he immediately puts down a list of the most sublime moral truths and principles. But as regards their being a law to himself, he feels that he has more to do with that than with anything else which is impossible. Between them and action there exists in his eyes an impassable interval ; and so far as relates to himself, as soon as ever these truths are VII] in their Practical Result 137 formally and properly enunciated, their whole design and. purpose is fulfilled. Such was the contrast which met St. Paul in the condi- tion of the whole world Jew and Gentile — knowledge with- out action. What was there to fill up this void, and effect a junction between these two ? Now when a man feels something to be wholly out of his reach, and that he has nothing to do with it, because he cannot do it ; the first notion of a remedy for this sense of utter impotence is an appeal to his will — Believe that you can do it, and you can do it. But how can a man believe simply because he is told to do so ? Believe upon no foundation ? On the other hand, if you can tell him anything new about him- self, any actual fresh source of strength from which he has not drawn but now may draw, this is a ground for a new belief about himself and what he can do. And this ground for a new belief about himself is what St. Paul proceeds to lay before impotent and despairing man, whose cry was, "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " Nothing but some wholly new agency, some effective and powerful motive not yet known to the world, could set this sluggish nature in action ; but that motive St. Paul could supply. The force, then, which Christianity applied to human nature, according to St. Paul, and by which it was to pro- duce this change in the moral state of man, was a new doc- trine. This new impulse and inspiration to goodness, able to lift him above the power of sin, the love of the world, and the lusts of the flesh, was contained in the great truth of the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God. God was by this transcendent act of mediation reconciled to man, pardoned him, and sent him forth anew on his course, with the gift of the Holy Spirit in his heart. This new founda- 138 Miracles regarded [Lect. tion, then, upon which human life is raised is an actual event which has taken place in the invisible world ; but inasmuch as God communicates the advantage of that event to man by the medium of man's own knowledge of and belief in it, this event necessarily becomes a doctrine ; and that doctrine is the new impulse to human nature. " The righteousness of God is manifested unto all and upon all them that hclicve." The knowledge of and fiiith in the new supernatural relation in which he stands to God, is henceforth the moral strength of man, that which enables liim to obey the Divine law. That new relation does not produce its effect without his own convictions, but knowing it and believing it, he experiences a movement from it so forcible, so elevating, and so kindling, that he is raised above himself by it. "Sin has not dominion over him." *' The law of the Spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was Aveak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." " He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken our mortal bodies, by His Spirit that dwelleth in us." " He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ? " ^ He appeals to men's be- lief in the great facts and doctrines of the Gospel, as that which is henceforth to constitute the motive power to urge them to and fix them in moral practice. The prefaces, " How shall we," " Know ye not," " Eeckon yourselves," " Ye are debtors to," " Ye are servants to," express the sense of an impossibility of acting against such a belief if it is genuine. If we examine the mode in which the doctrine of the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God is adapted to act ^ Rom. viii. 2, 3, il, 32. VII] in their Practical Result 139 upon moral conduct, first comes the influence and the motive contained in the character of the Divine Being, of which this is a new and striking revelation. The Atone- ment stamps upon the mind with a power, with which no other fact could, the righteousness of God. To trifle with a Being who has demanded this Sacrifice is madness ; and hence arises awe : but from the acceptance of the Atone- ment arises the love of God. A strict master is a stimulus to service if he is just; servants wish to please him: his pardon, again, is the greater stimvilus, on account of his very strictness, because it is the greater prize. Thus the belief in the Atonement becomes that inspiring motive to action which St, Paul represents it as being. Man appears in his Epistles as a pardoned being, — pardoned by that very God of whom he thus stands in awe, — and as a par- doned being a rejoicing being; rejoicing, not because he has nothing to do, but because having much to do, he feels himself possessed of a high spirit, and strength enough to do it. The sense of pardon is the inspiriting thing. " For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life." ^ From that event man dates his adop- tion, his glorious liberty, the law of the Spirit of life, the witness of that Spirit in his own heart, the expectation of that glory which shall be revealed in him, and the gift of eternal life. We thus observe it as a remarkable characteristic of Scripture, and especially of St. Paul's language, that it takes what may be called the high view of human nature ; i.e., of what human nature is capable of when the proper motive and impulse is applied to it. In this sense St. Paul, if I may use the expression, helicves in human nature ; ■ he thinks it capable of rising to great heights even in this life, he sees that in man which really can triumph over the ^ Eom. V. 10. I40 Miracles regarded [Lect. world, the flesh, and the devil ; which can struggle, and which can conquer in tlie struggle. His is what may be called the enthusiastic view of human nature, though tem- pered by the wisdom of inspiration. He sees in Christian doctrine tliat strong force which is to break down the vis incrticc of man, to kindle into life the dormant elements of goodness in him, to set human nature going, and to touch the spring of man's heart. Hence it is that the writer is borne along at times breathless with vehemence and with rapture, as the visions of hope rise up before him, and man is seen in the prospect over all the face of the earth, as- cending in mind to heaven. Hence it is that the flood of thought becoming too rapid for the medium which conveys it, struggles with and interrupts itself; though at the same time he is equally arrested by the mystery of limitation which adheres to Divine grace, and sees the true Church of God as separate from the world. How marked the contrast, when from this high estimate of, this ardent faith in, the capabilities of human nature which a doctrinal foundation imparts, we turn to the idea of man presented to us in a religion of pure Deism. The religion of Mahomet is not a doctrinal religion ; it is with- out an Incarnation, without an Atonement ; no sacrifice for sin reveals the awful justice of God, no pardon upon a sacrifice His awful mercy ; in the high court of heaven the Deity sits enthroned in the majesty of omnipotence and omniscience, but without the great symbol of His Infinite Eighteousness by His side — the Lamb that was slain. And now observe the effect of this doctrinal void upon the idea of God and the idea of man in that religion. If one had to express in a short compass the character of its remarkable founder as a teacher, it would be that that great man had no faith in human nature. There were two things which he thought man could do and would do for the glory of God — transact religious forms, and fight ; and upon those VII] in their Practical Result 141 two points he was severe ; but within the sphere of com- mon practical life, where man's great trial lies, his code exhibits the disdainful laxity of a legislator, who accom- modates his rule to the recipient, and shews his estimate of the recipient by the accommodation which he adopts. Did we search history for a contrast, we could hardly dis- cover a deeper one than that between St. Paul's overflow- ing standard of the capabilities of human nature and the oracular cynicism of the great false Prophet. The writer of the Koran does indeed, if any discerner of hearts ever did, take the measure of mankind ; and his measure is the same that Satire has taken, only expressed with the majes- tic brevity of one who had once lived in the realm of Silence. " Man is weak," says Mahomet. And upon that maxim he legislates. " God is minded to make his reli- gion light unto you, for man was created weak" — " God would make his religion an ease unto you" — a suitable foundation of the code which followed, and fit parent of that numerous offspring of accommodations, neutralizing qualifications, and thinly-disguised loopholes to the fraud and rapacity of the Oriental, which appear in the Koran, and shew, where they do appear, the author's deep ac- quaintance with the besetting sins of his devoted followers. The keenness of Mahomet's insight into human nature ; a wide knowledge of its temptations, persuasives, influences under which it acts ; a vast immense capacity of forbear- ance for it, half grave half genial, half sympathy half scorn, issue in a somewhat Horatian model, the character of tlie man of experience who despairs of any change in man, and lays down the maxim that we must take him as we find him. It was indeed his supremacy in both faculties, the largeness of the passive meditative nature,^ and the splen- ^ Shakespeare represents the largeness of the passive nature in Hamlet, but a disproportionate largeness which issues in feebleness, because he is always thinking of the whole of things. ' ' A mind may easily be too large 142 Miracles regarded [Lect. dour of action, that constituted the secret of his success. The breadth and flexibility of mind that could negotiate with every motive of interest, passion, and pride in man is surprising ; there is boundless sagacity ; what is wanting is hope, a belief in the capabilities of human nature. There is no upward flight in the teacher's idea of man. Instead of wliich, the notion of the power of earth, and the impos- sibility of resisting it, depresses his whole aim, and the shadow of the tomb falls upon the work of the great false Prophet, (i.) The idea of God is akin to the idea of man. " He knows us," says Mahomet. God's knowledge, the vast cxjjcricnce, so to speak, of the Divine Being, His infinite acquaintance with man's frailties and temptations, is appealed to as the oTound of confidence. " He is the Wise, the Knowing One," " He is the Knowing, the Wise," " He is easy to be reconciled." Thus is raised a notion of the Supreme Being which is rather an extension of the character of the large- minded and sagacious man of the world, than an extension of man's virtue and holiness. He forgives because He knows too much to be rigid, because sin universal ceases to be sin, and must be given way to. Take a man who has had large opportunity of studying mankind, and has come into contact with every form of human weakness and corruption; such a man is indulgent as a simple conse- quence of his knowledge, because nothing surprises him. So the God of Mahomet forgives by reason of His vast knowledge. The absence of the doctrine of the Atonement makes itself felt in the character of that Being who forgives without a Sacrifice for sin ; shewing that without that doc- for effectiveness, and energy suffer from an expansion of the field of view. The miud of Hamlet lies all abroad like the sea — an universal reflector — but wanting the self-moving principle. Musing, reflection, and irony upon all the world supersede action, and a task evaporates in philosophy." — Chr Mian Remembrancer, No. 63, p. 178. VII] in their Practical ResiLlt 143 trine tliere cannot even be high Deism, So knit together is the whole fabric of truth ; without a sacrifice, a pardon- ing God becomes an easy God : and an easy God makes a low human nature. No longer awful in His justice, the Wise, "the Knowing One," degrades His own act of for- giveness by converting it into connivance ; and man takes full advantage of so tolerant and convenient a master. " Man is weak," and " God knows him," — these two maxims taken together constitute an ample charter of freedom for human conduct. " God knows us," says man ; He knows that we are not adapted to a very rigid rule, He does not look upon us in that light, He does not expect any great things from us ; not an inflexible justice, not a searching self-denial, not a punctilious love of our neighbour ; He is considerate, He is wise, He knows what we can do, and what we cannot do ; He does not condemn us. He makes allowance for us, " He knows us." So true is the saying of Pascal that " without the knowledge of Jesus Chiist we see nothing but confusion in the nature of God and in our own nature." ^ The force which Christianity has applied to the world, and by which it has produced that change in the world which it has, is, in a word, the doctrine of grace. There has been a new power actually working in the system, and that power has worked by other means besides doctrine : but still it is the law of God's dealings with us to apply His power to us by means of our faith and belief in that power ; i.e. by doctrine. Faith in his own position, the be- lief at the bottom of every Christian's heart that he stands in a different relation to God from a heathen, and has a supernatural source of strength — this it is which has made him ad, has been the rousing and elevating motive to the Christian body, and raised its moral practice. If we go into particulars, the force of the great Example ^ Pensees, vol. ii. p. 317. 1 44 Miracles regarded [Lect. of the Incarnation, which we include in the effect of the doctrine of the Incarnation, has founded the great order of Christian, as distinguished from heatlien virtues. It is evident what power the great act of forgiveness in the Atonement has had in stamping the great law of forgive- ness upon human hearts ; what power the Incarnation, as a great act of humiliation, has had in creating another esti- mate of human rank and glory ; what effect again the same great doctrine has had in producing that interest in -the poor and whole difference of relations to them which has characterized Christian society. For whence has that idea of the poor and their claims come, but from the idea of man's brotherhood to man which the Incarnation has founded, and the recommendation of a low estate contained in the Humiliation of the Incarnation. There has been deep in men's minds the notion that they were uniting themselves to that Act, and attaching to themselves the benefit of it, by copying it ; by transferring it to Christian life, and reproducing it, so to speak, in an act of their own, — the descent from their own position to that of a lower fellow-creature. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, again, has enlightened man with respect to his body, and the re- spect due to it as the temple of that Divine Spirit ; and has thus produced that different estimate of sins of the body which so distinguishes the Christian from the heatlien world. The doctrine of a future life, as attested by the miracle of the Eesurrection, was practically a new doctrine in the world : it has inspired a belief and a conviction of a world to come, altogether distinct from any notion enter- tained by the heathen ; and it has acted as the most power- ful motive to moral practice. It must be observed that the gTcat public causes, which have produced the moral movements of communities and of society in the modern world, have leaned upon doctrine ; and relied upon that power for the propagating energy VII] in their Practical Result 145 necessary for them. Hence has arisen the inoculation of hearts, the excitement of genuine interest. The cause of the poorer classes, as just stated, has had a doctrinal foun- dation. The cause of the slave has had the same. The doctrine of the Incarnation has, through the idea of man's brotherhood to man, also founded the rights of man. Chris- tianity tolerated slavery in the days of the Apostles, and it does so now, because it tolerates all conditions of life which admit of Christian devotion and practice being conducted in them. But Christianity has always opposed this abuse : the Church was the great manumitter and improver of the condition of the serf in the middle ages ; and in the present age religious feeling has been at the bottom of the great movement against slavery. Tor was that being to be bought and sold whose nature Christ assumed, and for whom Christ died ? Thus the public effort which ended in relieving this country from the stigma of the capture and ownership of slaves, received its impulse from doc- trine ; and the great leader of it was himself the leader of a doctrinal revival. Public education has been partly a movement of charity and benevolence to man, and partly a movement for the advance of science. As a movement of charity to impart knowledge to and elevate the minds of the poor, it has been indebted principaEy and primarily to a religious motive ; for George III. caught the animus of society and represented it correctly in his well-known pro- phecy of the day " when every man in England would be able to read his Bible." And whence has the relief of sickness obtained its dignity and loftiness as a duty under Christianity ? Whence but from the same great doctrine which makes mankind one body, as members of " Him who filleth all in all ? " Hence every individual member par- takes of the dignity of the whole ; and the act of minister- ing to him becomes a noble service, paid to the whole body, and to its Head. " I was sick and ye visited Me, I was in K 146 Miracles regarded [Lect. prison and ye came unto ]\Ie." The idea of the dignity of man as such, tlie equality of man with man in the sight of God, the nobility of ministry and service to him, for the relief of his wants and diseases, did not exist in the world before the Gospel ; the heathens had no value for man as such, but only for man under certain flattering circum- stances, as developed by knowledge or greatness. Reduced to his own nature, he was nothing in their eyes : the elave was another being from his master. The light of truth first broke through this blindness and stupor in the doc- trine of the Incarnation, and that doctrine is the historical date of the modern idea of man. To say that the inspira- tion of the missionary cause has been the belief in Chris- tian doctrine is almost superfluous ; because we can hardly in imagination conceive missionaiy enterprise without it. Zeal in this cause is essentially the child of faith ; and without the conviction in the Church of a supernatural truth to communicate, and a supernatural dispensation to spread, Christianity must give up the very pretension of propagating itself in the world. The great public causes which are part of modern history and distinguish modern society from ancient, thus witness to the power of doc- trine ; but public causes are but one channel in which Christian action has flowed ; they do but exhibit in aggre- gate forms that Christian disposition and practice which goes on principally in private. Christianity simply regarded as a code of morals will not account for this mural change in the world ; for men do not do right things because they are told to do them. Mere moral instruction does not effect its purpose unless it is seconded by some powerful force and motive besides the lesson itself. Nor is this change in the world accounted for by the natural law of example, by saying that a body of men of high moral character and aims, under a remark- able leader, set up a high model, which model spread ori- VII] in their Practical Result 147 ginally and transmitted itself age after age by its own power and influence as a model and pattern. The force of example has a natural tendency to wear out. We see this in institutions and in states. Particular societies have in different ages been set going by earnest men, who infused at first their own spirit and put men of tlieir own type into them; but the force of example became gradually weaker in the process of transmission ; at every stage of the succession something of it was lost, till at last the body wholly degenerated. So a great example set by founders and their associates has imparted a mould and character to political communities, which has lasted some time; but this mould has altered as the original influence by little and little died away; and the state has become corrupt. Thus the pattern of public spirit and devotion to the public good which was originally stamped upon Sparta, Eome, and Venice, gradually lost its hold, and those states degenerated. The force of example, then, is not self-sustaining ; and therefore when a moral change in society is made for a perpetuity, and is a permanent characteristic, lasting through and surviving all other changes and transitions, this effect must be owing to some other principle than that of example, some permanent force from another root, by which example itself is kept up. I may add that the source of Christian practice in Christian truth does not agree with any settled principle of decay in Christian prac- tice, and with extreme statements of the inferiority of modern Christians to ancient. For though doubtless, with the same truth to move the human heart, its energies may be brought out in one age more than in another ; still the idea of a regular tendency of Christian practice to degene- rate with time, combines with the explanation of example as its cause, rather than with the operation of a constant cause in revealed truth. What I remark, then, is that the prophecy in the Epistle 148 Aliracks regarded [Lect. to the Eomans has been fulfilled, and that doctrine has been historically at the bottom of a great change of moral practice in mankind. By a prophecy I mean that St. Paul assigns a cortain property and effect to doctrine, viz. that of eliciting the good element in man, setting man's moral nature in action ; and that this property has been realized. The world, he says, has been hitherto a failure, everything has gone wrong, because man has not been able to act ; he could not do the thing that he would : he has laboured under an insurmountable weakness, and defect of some motive power adequate to tell upon him. But this is what is to change man ; this is what is to touch the seat of action in his heart, the truth which is now revealed from heaven — the doctrine of the Incarnation and Death of Christ. This doctrine will rouse and awaken human nature, and give it what it now wants — the great practical impulse. This account, I say, of the power of doctrine in St. Paul has been fulfilled by the fact. The history of man coin- cides with this assertion of St. Paul's of the property of doctrine. Not that the result has been by any means a complete one, or that St. Paul expected it to be ; far other- wise. His doctrine of election shews that ; that doctrine evidently represents the body of really good and holy men in the world, the spiritual Church, as always insulated in the world, always a small number in comparison with the great mass of mankind ; and a dark shadow rests upon one portion of the field of prophecy, contrasting remarkably with tlie light and glory of tlie other. But the issue of the Gospel, though not a complete result, has still been a great result ; such a result as divides the world after the Chris- tian era morally iVom the world before it. A stimulus has been given to liuman nature, which has extracted an amount of action from it which no Greek or Poman could have believed possible, but which, had it been placed in VI I j in their Practical Result 149 idea before him, lie would have set aside as the dream of an enthusiast. Undoubtedly, the doctrines of false religions have ex- tracted remarkable action out of human nature ; especially the doctrines of Oriental religions. The Hindoo doctrine of Absorption, e.g. has produced a great deal of extraordi- nary action. But what sort of action is it ? Is it action upon the scale of our whole moral nature, worthy of that nature, or the fulfilment of the law as the Scripture calls it ? No, it is such wild, eccentric, one-sided energy of the erratic will as is more allied to phrenzy than morals. The fruits of the doctrine of Absorption are gigantic feats of self-torture and self-stupefaction, ending in themselves, and unconnected with charity to man : a fruit worthy of its source. For the doctrine of Absorption is itself a false- hood : no man can wish for the loss of his own personality, i.e. his own annihilation : no man ever did wish for it, what- ever length of torture he may have undergone to obtain it. The conception is a counterfeit ; it wants truth, and " the tree is known by its fruits." Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? So neither can moral practice issue out of the doctrine of Absorption ; but a fiction pro- duces the wild and poor fruit of extravagance. (2.) In attributing this effect to Christian doctrine, we must at the same time remember that the old Law foreshadowed that doctrine. The religion of the Jew was not Deism. In the first place it was founded on miracles, and on that higher revelation of the personality of the Deity which miracles are. In the next place it was accompanied by the institution of sacrifice, which was a peculiar revelation of the righteous character of God, as a riU; and an intimation of the real Atonement as a type. From these sources was derived the deep doctrine of repentance and forgiveness, which penetrates the Psalms and Prophecy ; the sense of 150 Miracles regarded [Lect. the necessity of an act of pardon on God's part, in order to allay the trouble in man's heart, and reinstate him in peace of mind ; the intimate communion with God iqwn this sense of the necessity of His favour and acceptance ; the language of tender complaint and remonstrance with Him founded upon wliat we may call the devotional fiction of His hardness and inflexibility — the affectionate irony of prayer. In this whole relation to God lay the motive power of the old Law, the stimulus to goodness in it ; to the force of which the Jew was indebted for raising him above the pagan in morals ; and which actually issued in producing a hochj or class of holy men in every generation of the people. Whereas paganism had high individual ex- amples, but not a class. But this relation under the old Law was an anticipation of Cliristian light. The Law as such could not " give life," nor " could rigliteousness come by the Law," as a law ; but so far as the old law contained the germ of Gospel truth, so far it gave life ; so far it sup- plied an effective motive to rouse the heart of man to ex- ertion. (3.) The relation of religion to morals has indeed been exem- plified most conspicuously under Christianity. Morality may in the abstract exist without religion, and is not iden- tical with it ; but religion has been the practical producer of it ; the practical motive to morals in the world. Our moral nature is not its own moving principle ; it is so at least very inadequately ; and so we find that in jDoint of fact doctrine has been the impulse which has set it in action. It is not in human nature to set about its work wholly in the dark ; it wants a vision of the invisible world, a revelation of God and of its own prospects and destiny, to set it to work. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and of life eternal in the same Jesus Christ, is tliis vision or supernat\iral truth which has produced action. The strong need of the sense of favour with God, which the VII] in their Practical Resttlt 151 Gospel manifestation of Him has created ; the overpower- ing disclosure of man's destiny, that lie was made for a state of endless glory and happiness, has forced men, in spite of themselves, to do good acts. And therefore doc- trine has been a part of human progress, a fresh ground- work, a higher level gained ; analogous in morals to civili- zation in social and political life. And to give up doctrine would be a retrograde movement for the human race, the surrender of ground made, a relapse from a later to an earlier stage of humanity ; the abandonment of a superior motive power which commands the spring of action in the human heart, for an inferior one which did not touch it.^ But still it will be asked — Would not all this result of Christianity have been just the same without the peculiar doctrines ? are not these merely the accidental appendages of a spirit which rose up in man, which has been the ener- gizing power throughout ? But though it is always open to men, when great results have taken place in connexion with certain apparent causes, to say that they would have taken place all tlie same without those causes, this cannot in the nature of the case be more than a conjecture. We have an obvious and matter-of fact coincidence of a higher state of mankind with doctrine ; which coincidence is of itself a strong argument. And we have, moreover, man's own witness to doctrine, as being the cause which has pro- duced this effect. If we are to take men's own account of their own action, and their own power of action, this has been the impulse to them : the call which has awakened them to moral life has been a doctrinal one; what has ^ Scott in his "Force of Truth" mentions, what is remarkable, that while he held Socinian principles himself, he still purposely discarded them as his basis of preaching, because he saw they were not enough for moral purposes, i.e. for making him a successful preacher of morality, which he was very desirous of being. " I concealed them in a great mea- sure both for my credit's sake and from a sort of desire I entertained of successfully inculcating the moral duties upon those to whom I preached." 152 Miracles regarded [Lect. enabled them to maintain this action has been the support of certain truths, in the absence of which they would not have been able to do what they did. In this state of the case, to say that all this change would have gone on with- out doctrine, is unsatisfactory, and suppositional only. Let us conceive for a moment Christian doctrine obliter- ated, and mankind starting afresh without it, with only the belief in a Benevolent Deity, and a high moral code. "With the fact before us of what has been the working power of doctrine upon man's heart, and what has been the weak- ness of our moral nature without doctrine, could we com- mit mankind to a moral Deism without trembling for the result ? Could we deprive human nature of this powerful aid and inspiring motive, and expect it to act as if it had it ? Could we look forward without dismay to the loss of this practical force which has been acting upon human nature for eighteen centuries ? Would any one in his heart expect that Christianity deprived of its revealed truths would retain its old strength, would produce equal fruits, the same self-sacrificing spirit, zeal, warmth, earnest- ness ? that it would give the same power of living above the world ? that its effects on the heart, its spiritualizing influence, would be the same without its doctrines ? No ! When men speculate they want to get rid of doctrine ; but when they want practical results to be produced, then they fall back upon doctrine, as that alone which can produce them, which can awaken man from his lethargy, and sup- ply a constraining motive to him. I do not mean to say that many have not taken an active part in the great ob- jects and movements of Christian society who have not accepted Christian doctrine ; but such men have acted upon an idea obtained from revelation, although they have ceased to believe the revelation from which it came. Example is not the full account of the origin of Christian practice, but still that practice existing, its example tells, and inoculates VII] in their Practical Result 153 many who reject the creed. A moral standard is imbibed with the atmosphere of life. Such men are the production of Christian doctrine, however they may disclaim it : — so far at least as concerns this practical zeal. What is offered as a substitute for the doctrine of the Incarnation, to set man's moral nature in action, is the en- thusiastic philosophical sentiment of the divinity of human nature. But though I would not say that this, like other ideas which have an element of truth in them, has not given a high impulse to some minds ; that it has been a forcible engine for impelling mankind to the practice of duty would be plainly overrating its results. And there is a reason for its weakness and want of power, viz. that the idea does not stand the test of observation. For let us suppose a sagacious man of great experience and know- ledge of the world, who had had opportunity of observing human nature upon a large scale — its expressions and its disguises, the corruption of men's motives, and all those well-known traits and characteristics of mankind which acute men have embodied in various sayings — let us sup- pose such a person having laid before him for his accept- ance the above idea of the divinity of human nature. He would treat it with derision and ridicule ; representing that though men of the profoundest sagacity have in all ages believed in mysteries, it is another thing to ask them to believe that facts themselves are different from what they are seen to be. But let us suppose again, the same pene- trating observer not wholly satisfied with the low estimate of man as the full account of him, but catching also obscure signs of a different element in the being, working its way under great disadvantages, and not to be left out of the cal- culation, though he cannot tell what it may turn out to be, and what it may shadow and prognosticate in the destiny of this creature. Were then, at this stage, the idea of a Divine scheme for the elevation of this creature to a parti- 154 Miracles regarded [Lect, cipation of the Divine nature to be offered to liim, what- ever astonishment the thought might excite, conscious that he had no solution of his own of the enigma before him, he would not wholly reject it; but one condition he M'ould think indispensable — he would not listen to the notion of this creature's exaltation except through the passage of some deep confession first, by which he would condemn himself utterly, and in condemning cast off his old vileness. Without this tribute, this sacrifice to truth, such an idea would appear a mockery. Such a distinction as this divides one doctrine of ex- alted liumanity from another. A deification of humanity upon its own grounds, an exaltation which is all height and no depth, wants power because it wants truth. It is not founded uj^on the facts of human nature, and therefore issues in vain and vapid aspiration, which injures the solidity of man's character. That serious doctrine of man's greatness, which lays hold on man's moral nature, and brings it out, is one which lays its foundation first in his guilt and misery; his exaltation is remedial, a restoration from a fall. Thus the school of experience accepts man's 'vileness in the Gospel portrait, the sanguine school his loftiness ; tlie one depresses man, the other inflates him ; the Gospel doctrine of the Incarnation and its effects alone unites the sagacious view of liviman nature with the enthu- siastic. It is the only doctrine of man's exaltation which the observer of mankind can accept; while also it is only as a mystery transacted in the highest heaven that mari's exaltation has ever been cared for by himself, ever com- manded his serious energies. (4.) But if, as the source and inspiration of practice, doctrine has been the foundation of a new state of the world, and of that change which distinfjuishes the world under Chris- tianity from the world before it ; miracles, as the proof of that doctrine, stand before us in a very remarkable and VII] in their Practical Result 155 peculiar light. Far from being mere idle feats of power to gratify the love of the marvellous ; far even from being mere particular and occasional rescues from the operation of general laws ; they come before us as means for accom- plishing tlie largest and most important practical object that has ever been accomplished in the history of mankind. They lie at the bottom of the difference of the modern from the ancient world ; so far, i.e.. as that difference is moral. We see as a fact a change in the moral condition of man- kind, which marks ancient and modern society as two different states of mankind. What has produced this change, and elicited this new power of action ? Doctrine. And what was the proof of that doctrine, or essential to the proof of it ? Miracles. The greatness of the result thus throws light upon the propriety of the means ; and shews the fitting object which was presented for the intro- duction of such means ; the fitting occasion which had arisen for the use of them; for indeed no more weighty, grand, or solemn occasion can be conceived, than the foun- dation of such a new order of things in the world. Extra- ordinary action of Divine power for such an end has the benefit of a justifying object of incalculable weight; which though not of itself indeed proof of the fact, comes with striking force upon the mind in connexion with the proper proof. It is reasonable, it is inevitable that we should be impressed by such a result; for it shews that the miracu- lous system has been a practical one ; that it has been a step in the ladder of man's ascent, the means of introduc- ing those powerful truths which have set his moral nature in action. Nor, must it be observed, can professed subsequent miracles for the conversion of particular populations, after the original miraculous proof and propagatiom of the Gospel, avail themselves of the argument which applies to those original miracles themselves. Because the argument 15^ J\Ii racks regarded [Lect. for these miracles, which is thus extracted from the great result of them, is based upon the necessity of those miracles for this result. But though the original miracles are necessary for the proof of doctrine, subsequent miracles cannot plead the same necessity ; because when that doc- trine has been once attested, those original credentials, transmitted by the natural channels of evidence, are the permanent and perpetual proof of that doctrine, not want- ing reinforcements from additional and posterior miracles ; which are therefore without the particular recommendation to our belief, of being necessary for the great result before us. The Anglo-Saxon nation was doubtless as important a nation to convert as the Jewish or Greek ; but the miracles of our Lord and His Apostles were necessary to convert the Jews and the Greeks; St. Augustine's reputed miracles were not necessary to convert the Anglo-Saxons. First miracles in proof of a new dispensation, and miracles in a subsequent age for the spread of it, stand upon different grounds in this respect ; the latter are without that par- ticular note of trutli which consists in a necessary connexion with great permanent ends. First credentials cannot be dispensed with, second ones can be. It may be said that second ones are useful for facilitating and expediting con- version ; but we are no judges of the Divine intentions with reference to the speed or gradualness of the conver- sion of mankind to the Gospel; which considerations therefore stand on a different ground from the fundamental needs of a dispensation. The saying of our Lord, " Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed," evi- dently contemplates the future growth of the Christian faith by means of testimony to, as distinguished from the actual sight of, the miraculous evidences of the Gospel. This view of miracles, as the indispensable means for producing that great result which we have before us, and that new moral era of the world under which we are VII] in their Practical Result 157 living, meets again another objection wliicli is sometimes raised against the truth of miracles. ' The general sense of society,' it is stated, ' rejects the notion of miracles taking place now-a-days ; these extraordinary actions of Omnipotence are conveniently located in the past. But why this sort of general consent that a supernatural event is impossible now, if it was really possible then ? It is evident that the imagination is only less scandalized by a miracle now than by a miracle then, because it realizes present time, and does not realize past. But if so, the modern acceptance of miracles is convicted of being unreal, and therefore whatever speculative arguments may be urged for the possibility of such events, the matter-of-fact test of human educated belief rejects them.' (5.) It is, then, to be admitted that the mind of society now is adverse to the notion of an hodiernal supernatural event. But I remark in the first place that this position is taken with a reserve. For, not to mention tlie undovibting belief in special Providences now, let a reported instance of a communication in later times between the world of de- parted spirits and the visible world be discussed; a fair representative of the established standard of belief does not commit himself to any absolute position against the possibility of such an occurrence. The relations between the seen and the unseen worlds, the state of the dead, and what channels are capable of being opened between un- clothed spirit and the mind which still tenants the frame of the Hesh — all this lies so completely out of our know- ledge, that to decline to lay down the principle of an im- passable boundary between one portion of the Divine dominion and another, is felt to be not superstition, but caution. Of the weight, importance, and significance of a reserve, indeed, different estimates Avill be formed. To some a reserved ground appears but a light appendage to a 158 Miracles regarded [Lect. dominant decision, a formality, a piece of argumentative etiquette, not to be taken into account in the general cal- culation; but to others, a reserved ground is a weighty thing : it represents some claim which is only weak in the scale at present because it happens to be distant, but which is strong in its own place, and which we may have some day to meet in that place. An argumentative reserve speaks to them with the force of silent prophecy ; it points to some truth whose turn will come some day, perhaps when we least expect it, and remind us of our proviso. All minds that require to be individually satisfied about the matter of their belief, must hold some truth or other under the form of a reserve,. All truths do not come equally beneath our focus ; but if in this state of the case a mind ignores whatever hovers about the dim region of the circumference and meets the vision imperfectly, it con- demns itself to that barrenness which results from seeing a very little clearly, and seeing nothing else at all. A thoughtful mind sees in these distant reserves of the reason the skirts of great arguments, the borders of large regions of truth ; and the shadowy and imperfect vision supports the clear, enriching it with additional significance and important bearings. Thus in the wider circuit of religious doctrine M"e may see enough in one or other particular matter of belief to think that there may be more wliich we do not see ; and a theological mind will make allowance for its own defect of scope, admit such matter partially into its system, and give the benefit of a reserve to truths which lie in the distance and in the shadow. When, tlien, it is said tliat society neutralizes its belief in past miracles by a practical disbelief in the possibility of present, we reply that society does not reject the idea of the hodiernal supernatural, but expresses its judgment on that subject with a reserve. But we next observe, that if the mind of Christian society at the present day is VII] in their Practical Result 159 adverse to the notion of hodiernal miracles, and scrutinizes with great rigour all pretensions of that kind, there is a sound and sufficient reason which may be assigned for this fact; viz. that the great end for which miracles were designed is now accomplished ; and that we are now living under that later providential era, and amidst those results, to which miracles were the first step and introduction. If we do not expect miracles now, there is a natural reason for it, viz. that the great purpose of them is past. Of our different attitude to past and present time upon this point, one account is, that our belief in the miraculous does not stand the touchstone of the actual present; but there is another explanation of it which is just as obvious, and which a believer can give, viz. that any set of means what- ever unavoidably becomes retrospective and a thing of the past when the end is achieved. So far as miraculous agency is regarded as 'A.imst agency by us, there is a reason to give for this view of it, arising from the facts of the case. We are living amid mighty and deep influences, which were originally set agoing by that agency; but which having been set going, no longer want it ; and at such a stage it is natural to us to look upon the irregular and extraordinary expedients employed in laying the founda- tion as superseded ; just as we remove the scaffolding when the edifice is raised, and take away the support of the arch when the keystone has been inserted. The preparatory and introductory period to a final dis- pensation is a natural period of miracles, such as the period which succeeds is not. In the antecedent state there was a great want felt, a void which the existing dispensation did not satisfy ; and the religious thought of the day was cast forward into a mysterious future, not, as Christian thought is now, heavenwards, but towards a consummation of revelation here below. The ancient Jew saw in his own dispensation an imperfect structure, the head of which wae 1 60 Miracles Remrded still wanting — the Messiah : all pointed to Him ; its cere- monial was typical ; and the whole system was an adum- bration of a great approaching Divine kingdom, and a great crowning Divine act. The very heart of the nation was thus the seat of a great standing prophecy ; all was anticipation and expectation; prophets kept alive the sacred longing ; miracles confirmed the prophetical office ; and in prospect was the miraculous outbreak of Divine power in the great closing dispensation itself. But this whole expectant attitude is in our case reversed. Ours is not a state of expectancy, and a day of forecastings and foreshadowings : we feel no void, throwing us on the future. On the contrary, w^e repose in Christian doctrine as the final stay of the human soul, and we are conscious that in this doctrine is contained all that can develop man ; we know that it Iwa developed man, and that Christianity has made a moral change in the state of the world. With us, then, miracles are passed, so far as they are connected with the principal oliject with which miracles are concerned — revelation. It would be wholly unnatural, it would be contrary to the very account Avhich we give of our own position, for us at this day to sinjulate the expectant state of the old Law, and throw ourselves back into the pro- spective stage. This would be doing violence to our whole knowledge and sense of reality. Though we cannot restrict the scope of miracles to one object, still, to cease to expect them when their cliicf end is gained, is only to do justice to the greatness of that end, to appreciate the truth and power of the Christian dispensation, and to observe what Christian doctrine has done for man. LECTURE VIII FALSE MIEACLES Matt. vii. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not p'ophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast out devils ; and in Thy name done many wonderful works ? ALAEGE class of miraculous pretensions is not con- fined to one religion, or even to religion altogether, but belongs to human nature. Does man desire a miracle as a proof that a revelation is true ? That is a legitimate want. Does he desire one merely to gratify his curiosity and love of the marvellous, for excitement and not for use ? That is a morbid want. For though the innate love of the supernatural in man's heart is legitimately gratified by a miracle, man has no right to ask for miracles in order to gratify this affection, any more than he has to ask for them even as evidence, idly and treacherously, when he does not intend to accept them as such even when done. On both accounts " an adulterous generation" which " sought after signs" was once rebuked. This morbid want, however, joined to the eager expectation that God would constantly interpose to prevent the injurious effects of His general laws, has produced a constant stream of miraculous preten- sion in the world, which accompanies man wherever he is found, and is a part of his mental and physical history. Curiosity, imagination, misery, helplessness, and indolence, have all conspired to throw him upon this support, which L 1 62 False Miracles [Lect. he has sought in order to penetrate into the secrets of the future, to lift up the veil of the invisible world, and to ob- tain under calamity and disease that relief which God either did not design to give at all, or only to give through the instrumentality of human skill and industry. This perpetual phenomenon of miraculous pretension, this running accompaniment of human nature, takes indeed different forms, according to the religious belief, or the pre- vailing notions and movements of different ages ; to which it joins itself on, and which supply it with a handle. The affection for the marvellous has been successively heathen, Christian, and philosophical or scientific. Heathenism had its running stream of supernatural j)retensions in the shape of prophecy, exorcism, and the miraculous cures of diseases which the temples of Esculapius recorded with pomjious display. The Christian Church inherited the common fea- tures and characteristic impulses of human nature, for Christians were men, and became a scene of the same kind of display : — I speak of the miracles of the early and later Church so far as they come under the head of this standing result of human nature, without inqviiring at present which of them have evidence of a peculiar and distinguishable kind. The doctrine of the Incarnation was the instrument of this human affection under Christianity ; it joined itself on to that doctrine, and used the virtues of the saints, or the fruits of man's participation through the Incarnation of the Divine nature, for its own purpose. The same affec- tion in our own day, abandoning its connexion with doc- trine, and even with religion, adopts philosophical ground, and avails itself of a scientific handle ; and, the trace of an occult law of our sentient being having been discovered, which resulted in some extraordinary bodily conditions and affections, has raised upon this basis a wild superstructure of Supernaturalism, extending at last to a systematic inter- course with the invisible M'orld. This strong human affec- VIII] False Miracles 163 tiou has thus flourished successively upon heathen, upon Christian, and upon scientific material ; because in truth it is neither heathen, nor Christian, nor scientific, but human. Springing out of the common stock of humanity, which is the same in all ages, it adapts itself to the belief, the specu- lations, and the knowledge of its own day. It avails itself of every opening which religious truth or obscure laws of nature may afford, and every fresh growth of supernatural- ism borrows the type of the age. And thus is produced that constant succession of miraculous pretensions, which, varying in shade and form, and taking its colour from hea- then mythology, or Christian truth, or Gothic or Celtic fancy, or scientific mystery, is a perpetual and standing phenomenon of human nature ; its evidences being of one homogeneous type and one uniform level, which lies below a rational standard of proof. The criterion, therefore, which evidential miracles, or miracles which serve as evidence of a revelation, must come up to, if they are to accomplish the object for which they are designed, involves at the very outset this condi- tion, — that the evidence of such miracles must be distin- guishable from the evidences of this permanent stream of miraculous pretension in the world; that such miracles must be separated by an interval not only from the facts of the order of nature, but also from the common running miraculous, which is the simple offshoot of human nature. Can evidential miracles be inserted in this promiscuous mass, so as not to be confounded with it, but to assert their own truth and distinctive source ? If they cannot, there is an end to the proof of a revelation by miracles : if they can, it remains to see whether the Christian miracles are thus distinguishable, and whether their nature, their object, and their evidence Adndicate their claim to this dis- tinctive truth and Divine source. 1. The first great point, then, in the comparison of one 1 64 False Miracles [Lect, set of miracles with the other, is the nature and character of the facts themselves. Supposing both sets of facts to be true, are we equally certain that both of them are miracles ? Now on this head we have to notice first a spontaneous ad- mission and confession on the part of the running miracu- lous, viz., that the believers in it appear, in the case of a clear and undoubted miracle, i.e. a fact M'hich if it is a true occurrence is such, to see almost as strong a distinction be- tween such a miracle and their own supernatiiralism as they do between that miracle and the order of nature. When the heathens of the patristic age were confronted by the assertion of Christ's Eesurrection, they answered at once that it was impossible that a dead man should come to life again, although they had their own current super- naturalism going on. But this was to admit a broad in- terval between the latter and the genuine miraculous. Jewish supernaturalism was indeed going on side by side with our Lord's miracles ; and thence the inference has been drawn that His miracles could not in the very nature of the case be evidences of His distinctive teaching and mission, inasmuch as miracles were common to Himself and His opponents. But the same record which refers to Jewish thaumaturgy, also reveals the enormous distinction which those who practised or believed that thaumaturgy themselves made between it and our Lord's miracles. The restoration of sight to the man born blind was obviously regarded as a miracle in a sense quite distinguished from that in which they would have applied the term to a Jew- ish exorcism : it excited much the same resistance in their minds as if they had not had their own standing superna- turalism as a rival at all. And when our Lord's prophecy of His own resurrection was reported to the Boman gover- nor, the statement was — " Sir, this deceiver said." Why " deceiver ? " Why was this reported as a pretended mu'acle and an imposture, if the real miracle would have VIII] False Miracles 1 6 5 made no difference to them, being neutralized and reduced to the measure of an ordinary current instance of superna- turalism by tlieir own thaumaturgy ? Why instead of in- volving themselves in ditiiculties by resisting testimony to the facts of our Lord's miracles, did the Jews not accept the facts, and only deny the argument from them ? What reason could there be but one, viz. that they recognized a true miraculous character in our Lord's miracles "which was wanting in their own ? And so when we come to the cur- rent miracles of tlie esirly Church, we meet with the same admission and confession of the broad distinction between them and the Gospel miracles, only not extracted unwit- tingly from Christian writers, but volunteered with full knoAvledge. The Fathers, while they refer to extraordi- nary Divine agency going on in their own day, also with one consent represent miracles as having ceased since the Apostolic era. But what w^as this but to confess that though events which pointed to the special hand of God, and so approximated to the nature of the miraculous, were still of frequent occurrence in the Church ; miracles of that decisive and positive character that they declared them- selves certainly to he miracles no longer took place, (i.) But this spontaneous admission on the part of the run- ning miraculous having been noticed, we next see that the very nature and type of the facts themselves account for and explain the admission. A deep latent scepticism ac- companies the current supernaturalisra of mankind, wdiich betrays itself in the very quality and rank of the reputed marvels themselves, — that they never rise above a low level, and repeat again and again the same ambiguous types. There is a confinement to certain classes of occur- rences, which, even if true, are very ambiguous miracles. The adhesion to this neutral, doubtful, and indecisive type, evinces a want of belief at the bottom in the existence of a real right in the system to assert a true dominion over l66 False Miracles [Lect. nature. Tlie system knows what it can do, and keeps within a safe line. INIiraculous cures, vaticinations, visions, exorcisms, comjjose the current miracles of human history ; but these are just the class which is most susceptible of exaggerating colour and interpretation, and most apt to owe its supernatural character to the imaginations of the reporters. Hence tlie confession of inferiority, when this running supernaturalism was confronted by real miracles ; the admission of the distinction which existed between itself and the latter. The heathen saw that a resurrection from the dead was a fact about which, if it was true, there could be no mistake that it was a miracle ; Mdiereas that some out of the crowds of sick that were carried to the temple of Esculapius afterwards recovered, was, notwith- standing the insertion of their cures in the register of the temple, no proof of miraculous agency to any reasonable man. Exorcism, which is the contemporary Jewish miracle referred to in the Gospels, is evidently, if it stands by itself and is not confirmed by other and more decided marks of Divine power, a miracle of a most doubtfLd and ambiguous character. However we may explain demoniacal posses- sion, whether we stop at the natural disorder itself, or carry it on to a supernatural cause, in either case a sudden strong impression made upon the patient's mind, such as would awaken his dormant energy and enable him to re- collect the scattered powers of his reason, would tend to cast off the disorder. The disease being an obstruction of the rational faculties, whatever resuscitated the faculties thoroughly would expel the disease ; and an agency whicli was not miraculous but only moral, might be equal in cer- tain cases to thus reawakening the faculties : a moral power miglit dismiss the demon that brooded upon the under- standing, as it does tlie demon that tempts to sin. Exor- cism therefore, even the legitimate practice, did not neces- VIII] False Miracles 1 6 7 sarily involve miraculous power ; and the Jewish practice was replete with imposture. When we come to the miracles of the early Church we have to deal with a body of statement which demands our respect, on account of the piety and faith of those from whom we receive it ; but it is still open to us to consider the rank and pretension of these miracles, — whether the very type and character of them does not, upon the very point of the claim to be miraculous, radically distinguish them from the Gospel miracles ; as the very confession of the Fathers, just noticed, implies. The current miracles of the jDatristic age are cures of diseases, visions, exorcisms : the higher sort of miracle being alluded to only in isolated cases, and then with such vagueness that it leaves a doubt as to the fact itself intended. But these are of the ambi- guous type which has been noticed. Take one large class — cures of diseases in answer to prayer. A miracle and a special providence, as I remarked in a previous Lecture,^ differ not in kind but in degree ; the one being an inter- ference of the Deity with natural causes at a point removed from our observation ; the other being the same brought directly home to the senses. When, then, the Fathers speak of sudden recoveries, in answer to prayers of the Churcli or of eminent saints, as miracles, they appear to mean by that term special providences rather than clear and sensible miracles. And remarkable visions would come under the same head. The very type, then, of the facts themselves which com- pose the current miracles of human history, the rmiform low level which they maintain, stamps the impress of un- certainty upon them, in striking contrast with the freedom and range of the Gospel miracles. About the latter, sup- posing them to be true, tliere can be no doubt, — that they ^ Page 7. 1 68 False Miracles [Lect. are a clear outbreak of miraculous energy, of a mastery over nature ; but we cannot be equally assured upon this point in the case of the current miracles of the first ages of the Church, even supposing the truth of the facts. It M'ill be urged perhaps that a large portion even of the Gospel miracles are of the class here mentioned as ambi- guous : cures, visions, expulsions of evil spirits : but this observation does not affect the character of the Gospel miracles as a body, because we judge of the body or whole from its highest specimens, not from its lowest. The ques- tion is, what power is it which is at work in this whole field of extraordinary action ? what is its nature, what is its extent ? But the nature and magnitude of this power is obviously decided by its greatest achievements, not by its least. The greater miracles are not cancelled by the lesser ones ; more than this, they interpret the lesser ones. It is evident that this whole miraculous structure hangs together, and that the same power which produces the highest, produces also the lowest type of miracle. The lower, therefore, I'eceives an interpretation from its con- nexion with the higher which it would not receive by it- self. If we admit, c.cj. our Lord's Eesurrection and Ascen- sion, what could be gained by struggling in detail for the interpretation of minor miracles ; as if these could be judged of apart from that great one ? The difference, again, in the very form of the wonder- working power in the case of the Gospel miracles, as com- pared with later ones, makes a difference in the character of the miracles themselves. A standing miraculous power lodged in a Person, and through Him in other persons ex- pressly admitted to the possession of it ; not making trials, in some of which it succeeds, in others not, but always accomplishing a miracle upon the will to do so, — this, which is the Gospel fact or phenomenon asserted, is un- doubtedly, if true, miraculous. But when the wonder- VIII] Fa he Miracles 1 6 9 working power comes before us as a gift residing in the whole Christian multitude and sown broad-east over the Church at large, the miracles which issue out of this popu- lar mass are only a certain number of attempts which have succeeded out of a vastly greater number which have failed. But such tentative miracles are defective in the miraculous character from the very nature of the facts ; because chance accounts for a certain proportion of coincidences happening out of a whole field of events. When the running miraculous is raised above the low level, which betrays its own want of confidence in itself and its professed command over nature, it is by a pecu- liarity which convicts it upon anotlier count. There is a wildness, a puerile extravagance, a grotesqueness, and ab- surdity in the type of it such as to disqualify it for being a subject of evidence. The sense of what is absurd, ridi- culous, and therefore impossible as an act of God, is part of our moral nature : and if a miracle even seen with our own eyes, cannot force us to accept anything contrary to mora- lity or a fundamental truth of religion, still less can pro- fessed evidence force us to believe in Divine acts, which are upon the face of them unworthy of the Divine author- ship.^ It is true that of this discrediting feature there is ^ We observe indeed in the region of God's animate creation, various animal natures produced of a grotesque and wild type ; but to argue from this that we are to expect the same type in bodies and classes of miracles, is to apply the argument of analogy without possessing that condition which is necessary for it — a parallel case (see p. 37). We can argue from one Divine act to the probability or not improbability of another like it, provided the cases with which the two are concerned are parallel cases ; but the creation of an animal is no parallel case to the Divine act in a miracle ; nor therefore can wildness, enormity, and absurdity in a miracle plead the precedent of the singuhar types which occur in the animal king- dom. The latter has been diversified for reasons and for ends included within the design of creation : but a miracle is not an act done by God as Creator : it is a communication to man, it is addressed to him, and there- fore it must be suited to him to whom it is addressed, and be consistent with that character which our moral sense and revelation attribute to the 1 70 False Miracles [Lect. no definite standard or criterion, and that when we refuse to believe in a miracle on account of the absurdity and puerility in the type of it, we do so upon the responsibility of our own sense and perceptions; but many important questions are determined in no other way than this ; in- xleed all morality is ultimately determined by an inward sense. A fact, however, is not in itself ridiculous, liecause a ridiculous aspect can be put upon it. The dumb brute speaking witli man's voice to forbid the madness of the pro- phet, the dismissal of a legion of foul spirits out of their usurped abode in man into a herd of swine, — whatever be the peculiarity in these two miracles which distinguishes them from the usual scriptural model, it is no mean, trivial, or vulgar character. Did we meet with these two simply as poetical facts or images in the great religious poem of the middle ages, they would strike us as full of force and solemnity, and akin to a graud eccentric type which occurs not rarely in portions of that majestic work, and serves as a powerful and deep instrument of expression in the hands of the poet. Looking then simply to their type, these miracles stand their ground. While it must also be ol)- served that in the case of miracles of an eccentric type, the quantity of them and the proportion which they bear to the rest is an important consideration. The same type which in unlimited profusion and exuberance marks a source in human fancy and delusion is not extravagant as a rare and exceptional feature of a dispensation of miracles just emerging and then disappearing again, as a fragmentary deviation from a usual limit and pattern, to which it is in complete subordination. One or two miracles of a certain form in Scripture have indeed been taken full advantage of. Divine Being. Upon this ground a solemn, a high stamp must always recommend a miracle, while a ridiculous type is inconsistent with the in- trinsic dignity of a Divine interposition. V 1 1 1 ] False Miracles 1 7 1 as if they supplied an ample justification of any number and quantity of the most extravagant later miracles ; but, supposing in our estimate we even reduced the eccentricity of the latter to this exceptional Scripture type, quantity and degree make all the difference between what is im- pressive and what is puerile, what is weighty and what is absurd. The miraculous providence of Scripture, it must be remembered, covers the whole period from the creation of the world to the Christian era. The very rare occurrence of a type in a long reach of Providential operations, is no precedent for it as the prevailing feature of whole bodies and classes of miracles. The temper of the course and system of supernatural action is shewn by the proportion preserved in it, and by the check and limit under which such a type appears. 2. In comparing two different bodies of miracles their respective objects and results necessarily come into con- sideration. I have, however, in a previous Lecture con- sidered the great moral result of the Gospel miracles, exhibited in that new era of the world and condition of human society which they were the means of founding. Any comparison of this great result with the objects of current supernaturalism can only reveal the immense in- feriority of the latter; — even when these objects are not volatile, morbid, or mean. But in how large a proportion do motives of the latter kind prevail ! Motives of mere curiosity and idle amusement ! Motives even worse than these — impatience and rebellion against the boundaries which separate the visible and invisible worlds ! What is the chief avowed object, e.g. of the supernaturalism of this day ? To open a regular systematic intercourse between the living and the dead ! But how does such a fantastic and extravagant object, as that of breaking down the barriers of our present state of existence, at once convict and con- demn such pretensions themselves as fallacious ! As much 172 False Miracles [Lect. so as, on the other hand, their grand and serious moral result recommends and is an argument for the Gospel miracles. 3. When from the type and character of the professed miracles of subsequent ages, and their dejects, as compared with the miracles of Scripture, we turn to the evidence on whicli they respectively rest, we meet with various dis- tinctions which liave been very ably brought out and com- mented on by writers on evidence. And in the first place, a very large proportion of the miracles of subsequent ages stop short of the very first introduction to valid evidence, that preliminary condition which is necessary to qualify them even to be examined ; — viz. contemporary testimony. That certain great and cardinal Gospel miracles — which if granted clear away all antecedent objection to the reception of the rest — possess contemporary testimony, must be admitted by everybody, at the peril of invalidating all historical evidence, and involving our whole knowledge of the events of the past in doubt. That the first promulgators of Christianity asserted as a fact which had come under the cognizance of their senses the Eesurrection of our Lord from the dead, is as certain as anything in history. But the great mass of later miracles do not fulfil even this preliminary condition, or reach even this previous stage of evidence. But, the level of contemporary testimony gained, the character of the witnesses, and the extent to whicli their veracity is tested by pain and suffering, make an immense difference in the value of that testimony. 1. In estimating the strength of a witness we must begin by putting aside as irrelevant all those features of his char- acter, however admirable, striking, and impressive, which do not bear upon the particular question whether his report of a fact is likely to be correct. We have only to do with character in one point of view, viz. as a guarantee to the truth of testimony; but a reference to this simple object at V 1 1 1 J False Miracles 173 once puts on one side various traits and qualities in men which m themselves are of great interest, and excite our ad- miration. We value an ardent zeal in itself, but not as a security for this further object, because men under the influence of enthusiasm are apt to misstate and exaggerate facts which favour their own side. So, again, an aflectionate disposition is beautiful and admirable in itself, but it does not add weight to testimony ; and the same may be said of other high and noble moralgifts and dispositions — generosity, courage, enterprising spirit, perseverance, loyalty to a cause and to persons. Even faith, only regarded as one specific gift and power, in which light it is sometimes spoken of in Scripture, the power, viz. of vividly embracing and realizing the idea of an unseen world, does not add to the strength of a witness, though in itself, even as thus limited, a high and excellent gift. And thus might be constructed a char- acter which would be a striking and interesting form of the religious mind, would lead the way in high undertakings, would command the obedience of devoted followers, and would be in itself an object of singidar admiration ; but which would not be valuable as adding solid weight to testimony. Perfect goodness is undoubtedly goodness in all capacities and functions, and stands the test of relation to all jDurposes ; but, taking human nature as we find it, a good man and a good witness are not quite identical. For all this assemblage of high qualities may exist, and that particular characteristic may be absent upon which we de- pend when we rely upon testimony in extreme and crucial cases. That characteristic is a strong perception of and regard to the claims of truth. Truth is a yoke. If we would wish facts to be so and so, and they are not, that is a trial ; there is a disposition to rebel against this trial ; and this disposi- tion has always a ready instrument in the faculty of speech, to whose peculiar nature it belongs to state facts either as 1 74 False Miracles [Lect. they are or as they are not, with equal facility. To suhiuit theu to the yoke of truth under the temptation of this singularly simple and ready agency for rejecting it, requires a stern and rigorous fidelity to fact in the mind, as part of our obedience to God. But where there are many excellent affections and powers, sometimes this solid and fixed estimate of truth is wanting; while, on the other hand, there are characters not deficient in these affections and powers, into whose composition it deeply enters, and whose general moral conformation is a kind of guarantee that they possess it. Such a character is that which lives in the pages of the New Testament as the Apostolic character. If we com- pare that model with the model set up in later times, the popular pattern of Christian perfection which ruled in the middle ages, we find a great difierence. There is undoubtedly deep enthusiasm, if we may call it so, in the character of the Apostles, an absorption in one great cause, a depth of wonder and emotion, high impulse, ardent long- ing and expectation ; and yet with all this what striking balance and moderation, which they are able too — a very strong test of their type — to maintain amid circumstances just the most calculated to upset these virtues ! At war with the whole world, lifted up above it, and trampling its affections beneath their feet ; living upon heavenly hopes, and caring for one thing alone, the spread of the Gospel, — theirs was indeed a grand and elevating situation ; but at the same time it was just one adapted to throw them off their balance, and narrow their standard. Mere enthusi- astic men would have been carried away by their an- tagonism to the whole existing state of society to set up some visionary model of a Christian life, wholly separated from all connexion with the cares and business of earth. But although the Apostles certainly gave scope to ■ and assort the duty of an extraordinary and isolated course of VIII] False Miracles 1 7 5 life, under certain circumstances and with reference to particular ends, their standard is wholly free from contrac- tion ; their view of life and its duties is as sensible and as judicious as the wisest and most prudent man's ; nor do they say — ' You may be an inferior Christian if you live in the world, but if you want to be a higher Christian you must quit it;' but they recognize the highest Christian perfection as consistent with the most common and ordin- ary form of life. Their great lessons are, that goodness lies in the heart, and that the greatest sacrifices which a man makes in life are his internal conquests over vain desires, aspirations, and dreams of this world; which deepest mortifications consist with the most common out- ward circumstances. This plain, solid, unpretending view of human life in conjunction with the j^ursuit of an ideal, the aim at perfection, is indeed most remarkable, — if it was not a new combination in the world. What I would observe^ however, now is that such men are weighty witnesses ; that their testimony has the force of statements of fact from men of grave and solid temperament, who could stand firm, and maintain a moderate and adjusted ground against the strong tendencies to extravagance inherent in their whole situation and aim. On the other hand, when I come to a later type of char- acter which rose up in the Christian Church, I see in it much which is splendid and striking — high aim and enter- prise, courageous self-denial, aspiring faith, but not the same guarantee to the truth of testimony. Ambition or exaggeration in character is in its own nature a divergence from strict moral truth ; which, though it is more effective in challenging the eye, and strikes more instantaneously as an image, detracts from the authority of the character, and the dependence we place upon it for the purpose now mentioned. The remark may be made, again, that the original pro- 1 76 False Miracles [Lect. limitation of Christianity was one of those great under- takings which react upon the minds of those engaged in it, and tend to raise them above insincerity and delusion. The cause itself was, so far as any cause can be, a guaran- tee for the truthfulness of its champions ; its aim was to renovate the liuman race sunk in corruption ; it proclaimed a revelation indeed from heaven, but that revelation was still in connexion with the most practical of all aims. But this cannot be said of most of the later causes in behalf of which the professed evidence of miracles was enlisted : spurious and corrupt developments of Christian doctrine do not give the same security for the truthfulness of their propagators. The quality of the cause, the nature of the object, is not in fact wholly separable from the character of the witness ; and one of these heads runs into the other. But this consideration of itself goes far to dispose of whole bodies of later miracles ; for if we liold certain later doc- trines, the deification of the Virgin Mother, Transubstantia- tion, and others, to be corruptions of Christianity, we are justified in depreciating the testimony of the teachers and spreaders of these doctrines to the alleged miracles in sup- port of them. The nature of the cause affects our estimate of the propagators. Indeed, let the human intellect once begin to busy itself not only about false deductions from Christian doctrine, but even about doubtful ones, nay even about true but minute and remote ones, and the spirit and temper of the first promulgators of Christianity is soon exchanged for another. Propagandism has not a reputa- tion for truthfulness. As doctrine diverges from the largeness of the Scripture type into narrow points, the active dissemination of it interests, excites, and elates as a speculative triumph. Wlien from the character of the witnesses to the Gospel miracles we turn to tlie ordeal wliich they underwent, we find another remarkable peculiarity attaching to tlieir Y 1 1 1 ] Fa Ise Miracles I'j'j testimony, viz. that it was tested in a manner and to an extent which is without parallel: because, in truth, the whole life of sacrifice and suffering which the Apostles led was from beginning to end the consequence of their belief in certain miraculous facts which they asserted themselves to have witnessed ; upon which facts their whole preaching and testimony was based, and without which they would have had no Gospel to preach. In all ages, indeed, dif- ferent sects have been persecuted for their opinions, and given the testimony of their suffering to the sincerity of those opinions ; but here are whole lives and long lives of suffering in testimony to the truth of particular facts ; the Eesurrection and Ascension being the warrant to which the Apostles appeal for the authority and proof of their whole ministry and doctrine. On the other hand, those mere current assertions of supernatural effects produced, which prevail in all days, and in our own not least, but which are made irresponsibly by any persons who choose to make them, without any penalty or risk to the assertors to act as a test of their truthfulness, have hardly, in strict right, a claim even upon our grave consideration ; because in truth upon such subjects untested evidence is worthless evidence. We can conceive a certain height of character which would of itself command the assent of individuals, but the world at large cannot reasonably be satisfied without some ordeal of the witnesses. We apply an ordeal to testimony even to ordinary facts, when the life or liberty of another depends upon it, and in this case cross-examination in a court is the form of ordeal ; but pain and sacrifice on the part of the witnesses is also intrinsically an ordeal and probation of testimony; which condition current supernaturalism does not fulfil, but which the Gospel miracles do. The testimony to the latter is tested evidence of a very strong kind ; because the trials which the Apostles endured were M 1 78 False Miracles [Lect. both lasting, and also owing directly to their belief in certain facts, to which they bore witness ; thus going straight to the point as guarantees for the truth of that attestation. But it would be difficult to discover any set of later miracles which stand upon evidence thus tested ; which can appeal to lives of trial and suffering undergone by the witnesses as the direct result of their belief in and witness to such miracles. (2.) One consideration, however, of some force remains to be added. It is confessed that the medieval record contains a vast mass of false and spurious miracles, — so vast indeed that those who wish to claim credence for some particular ones, or who, without mentioning particular ones, argue that soriie or other out of the whole body may have been true, still virtually abandon the great body as indefensible. The mediaeval record therefore comes before us at the very outset as a maimed and discredited authority — discredited because it has adopted and thrown its shield over an immense quantity of material admitted to be untrue and counterfeit, and so identified itself with falsehood. So far as any informant takes up and commits himself to false intelligence, so far he destroys his own credit. An immense mass of admitted spurious miracles therefore adoj)ted by the mediaeval record throws doubt upon all the accounts of such facts transmitted to us through the same channel ; because to that extent it affects the general character of the record as an informant, and invalidates its authority. The Scripture record, on the other hand, does not at any rate come before us with this admitted blot upon its credit in the first instance. The information it contains has doubtless to be examined with reference to the evidence upon wliich it rests; that is to say, the authority of the record has to be investigated ; but it does not present itself with any admitted discrediting stain in the first instance; whereas such an admitted stain does VI 11] False Miracles 179 in limine, attach to the mediaeval record. But this con- sideration receives additional force when we take into account two great causes of miraculous pretensions which were deeply rooted in the character of the middle ages, but fi'om which Christianity at its original promulgation was free. 1. It is but too plain that in later ages, as the Church advanced in worldly power and position, besides the mis- takes of imagination and impression, a temper of deliberate and audacious fraud rose up within the Christian body, and set itself in action for the spread of certain doctrines, as well as for the great object of the concentration of Church power in one absolute monarchy. Christianity started with the sad and ominous prophecy that out of the very bosom of the religion of humility should arise the greatest form of pride that the world should ever know — one, " as God sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God;"i the complete fulfilment of which, if yet in store, has certainly not been without its broad foreshadowings ; for indeed Christian pride has transcended heathen by how much Christianity is a more powerful stimulus to man than heathenism ; giving a depth to his whole nature, which imparts itself even to his passions, to his ambition and love of dominion, and to his propagation of opinion. But this formidable spirit once arisen in the Church, falsehood, which is the tool of the strong even more than of the weak, is its natural instrument. Hence tlie bold forgeries of the middle ages, which were the acts of a proud will, determined that nothing should stand in the way between it and certain objects, and that if facts did not exist on its side, they should be made. And hence also counterfeit miracles. But mere historical criticism must admit that this spirit of daring, determined, and presumptuous fraud, which com- piled false authorities, and constructed false marvels simply ^ 2 Tliess. ii. 4. 1 80 False Miracles [Lect. because they were wanted, was the manifestation of a later age ; and that the temper of the first promulgators of the Gospel was wholly free from such a stain. (3.) 2. Another great cause of miraculous pretensions in later ages was the adoption of miracles as the criterion and test of high goodness; as if extraordinary sanctity naturally issued in a kind of dominion over nature. This popular idea dictated that rule of canonization which required that, before a saint was inserted in the Calendar, proof should be given of miracles either performed by him in his lifetime or produced by the virtue of his remains. Such a criterion of sanctity is intrinsically irrelevant ; for in forming a judgment of a man's character, motives, and dispositions, the extent of his charity and self-denial and the like, what can be more beside the question than to inquire whether or not these moral manifestations of him were accompanied by suspensions of the laws of nature. The natural test of character is conduct ; or, which is the same thing, moral goodness is its own proof and evidence. The man is before us ; he reveals himself to us not only by his formal outward acts, but by that whole manifold expression of himself, conscious and unconscious, in act, word and look, which is synonymous with life. The very highest form of goodness is thus a disclosure to us which attests itself, and to which miracles are wholly extrinsic. But what I remark now is that the adoption of such a test as this must in the nature of the case produce a very large crop of false miracles. The criterion having been adopted must be fulfilled ; providence does not fulfil it because providence is not responsible for it, and therefore man must ; he who instituted the test must look to its verification. But this whole notion of miracles as a test of sanctity was a complete innovation upon the Scripture idea. The Bible never re- presents miracles as a tribute to character, but as following a principle of use, as means to certain ends. One saint VIII] False Miracles 1 8 1 possesses the gift because it is wanted for an object; as great a saint does not because it is not wanted. The fruits of the Spirit always figure as their own witnesses in Scrip- ture, superior to all extraordinary gifts, and not requiring their attestation. The Christian is described as gifted with discernment. There needs no miracle to tell Mm who is a good man and who is not; he knows him by sure signs, knows him from the hypocrite and pretender ; " he that is spiritual judgeth all things," is a scrutinizer of hearts, and is not deceived by appearances. (4.) Between the evidence, then, upon which the Gospel miracles stand and that for later miracles we see a broad distinction, arising — not to mention again the nature and type of the Gospel miracles themselves — from the contem- poraneous date of the testimony to them, the character of the witnesses, the probation of the testimony ; especially when we contrast with these points the false doctrine and audacious fraud wliich rose up in later ages, and in con- nexion with which so large a portion of the later miracles of Christianity made their aj)pearance- But now to carry the argument into another stage, "What if — to make the supposition — it was discovered, when we came to a close examination of particulars, that for several of the later miracles of Christianity there was evidence forthcoming approximating in strength to the evidence for the Gospel miracles — what would be the result ? Would any dis- advantage ensue to the Gospel miracles, any doubtfulness accrue to their position as a consequence of this discovery, and additional to any previous intrinsic ground of difficulty ? None : all the result would be that we should admit these miracles over and above the Gospel ones : but the position of the latter would not be at all affected by this conclusion : they would remain, and their evidence would remain, just what they were before. We reject the mass of later miracles because they want evidence ; not because our argu- 1 82 False Miracles [Lect. ment obliges us to reject all later miracles whether they have evidence or not. The acceptance of the Gospel miracles does not commit us to the denial of all other ; nor therefore would the discovery of strong evidence for some other miracles at all imperil the ground and the use of the Gospel ones. Many of our own divines have admitted the truth of later miracles, only raising the question of the date up to which the continuance of miraculous po^\'ers in the Church lasted, some fixing this earlier, and some later. But were our divines therefore precluded from using the Gospel miracles as evidences of Christianity ? Do our brethren even of the Eoman communion, because they accept a much larger number of later miracles than our divines do, thereby cut themselves off from the appeal to the miraculous evidences of Christianity ? Pascal accepted a miracle of his own day, of which he wrote a defence ; and yet he prepared the foundation of a treatise on the Evidences of Christianity, and the evidences of miracles with the rest : nor was he guilty of any error of logic in so doing. It is true our divines may have been under a mistake in accept- ing some miracles which they did ; and certainly our Koman Catholic brethren are in our judgment very much mistaken in a great number of miracles which they accept : but that was only a mistake as to the particular later miracles accepted ; they were neither of them mistaken in the general notion, which was plainly reasonable, that they could accept both later miracles and Gospel miracles too. (5.) The application of the fact of the crowd of later and medieval miracles to neutralize the evidences of the Gos- pel mii^cles proceeds upon the assumption that the crowd of later miracles does in reality rest upon as strong evi- dence as the Gospel ones : and this assumption has been met in the body of this Lecture by distinguishing between their respective evidences. But if we leave the crowd and single out 'particular later miracles, then there is no VIII] False Miracles 1 8 3 obligation upon us to distinguish at all between the evi- dences of the two. Such later miracles may be admitted to have evidence of a substantial character and approximating to the evidences of the Gospel miracles, without at all im- perilling the credit of the latter ; because one set of miracles is not false because others are true. We assert indeed that no later miracles have equal evidence to that of the great miracles of the Gospel : but could even an equal amount of evidence in some cases be shewn, no con- sequence would ensue unfavourable to the latter. We should simply have to accept the later over and above the earlier. The assumption wliich appears to exist in some quarters that we are obliged to disown and reject all later miracles, as being a degrading connexion for and a source of discredit to the Gospel miracles, is wholly without authority. Such an assumption would indeed endanger the position of the Scripture miracles ; because in proportion as the evidence for later miracles assumed weight and sub- stance and approximated to the evidence of the Gospel miracles, and was notwithstanding rejected ; in that pro- portion we should be in danger of having in consistency to reject the Gospel miracles too. But there is no ground for such an assumption. One conclusion, however, there is which is a tempting one to deduce from the multitude of spurious miracles, viz. the impossibility of distinguishing the true ones. ' We cannot,' it may be said, ' go into particulars or draw minute distinctions. Here is a vast crowd of miraculous preten- sions, the product of every age of Christianity, including that of its very birth. Of this an overwhelming proportion is confessed to be false. But how can we distinguish be- tween what is false and what is true of this promiscuous mass ? Miraculous evidence in such a condition defeats itself and is unavailable for use ; and practically we must treat Christianity as if it stood without it.' 184 False Miracles [Lect. Nothing then can be more certain than that, granted true miracles, so long as man is man, these true miracles must encounter the rivalry of a growth of false ones, and the evidential disadvantage, whatever it be, thence ensuing. And therefore this position amounts to saying that per- manent miraculous evidence to any religion is an impossible contrivance. But such a wholesale inference as this from the existence of spurious miracles is contrary to all principles of evidence, and to the whole method in practice among mankind for ascertaining the truth of facts. Do we want to dispose of all cases of recorded miracles by some summary rule which decides them all in a heap, the rule that a sample is enough, that on3 case settles the rest, and that the evidence of one is the evidence of all ? We have no such rule for ordinary questions of moral evidence relating to human actions and events. If any one principle is clear in this department, it is that every case which comes under review is a special case. In civil justice, e.g. every case is determined upon its own merits, and according to our estimate of the quality of the testimony, the situation of the parties, and the con- nexion and coincidence of the facts in that particular case. Xo two sets of witnesses, no tM^o sets of circumstances are exactly alike. Inasmuch, then, as these constitute in every case the grounds of decision, every case of evidence in our courts is a special case. Two successive causes or trials might be pronounced upon a inima facie view to be exactly alike as cases of evidence ; they look the same precise mixtures of evidence and counter evidence, probabilities and counter probabilities ; and a person would be tempted to say that one decided the other. Yet upon a close examination the greatest possible difference is discovered in the two fabrics of evidence, and consequently the judg- ment is different. In proportion as the examination pene- trates into each case and comes into close quarters with VIII] False Miracles 1 8 5 the witnesses, the circumstances, the connexion of facts in it, the common type of the two is cast off, the special characteristics of each come out into stronger and stronger light, the different weight of the testimony, the different force of the facts. There are universal rules relating to the punishment when the crime is proved, and to the right when the conditions are proved, but of what constitutes proof there is no rule. This is a special conclusion, according to the best judgment, from the special premisses. There is no royal road to truth in the evidence of facts ; every case is a special case. It is true that main features of fact, as well as types of testimony, repeat themselves often ; but in every case they demand and we give them a fresh inspection. It only requires the advantage of this principle to bring out the strong points, the significant features, and the effec- tive weight of the evidence for the Gospel miracles. Upon the summary supposition indeed that the evidence of miracles is a class of evidence, which, after the sight of some samples, dispenses with the examination of the rest, those miracles would stand little chance ; but we have no right to this summary supposition; the evidence of the Gospel miracles is a special case which must be decided on its own grounds. Were the annals of mankind crowded even much more than they are with spurious cases, Ave should still have to take the case of the Gospel miracles by itself. The general phrase in use, " the value of testimony," conceals degrees of strength ; the term " competent witness" hides all the interval which lies between an average wit- ness who appears in court, and the sublimest impersona- tion of the grave, the holy, the simple and truthful charac- ter. The phrase "ordeal of testimony" covers all the degrees in severity and duration of such ordeal. Tliis degree, in the strength of testimony is, however, in truth the critical and turning-point in the evidence of miracles ; 1 86 False Miracles [Lect. for miracles are a weight resting upon the support of that evidence ; but whether a support can bear a particular weight must depend on the degree of strength residing in that support. To ascertain however the degree of strength which belongs to the evidence for the Gospel miracles, we must go into the special case of that evidence ; and what we maintain is, that when we do go specially into the evidence for those miracles, we find this high degree of strength in it : that its foundation lies so deep in the won- derful character and extraordinary probation of the wit- nesses, and in the unique character and result of the reve- lation, that it sustains the weight which it is required to sustain. The truth of the miraculous credentials of Christianity rests upon various arguments, the mutual coherence and union of which forms the evidence of them. Nor in a case of evidence must we narrow the term ' argument ;' any- thing is an argument which naturally and legitimately produces an effect upon our minds, and tends to make us think one way rather than another. Nor in judging upon the force and weight of these arguments, can we dispense with a proper state of the affections. It is no condition of a sound judgment that there should be an absence of feel- ing in it ; our affections are a part of our judgment ; an argu- ment only sinks into us properly, and takes proper hold of our minds, by means of the feelings which take it up and carry it into the understanding. One man thinks nothing of an argument, another a great deal of it, because feeling enables the one to see, the argument, the other wants this light by which to see it. It is thus a great mistake to sup- pose that those who are absorbed in the pleasurable exer- tion of the intellect and are without the religious emotions, who do not hope, wlio do not fear as spiritual beings, are the best judges of religious evidences. For the truth is, in such a state a man is not possessed of his whole nature ; a VIII] False Miracles 1 8 7 man is only half himself; nay, he is but a miserable frag- ment of himself. Hope and fear are strong impulses to and enliveners of the understanding ; they quicken the per- ce2:)tions; under their purifying and sharpening influence we see the force of truths and arguments which otherwise we are too dull to see. Thus half of a man's nature may reject the Christian evidence, but the whole accepts it. When every part of us is represented in our state of mind, when the religious affections as well as the intellect are strong and lively, then only is our state of mind a reason- able one, then only are we our proper selves ; but the issue of this collective whole is Christian belief. NOTES NOTES LECTUEE I NOTE 1, p. II THE necessity of miracles to prove a revelation is assiunecl in the general language of divines. Thus Butler : " The notion of a miracle, considered as a proof of a Divine mission, has been stated with great exactness by divines ; and is, I think, sufficiently understood by every one. There are also invisible miracles, the Incarnation of Christ, for instance, which, being secret, cannot be alleged as a j)roof of such a mission, but require themselves to beproved by visible viiracles. Revelation itself too is miraculous and miracles are the proof of it." {Analogy, pt. ii. ch. ii.) The writer assumes here that for the revelation of things supernatural and undiscoverable by himian reason, miraculous evi- dence is necessary to attest its truth. The "invisible miracle," i.e. the doctrine of the Incarnation, he says, " requires to be proved by visible miracles." " Miracles are the proof of revelation," because re- velation is itseK miraculous, — is an invisible miracle which needs the visible to serve as guarantee to it. Again : " Take in the considera- tion of religion, or the moral system of the world, and then we see distinct particular reasons for miracles ; to afford mankind instruc- tion additional to that of nature, and to attest the truth of it." {Analogy, pt. ii. ch. ii.) Again : " In the evidence of Christianity there seem to be several things of great weight, not reducible to the head either of miracles or the completion of prophecy, in the common acceptation of the words. But these two are its direct and funda- mental proofs : and those other things, however considerable they are, yet ought never to be urged apart from its direct proofs, but always to be joined to them." {Analogy, pt. ii. ch. vii.) Leslie writes: "The deists acknowledge a God, of an Almighty power, who made all things. Yet they would put it out of His power to make any revela- 192 Note I [Lect, tion of His will to mankind. For if we cannot be certain of any miracle, how slioukl we know when God sent anything extraordinary to us?" {Short and Easy Method tcith Deists.) Paley says : "Now in what way can a revelation be made but by miracles ? In none which we are able to conceive. Conse(£uently in whatever degree it is possible, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be com- municated to mankind at all, in the same degree it is probable, or not very improbable, that miracles should be Avrought." {Evidences of Christianity : Preparatory Considerations.) That the truth of the Christian miracles, however, is necessary for the defence of Christianity is a point altogether independent of the question of the necessity of miracles, for a revelation in the first in- stance, as Mr. Mansel observes ; — " Whether the doctrinal truths of Cliristianity could or could not have been jiropagated among men by moral evidence alone, without any miraculous accompaniments, it is at least certain that such was not the manner in which they actually were propagated, according to the narrative of Scripture. If our Lord not only did works api)ar- ently surpassing human power, but likewise expressly declared that He did those works by the power of God, and in witness that the Father had sent Him ; — if the Apostles not only wrought works of a similar kind to those of their Master, but also expressly declared that they did so in His name ; the miracles, as thus interpreted by those who wrought them, become part of the moral as well as the sensible evidences of the religion which they taught, and camiot be denied without destroying both kinds of evidence alike " Tlie scientific question relates to the possibility of supernatural occurrences at all ; and if this be once decided in the negative, Chris- tianity as a religion must necessarily be denied along with it. Some moral precepts may indeed remain, which may or may not have been first enunciated by Christ, but which in themselves have no essential connexion with one person more than with another ; but all belief in Christ as the great Example, as the teacher sent from God, as the crucified and risen Saviour, is gone, never to return. The perfect sinlessness of His life and conduct can no longer be held before us as our type and pattern, if the works which He ]irofessed to ]ierform by Divine j^ower were either not performed at all or were jierformed liy human science and skill. No mystery im])enetrable l)y human rea- son, no doctrine iucapalde of natural proof, can be believed on His autliority ; for if He ])rofessed to work miracles, and A\T()nght them not, what warrant have we for the trustworthiness of other parts of His teaching?" {Aids to Faith, pp. 4, 5.) An able and thoughtful writer on " Sliracles," in the Christian Remembrancer, puts the necessity of miracles as evidence of our Lord's Divine Nature in the following point of view: — " Truths, such as * God is a Spirit,' or ' Do unto others as you I] Note I 19; •n'ould they should do unto you,' are abstract truths, resting on funda- mental principles in the human mind. They therefore appeal to the human mind for theii' evidence, and to nothing else. By a mental process they are transformed from the sphere of feeling or intuition into that of logic, and when we appeal to an innate sense for their truth we simply appeal to the consciousness of every man to say whether this process has not been rightly performed. But the i>roposition, God was incarnate in Jesus Christ for the deliverance of the world, is of a totally different nature. It is not an abstract truth, but a historical fact, and consequently by no power of intuition could we assure our- selves of its truth. However much the fact embodied in these words may answer to a want and longing in the heart, however much the thought of it may thrill our nature to its very depth, still this is no proof of its truth. This very want and longing has given rise to many pretensions, which, alas ! Ave know to have been baseless. That God was incarnate in Christ Jesus is a fact which must rest upon evidence just as any other historical fact. There is no power of clair- voyance in the human mind by which we can see its truth indepen- dent of evidence. " But this writer not only fails to perceive that the Christianity he adopts is a historical fact resting u^'o^ evidence, but that it is a sujjer- natural fact, and consequently, that it needs evidence of a peculiar kind. It is evident that to prove that our Lord was Incarnate God we need not only e^adence that He lived and died, that His life was blameless, and that He spake as never man S23ake, — all this would prove that He was wonderful among the sons of men, — but we need something more before we can acknowledge the justice of His claim to be the Son of God. That he was God Incarnate was a fact above nature ; it could, therefore, only be proved by a manifestation above nature, that is by miracle. " This is so important that it merits fiu'ther consideration. We say that the fact that Christ was God being a supernatural fact could only be proved by a supernatural manifestation. Now this assertion rests upon a fundamental principle of all our knowledge. We cannot know things according to that which they are in themselves, but only in and through the phenomena they manifest ; and hence our judg- ment as to what anything is, is entirely dependent on the manifesta- tions connected with it. How, for mstance, do we satisfy ourselves as to the nature and identity of anything \ Supposing a substance is presented to a chemist, and he is asked to determine of what nature it is, how does he proceed ? He begins by carefully observing all its qualities, and noting the phenomena to which it gives rise, in any circumstances in which it may be placed. He places it in every pos- sible relation, and notes the signs and tokens which are manifested. If it should happen that these phenomena are identical with those of any previously known substance, the identity of the substance in- quired about AAdth that substance is determined. But should the phenomena manifested be altogether rmknoA\Ti and strange, it is im- mediately set down as a new substance, and the idea we have of that 194 ^ote I [Lect. substance is constnicted out of the phenomena it manifests. In the same way the naturalist proceeds in determining the various species of plants and animals. He observes not only physical characteristirs and relations, Init, in the case of animals, actions and haluts ; and fruui these he is enabled to conclude as to the presence or absence of mind and intelligence, and generally as to the inner nature. In the same Avay, by a process of induction, we judge of the characters and mental capacities of those among whom we mix. We are in no doubt when Ave are in the presence of a fellow-being with human nature and sym- pathies like ourselves. AVe see his inmost nature manifested in a thousand outward tokens, from which we cLraw an ahuost instantane- ous and infiillible conclusion. " It is in precisely the same way that we are to judge of the nature of Christ. If He exhibited in His words and actions only what ^\ .1^ human, our unavoidable conclusion must be tliat He was nothing more. Whatever reason we may have for putting faith in His trutli and goodness, still had He claimed to be the Son of God and ex- hibited no sign, we must have supposed that He was under a delui^imi. On the other hand, if in His words and deeds He exhibited tokens above man, we might not be able from these tokens, taken by them- selves, to conclude that He was God, but we could certainly con- clude that in Him was more than man. " But the matter may be put in even a stronger light. As we can- not know things in themselves, but only in and through their outward manifestations, so we cannot think the existence of any being in relation with the things of this world without supposing the outward tokens under which it is revealed to us. According to this principle, miraeli s are the natural and necessary consequence of the Godheail in Christ, sd much so that we cannot think Him truly God and imagine them absent. " Let us realize to ourselves the circumstances. " Sitpposing the question had been, not whether He transcended, but whether He fell short uf, what is human ; every one coming iiitn His presence and conversing with Him could easily satisfy hiansclt'. A hundred outward tokens would reveal the presence of a living human soul. But just in the same way would it be evident to those around Him that His nature transcended that of man. If He were really more than man, there would be some outward token to manifest that higher nature. It is utterly impossible that it could be otherwise. However much He might hide His glory, still a thousand tokens, each transcending what belongs to man, would be visible. His very look, His air, the tone of His voice, His wisdom and goodness, His more than human knowledge, feeling, and sympathy, all these super- added to the visible assertion of His authority over nature, would combine to point Hinr out as one moi'e than human. We do not know that due weight, in an evidential point of \new, has ever been given to the astonishing fact that the unanimous verdict of every one priA-ileged to come near our Blessed Lord has been that He was more than man. In this, friend and enemy, Jew, Ebionite, Christian, Gnostic, alike agi-ee. Amid the innumerable theories that for 1800 1] Note 2 195 years have been devised to explain the nature of that manifestation tliat took place in Christ, all agree in this, that He was more than man. " Miracles are thus the natural and necessary consequence of the Godhead in Christ ; so necessary indeed that it is imjiossible to think Him truly God and imagine them absent: just as we cannot think man existing without a certain conformation of body, and certain acts which are the apj^ropriate expression of humanity, so no more can we think the Godhead in Christ without imagining those manifestations which are the tokens of God." {Christian Remembrancer, October 1863.) NOTE 2, p. 14. The moral results of Christianity when they are appealed to as evidence, appear more strongly in that light when regarded in con- nexion with prophecy, in which connexion Pascal views them : — " Prophetie avec I'accomplissement. Ce qui a precede et ce qui a suivi J. C. " Les riches quittent leur bien, &c. Qu'est-ce que tout cela ? C'est ce qui a ete predit si longtemps auparavant. Depuis 2,000 ans aucun paien n'avait adoi'e le Dieu des Juifs, et dans le temps predit la foule des paiens adore cet unique Dieu. Les temples sont detruits, les rois meme se soumettent a la croix. Qu'est-ce que tout cela ? C'est I'esprit de Dieu qui est rej^andu sur la terre Effundam spiritum meum. {Joel ii. 28.) Tons les peuples etaient dans I'infidelite etdans la concupiscence ; toute la terre fut ardente de charite : les princes quittent leurs grandeurs ; les filles souffrent le martyre. D'ou vient cette force ? C'est que le Messie est arrive. Voila I'effet et les marques de sa venue." (vol. ii. ed. Fougeres, pp. 273, 277.) NOTE 3, p. 17. General statements of the evidence of miracles are cnri-ent in the Fathers, who insist upon that argument in their controversies with the heathen, as modern apologists do in their defence of Christianity against the infidel. Tertuilian, e.g., after stating the Eternal Sonship and immaculate Conception of our Lord, says; "Recij^ite interim banc fabulam, similis est vestris, dum ostendimus quomodo Christus probetur Quem igitur [Judeei] solummodo hominem prsesumpserant de humilitate, seqnebatur uti magum estimarent de potestate, cum ille verbo dsemonia de hominibus excuteret, caecos reluminaret, leprosos purgaret, paralyticos restringeret, mortuos denique verbo redderet vitfe, elementa ipse famularet, compescens procellas et freta ingrediens, ostendens se esse Logon Dei, i. e. Verbum illud primordiale primogenitum." At the moment of His death upon the cross, — " Dies, medium orbem signante sole, subducta est. . . 196 Note 3 [Lect. . . . . Eiim niiindi casum relatum iii arcanis vestris habetis." The crowning miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension follow, npon the strength of which Tertullian says : " Et Ca9sares credidissent super Christo, si aut Caisares non essent seculo necessarii, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Ciesares." (Apologeticus, c. 21.) Aruuljius appeals to the evidence of miracles : " Ergone inquiet aliquis, Deus iUe est Christus ? Deus respondehimus. Postulabit, an se ita res habeat, qiiemadmodum dicimus, comprobari. Nulla major est comprobatio, quam gestarum ab eo fides rerum." He then enumerates the Gospel miracles : " Ergo ille mortalis aut unus fuit e nobis cujus imperium, cujus vocem, invaletudines morbi, febres, atque alia corporum cruciamenta fugiebant ? Unus fuit e nobis qui redire in corpora jumdudum animas prtecipiebat inflatas ? . . . . Unus l"uit e nobis qui, deposito corjiore innumeris se hominum promjita in luce detexit? qui sennonem dedit atque accepit, docuit, castigavit, admonuit ? qui ne illi se falsos vanis imaginationibus existimarent, semel, iterum, ssepius familiari coUocutione monstravit." {Adversus Gentes, lib. i. c. 42, et seq.) For the truth of the miracles he refers to the e'sddence of testimony : " Sed non creditis gesta haec. Sed qui ea conspicati sunt fieri, et sub oculis suis viderunt agi, testes optimi, certissimique auctores et crediderunt hsec ijisi et credenda posteris tradiderunt. . , . Sed ab indoctis hominibus et rudibus scripta sunt, et idcii'co non sunt facili auditione credenda. Vide ne niagis lirec fortior causa sit, cur ilia sint nullis coinquinata mendaciis, mente simpUci prodita, et iguara lenociniis ampliare." (cc. 54, 58.) " Abfuit ergo ab liis," says Lactantius, "fingendi voluntas et astutia, quoniam rudes fuerunt. Quis posset indoctus apta inter se et cohaerentia fingere. Non enim qusestus et commodi gratia religionem istam commenti sunt, qiiippe qui et praeceptis et reipsa eam vitam secuti sunt quae et voluptatibus caret, et omnia quae habentur in bonis spernit." {Divin. Inst. v. 3.) Athanasius, in a passage in the " De Incarnatione Verbi," marshals the great miracles of our Lord's ministry and life into one long e\'idential array, the conclusion being : oiJrws iK rwv Ipywv civ yvwcOd-q Sti ovk &vdpo3iro% dXXa deov 5vvaiJ,is Kal \6yos icrrlv 6 ravra ipya^6iJLevos. . . . ris loCcu avrbv ras vScrovs iwfievov, ev als inrdKeirai rb dvdpwwivov yivos In dvOpuiwov Kal ov Qebv riyecTo rts yap loihv avrbv a,woSi.d6vTa rh \diirov, oh i] yiveai^ iv^Xeixf/e, Kal toD €k yeverrjs rvcpXov Toi/s 6(p9a\fxovs dvoL- yovra, ovk cLv evevdrpe t7)v dvOpdiirwv viroK€ifj.ivr]v avri^ yivfcnv, Kal rai/TT/s elvai SrjjjLLovpybp tovtov Kal voirfrjv. (c. 1 8.) A modern writer would have stated the argument both of Athanasius and Tertullian more accurately, and said not that such mii-acles proved that the worker was the Word, I] Note 3 197 the Son of God, mere men having been Divine agents in miraculous operations, but that they were a guarantee to the truth of the declara- tion of the worker, if He pronounced Himself to be the Son of God. Augustine speaks of miraculous evidence as the evidence upon wliich the Apostles relied in commencing the conversion of the w^orld : " Qui enim Christum in carne resurrexisse, et cum ilia in coelum ascendisse non viderant, id se vidisse narrantibus credebant." {De Civit. Dei, xxii. 5.) And to the objection why miracles were not continued, he answers that miracles were necessary at first for the purpose of evidence, but not afterwards : " Necessaria fuisse priusi|uam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus." {Ibid. c. 8.) Origen, whose works present a striking mixture of obsolete fanciful speculation and intellectual modern criticism, meets Celsus with the argument of miracles. " Celsus," he says, "vmable to deny the miracles of Jesus, calumniates them as works of magic ; and I have often had to combat him on this ground." {Contra Cels. lib. ii. s. 48.) He appeals in the spirit of a modern writer on ewlences to the deep and permanent effects of our Lord's Resurrection upon the Apostles, and the change which took place in their whole conduct after this alleged event, as evidence of the truth of that event. " The zeal with which they devoted them- selves to the work of conversion, encountering every danger, is a clear proof of the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus ; for they could not have taught with this earnestness had they feigned such an event ; they could not have inculcated contempt of death upon others, and exemplified it themselves." {Ibid. s. 56.) He observes how few the cases of persons raised from the dead in the Gospels are, and that if such cases were spurious, there would have been more of them. "On S^ Kal veKpovs aviaT-q, Kal ovk ^ctti irXdcrpLa tQv to, evayy^Xia ypaxf/dvTcav, irapiararaL eK rod, el fiev ir\dafxa 9jv, iroWoiis dvayeypdrpdai tovs dvaaravTas. iirel 5' ovk ^(Ttl TrXdcr/xa irdw evapid/j.rjTovs \e\ix9ai. {Ibid. C. 48.) Chrysostom iises Origen's argument : " Had Christ not really risen from the dead, how do we account for the fact that the Apostles, who in their behaviour to Him living had shewn such weakness and cowardice that they deserted and betrayed Him, after His death shewed such zeal that they laid down their lives for Him?" {In S. Ignatium, tom. ii. p. 599.) The Resurrection of Christ, as being His OAvn act, not brought about by the instrumentality of another agent, visibly acting in His behalf as the medium of the operation of the miracle (which was the manner in which the other resurrections mentioned in Scripture had taken place), is regarded as in and of itself a proof of His Divinity. " His body," says Athanasius, " as 198 Note 3 [Lect. having a common nature with our own, was mortal and died ; but, inasmuch as it icas united u-ith the JFord, could not incur cornijHion, but on account of the JFord of God dwelling in it was incorruptible. In the same Body Avere fulfilled two apparent opposites, both that it underwent death, and that death and corruption, by reason of the indwelling JFord, were abolished Inasmuch as the AVord could not die, but was immortal, He assumed a Body that was able to die, in order that He might offer it up for the sake of all, and that the same Word, by reason of His junction to that Body, miglit destroy him that hath the power of death." (De Incarn. § 20.) Chrysostom singles out the peculiarity of the miracle of the Eesurrection — t6 iavT6v Tiva SvvacrdM dvaa-rq^v. (In Joan. xxiv. tom. viii. p. 1 36.) But while the Fathers appealed familiarly to the evidence of miracles in behalf of the truth of Christianity, there were particular kinds of belief strong in the minds of the Fathers, and of their age, which pi'evented the argument of miracles from assuming in their hands the compactness and stringency which it has gained in the hands of modem writers on evidence. Of the kinds of belief to which I refer, the first was their acceptance to a certain extent of the " dis- pensation of Paganism," to use Dr. Newman's phrase (Arians, p. 89), and with it of certain miraculous pretensions which Paganism had put forth ; the second was their belief in magic. A writer on evidence in the present age, in urging the evidence of miracles to the divine nature and mission of Christ, is not incommoded by any strong belief existing either in his own mind or in the age, in the reality of any supernatural demonstrations outside of the course of miracles which constitute the evidences of revelation, and standing in a posi- tion of rivalry to them. The Scripture miracles, if proved, thus stand alone in his plan of defence as true and admitted miracles, and the inference from the truth of the miracles to the truth of the doctrines is an unimpeded step, there being no counteracting force in the confessed existence of supernatural action under a false religion, or from a corrupt and evil power, which has to be allowed and accounted for, in drawing the evidential conclusion. But the Fathers believed that supernatural powers had been bestowed by Providence on various occasions, under Paganism ; and they had also a strong and undoubting belief in magic and a diabolical source of supernatiu'al ex- hibitions. The argument of miracles in their hands therefore was an obstructed and qualified argument, maintained in conflict with various counter admissions ; and the conclusion from it, though undoubting and full, was not given in the summary and rigorous form in which a popidar school of writers on evidence has put it. I] Note 199 1. The general attitude of the early Church toward the heathen world somewhat differed from that of modern Christendom. The doctrine of the Logos under the treatment of the Alexandrian school imparted a systematic form and theological basis to a higher estimate of Paganism : for in |the eye of that school " the dispensation of Paganism, so far as it contained truth, was but a lower part of one large dispensation, which our Lord, as the Divine Reason, had insti- tuted and carried on for the enlightenment of the human race, and of which the Gospel was the consummation ; heathens and Christians were, though in a different measure, still alike partakers of that one ' Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world ;' and all mankind, as brought into union and fellowship by that common participation, formed one religious society and communion — one Church." {Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 117.) Such a Divine element Ijeing recognized in Paganism, the next step was that a certain authority was attached by the early Fathers in various mstances to ancient Pagan legend and traditions of miraculous appearances and interpositions. Cases of special Divine interposition in the Gentile world are recognized in Scripture. " Scripture gives us reason to believe," says Dr. Newman, "that the traditions, thus originally delivered to mankind at large, have been secretly reanimated and enforced by new communications from the unseen world. . . . The book of Genesis contains a record of the dis- pensation of natural religion, or paganism, as well as of the patriarchal. The dreams of Pharaoh and Abimelech, as of Nebuchadnezzar after- wards, are instances of the dealings of God with those to whom He did not vouchsafe a written revelation. . . . Let the book of Job be taken as a less suspicious instance of tlie dealings of God with the heathen. Job was a Pagan in the same sense in which the Eastern nations are Pagans in the present day. He lived among idolaters, yet he and his friends had cleared themselves from the superstitions with which the true creed was beset: and, while one of them was divinely instructed by dreams, he himself at length heard the voice of God out of the whirlwind. , . . Scripture, as if for oiu' full satisfaction, draws back the curtain further still in the history of Balaam. There a bad man and a heathen is made the oracle of true Divine messages. . . . And so in the cave of Endor, even a saint was sent from the dead to join the company of an apostate king, and the sorceress whose aid he was seeking. Accordingly, there is nothing unreasonable in the notion, that there may have been heathen poets and sages, or sil:)yls again, in a certain extent divinely illuminated, and organs through whom religious and moral truth was conveyed to their countiymen." {Avians, p. 89.) But the Fathers went further, and recognized Pagan supernatural events as occurring in the common stream of Pagan history, apart 200 Note 3 [Lect. from any connection with or relation to the sacred people. Certain Pagan miracles, especially some which occur in Roman historj', had gained a respectable place in the works of heathen historians, the same list recurs in ditierent Fathers, and Minutius Felix {Odatnus, c. 27), Lactantius {Divin. Inst. lib. ii. c. 8), Tertullian {Ajml. c. 22), and Augustine (De Civil. Dei, lib. x. c. 16), extend a kind of acceptance to them.^ The latter Father exhibits perhaps more of a critical spirit than his predecessors, and in touching on the subject of natural marvels, especially the existence of certain extraordinary nations which was asserted in geographical books of that age, says, " Sed omnia genera hominum quoe dicuntur esse credere non est necesse." (De Civit. Dei, xvi. 8.) He supposes himself pressed by an objector who reminds him that if he discredits the marvels of secular writers he will have to account for his belief in those of Scripture, but he dis- o'WTis the dilemma. " Quod propterea potenmt dicere, ut respondendi nobis ai-gustias ingerant : quia si dixerimus, non esse credendum, scripta ilia miraculonim infirmabimus ; si autem credendum esse con- cesserimus, confirmabimus numina pagauorum. Sed nos non habemus necesse omnia credere quae continet historia gentium, cum et ipsi inter se historici, sicut ait Varro, per multa dissentiant." (De Civ. Dei, xxi. 6.) Later writers however of reputation have acknowledged Pagan miracles ; Dante {De Monarchia, lib. ii. c. 3) ranks certain recorded in Roman history as evidences, among other proof, of the divine authority of the. Roman empire. And even our theologian Jacksou entertains the idea of supernatiu'al visitations under Paganism. ^ Such a partial recognition however of Pagan legends and reports of supernatural occurrences must be distinguished from the appeals whicli the Fathers sometimes make to lieatlien mythology, in defence of Christianity against heathen objections — appeals whicli have the force of an argnmen- tinn ad homincm. Thus when heathen opponents taimted the Christians with the ignominious death of Him wliom they asserted to be the Son of God, Justin Martyr encountered them with facts from their own mytho- logy — the miserable earthly fates which some of Jove's sons had met — ' A.(TK\y)WLhv KoL OepaTreiTriv yevo/mevov, Kepavviodivra dvaXeXevdevai (is ovpafdv Aiovvaov 5e OLaairapaxdivra' HpaKXea 6^ 'P'-'yV '"'ovwi' eavTOP Tn>pi dovra. Apol. i. 21.) Though lie also considers these coarse ami falnilous ]iictures of the sufferings of heroism in pagan mythology as an intentional travesty of the suH'erings and persecutions of the l^Iessiah, inspired by diabolical cun- ning, in order to confuse men, and blind them to the notes of tlie Messiah wlien He came — to. ixvOoiroi-qO^vra vwb tCiv iroLrp-Qv dwdTrj Kal aTrayuyrj tou dvOpuTTilov y^voi'S dprjddai. dirodeiKWixev Kar' ev4pyeiav tQv cnes vos ejusmodi fahulas aimdas ad dcstrudionem vcritatis istiusmodi pra;miuistravenint, veutumm esse Chris- tum." {Apol. c. xxi.) I] Note 3 20 1 " As the end and jjurpose which Homer assigns for the apparitions of his gods, so are hotli these, and many other particuLir circumstances of Ids gods assisting the ancient heroics, siich as miglit justly breed offence to any serious reader, if a man shoukl avouch them in earnest, or seek to persuade liim to expect more than mere delight in them. Yet I cannot think that he would have feigned such an assistance, unless the valour of some men in former times had l:)een extraordinary, and moi-e than natural. Which supernatural excellency in some before others, coi;ld not ^jroceed but from a supernatural cause. And thus far his conceit agrees with Scripture ; that there were more heroical spirits in old times than in later, and more immediate directions from God for managing of most wars. And from the expeiience hereof, the ancient poets are more copious in their hyperbolical praises of their worthies, than the discreeter sort of later poets durst be, whilst they wrote of their own times. Not that tlie ancient were more licentious, or less observant of decorum in this kind of fiction than the other ; but because the manifestation of a Divine power in many of their victories Avas more seen in ancient than in later times." (Comments upon the Creed, bk. i. ch. xi. xii.) I quote this passage from Jackson as, though a milder and more modified specimen, a specimen in a modern divine of the spirit favour- able to Pagan supernatural events in the Fathers. 2. But the difference between the patristic treatment of the argu- ment of miracles, and its treatment in the hands of our OAvn popular WTiters on evidence, is due mainly to another source, YJz., the belief of the Fathers in magic. The Fathers held the popular ideas of their age on this subject, and wrote under a strong and genuine conviction that there was such an art as magic, and that it had real powers and, could produce real supernatural effects ; from which effects they were bound to distinguish true miracles, which came from a Divine source and were wrought for the proof of a Divine revelation. The class of enchanters or wizards — magi,2)rcestigiatores — did not figure in their eyes as the mere creation of legend and fancy, but as a class jaossessed of real powers. The source of these powers was held to be the relation in which these persons stood to da3mons and evil spirits. The order of doemons, their origin, their nature, and the place which they are permitted to occupy in the world, are discussed with much more boldness and more attempt at accui'acy and detail in patristic theology than in modern ; and the early writers introduce, in addition to the Scripture notices of cle\dls, the material of tradition and the theories of Alexandrian Platonism. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, viii. 14 et seq.) com- ments upon PorphjTy's diA-ision of the rational universe, which was the Platonic one : " Omnium mquiunt animalium, in c|uibus est anima rationalis, trijiartita divisio est, in Deos, homines, dsemones. Dii 202 Note 3 [Lect. excelsissiiniim locum teneiit, homines infimiim, dajmones medium. Nam deorum sedes in coclo est, hominum in terra, in aere dajmonum." (c. 14.) Augustine does not object to the existence of an order of daemons so situated, but only to the Platonic inference from it : " Jam vero de loci altitudine, (|Uod da)mones in aere, nos autem habitamus in terra, ita iiermoveri ut hinc eos nobis esse prajponendos existimemus, omnino lidiculum est. Hoc enim pacto nobis et onmia volatilia prajiHininius." {Ihul. c. 15.) He identities these daiiuons with the evil spirits of Scriptxire. TertuUiau's language is : " Ita([ue corporibus fpiidem et valetudines infligunt [daimones] et ali(|Uos casus acerbos, auima) vero repentinos et extraordinarios per vim excessus. Suj^petit illis ad utramque substantiam hominis adeundam mii-a subtilitas et tenuitas sua." {Afol. c. 22.) Minutius Felix acquiesces in the Platonic assertion of an intermediate class of beings : " Siibstantiam inter mortalein immortalemque, i. e. inter corpus et spiritum, medium, terreni ponderis etccclestis levitatis admixtione concretam;" which he identifies with the devils of Scripture (Octnvius, c. 26). Lactantius aduj)ts a tradition : " Cum ergo numerus hominum coepisset increscere .... niisit Deus angelos ad tutelam cultumque generis huniani, quibus quia libenim arbitrium erat datum, prajcepit ante omnia ne terra) contagione maciUati, substantise coelestis amitterent dignitatem. .... Itaque illos cum homimbus commorantes dominator ille terrae fallacissimus [the devil, who according to Lactantius had fallen from envy of the Son of God pre\aously to the creation of these angels, c. 9] consuetudine ipsa paulatim ad \atia pellexit, et mulierum congressibus inquinavit. Turn in coelum ob peccata non recepti ceciderunt ad terram. Sic eos Diabolus ex angelis Dei suos fecit satellites." {Divin. Inst. lib. ii. c. 15.) To this order of da3mons, which the Platonists revered, but which the Fathers identified with the lost spirits of Scripture, both Christian and heathen writers in common assigned the authorship of the super- natural effects produced by magic. " Apuleius," says Augustine, " ascribes to these the divinations of the augurs and soothsayers, the foresight of prophets and dreams, and also the miracles of wizards" {miracula viagorum). {De Civ. Dei, xiii. 16.) TertuUian attributes the responses of the heathen oracles and other Pagan channels of prophecy, as well as the miracles of magic, to the same source. " Omnis spiritus ales est : hoc angeli etdtcmones : igitur momento ubicpie sunt : totus orbis illis locus unus est : quod ubique generatur tani facile sciunt quam enuntiant, velocitas divinitas creditur, quia substantia ignoratur, .... Porro et magi phantasmata edunt .... multa mii'acula cir- culatoriis pra^stigiis ludunt, habentes dtemonum assistentem sibi I] Note 3 203 IDotestatein." {A'pol. cc. 22, 23.) Justin Martyr {Afol. lib. i. s. 5), Irenseus {Contra Hmr. ii. c. 32), Lactantius {Divin. Inst. lib. ii. c. 15) use the same language. So too Minutius Felix : " Magi quoque non tantum sciunt daemonas, sed etiani quicquid miraculi ludunt, per dsemonas faciunt ; illis adspirantibus et infundentibus." {Odavius, c. 26.) So too Augustine : " Addinius etiam et liuraanarum et niagi- carum, id est per homines dsemonicarum artium, et ipsorura per seipsos dajmonum multa miracula." {De Civ. Dei, xxi. 6.) And he argues for the reality of true or divinely- wrought miracles from the fact of these miracles of inferior and diabolical origin : " Quamobrem si tot et tanta miritica Dei creatura utentibus humanis artibus fiunt, ut ea qui nesciunt opinentur esse divina : si magorum opera, quos nostra Scriptura veneficos et incantatores vocat, in tantum dsemones extollere potuerunt quanto magis Deus potens est facere quae infidelibus sunt incredibilia." (Ibid.) Origen accounts for the power of magicians, by the help partly of his mysterious theory of ivorcls, which he applies to this subject, intimating that a power is exerted over daemons by the knowledge and utterance of their true names, in the language of their own aj^propriate regions : Al6 kuI SiivctTctL ravra TO, ovofiara Xeyofxeva ixerd rivos toD avfj.(pvovs avrois elpfiov' dXXa 8i Kara AiyvTTTiav (pepofxeva (pwvT]v, iiri tlvQv bai.fi6vu3V tQv rdSe iJ.6va Swa/J-ifuv, Kai dWa Kara tt]v Hepffwv didXeKTOv iwl dWuv Swapieoov Ort oi irepl T7]u XPW'-" ''''^^ €Tr(^b€>v Seivol iaropovaiv, 6ti t^v avTT]v eirwSrjt' elirovra fj-ev ry oiKeiq,Sia\iKT(j}, ^ariv evepyrjaai oirep iir ayyeWerai ij iirtpOT] {Contra Cels. lib. i. s. 24, 25. 1) Such being the belief of the Fathers in the reality of magic, a belief which they expressed either with simplicity or with ingenious and philosophical additions, according to the character of the writers, how did they distinguish true miracles wrought in evidence of a Divine communication from the supernatural results of magic ? They had different modes of meeting this objection, and establishing the Divine source of the Gospel miracles. They appealed to the greatness, majesty, and sublimity of the latter, which were of such a kind that no magic had ever professed to produce anything like them. Our Lord's Resurrection especially was regarded as intrinsicallj' a Divine act, being, as it was, a miracle sui generis, not wrought by any interme- ^ Professor Blunt, in his " Lectures on the Early Fathers," has a note upon this theory of names put forth by Origen ; in which, however, he erroneously supposes the theory to be connected in Origen's meaning with Christian exorcism, and the exertion of miraculous powers within the Church, whereas Origen is not speaking of Christian miracles, but of heathen anil Jewish magic, and only proposes the theory in that connection, (munt, p. 399.) 204 Note 3 [Lect. diate agent, any person intervening between the Invisible Supernatural Power and the subject of that power, but wrought by our Lord Him- self upon Himself : Himself in death restoring Himself to life. (See below, p. 197.) " IMagicians," says Chrysostom, speaking even of the miracles of our Lord's ministry, "have wrought miracles, but not sucll miracles" yrf77Tes (njfj.e7a Troiouffi, dXX' ov Toiadra voiovai a-q/xela. (toni. xii. p. 32.) " Potestis aliquem nobis designare," says Arnobius, " monstrare ex omnibus illis magis qui unquam fuere per secula, consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex parte qui fecerit ?" {Adv. Gentes, lib. i. c. 43.) The manner and mode in which Christ wrought His miracles, without any of the low forms and fantastic utterances and repetitions of magic, by a simj^le word or touch, is also observed. " We may also with St. Irena3us^ observe," says Barrow, "that Jesus, in performing His cures and other miraculous works, did never use any profane, silly, fantastic ceremonies ; any muttering of barbarous names or insignificant phrases ; any invocation of spirits, or inferior powers ; any preparatory purgations, any mysterious circumstances of proceeding, apt to amuse people ; any such unaccountable methods or instruments as magicians, enchanters, diviners, circulatorious jugglers and such emissaries of the devil, or self-seeking impostors, are wont to use ; but did proceed altogether in a most innocent, simple, and grave manner, with a majestic authority and clear sin- cerity, becoming such an agent of God as He professed Himself to be.'' (Vol. V. p. 205.) But the great token by which the Fathers distinguished the miracles of the Gospel, those supernatural works which bore witness to our Lord's Divine mission, from the miracles jsroduced by thaumaturgy and the j)ower of inferior spirits, was the evidence of prophecy. The body of miracles which testified to our Lord as the Messiah, coincided and fij^kd in with a whole series of prophetical indications which had commenced with the beginning of things, i.e. with the fall of the first man, and had been sustained continuously almost to the very advent of our Lord. From the first page of the old Testament to the last a constant promise was held out of the coming of One who should redeem mankind — a Great Deliverer who should save His people from their sins, and plant a new dispensation, a Divine kingdom in the world. It was evident that when this great Personage, so long pointed out by projihecy, came, there must be tokens by which He could be re- cognised as the person who was meant by such prophecy, who was the true Messiah, to whom all these intimations belonged. When there- fore a Personage appeared who claimed to he the Messiah, who an- ^ Contra IIa;r. ii. 58. I] Note 3 205 nounced Himself as tlie Head of tliis new kingdom in the world, — One whose whole life and teaching corresponded to that pretension, and who moreover authenticated His character and mission by the most remarkable and astonishing miracles : such an exhibition of miraculous power must plainly in reason be looked upon not simply in itself, but also in connection with that constant voice of prophecy Avhich had heralded the apjjroach of a Messiah. Here was a coinci- dence — a Great Personage with an extraordinary mission had been jjredided, One who professed to be this Great Personage had come, bringing the testimony of miracles to the truth of His announcement. Such a miraculous demonstration, therefore, could not be regarded in the same light as that in which a sudden and unlooked-for outbreak of sujjernatural power would be, some wonderful outburst which came isolated and disconnected with all circumstances preceding it ; but must be contemplated in conjunction ^vith the antecedent posture of things and the antecedent course of revelation. The miracles fulfilled prophecy ; prophecy therefore was a guarantee to the miracles. It was a security for their Divine source — that they really were tokens from God. The two, as in every case of coincidence, confirmed each other. This was the great distinction then which in the eyes of the Fathers separated the Gospel miracles in character from those miracles which magic and diabolical power coidd produce. Magic might achieve extraordinary efi'ects for the moment and at the moment, but it could not create the long antecedent flow of j^rophecy, the long expectancy of revelation, the intimations of the Divine Oracle from the beginning of things, the foreshadowings and anticiiDations which had from the first signified the approach of a Messiah, and had been the standing oracle in the heart of the holy nation, and, in a sense, of mankind. The idea was that miracles, to have their proper eflect as evidence, must not be a mere present exhibition, but that they must have a root in the past, that they must be the fulfilment of and carry out some great antecedent plan and promise, that they must fit in with the course of the Divine disjoensation, and that they must testify to some truth which had already an incii^ient place in the authorized religion. Such is the current answer of the Fathers by which they meet the objection of magic — prophecy. " Should any one object to us," says Justin Martyr, " that Christ wrought His miracles by magic, we refer him to the Proj)liets." (Apol. i. 30.) " If," says Irenpeus, " they say that the Lord wrought these wonders by illusion — (pauracnoiSQs — we refer them to the prophetical writings, from which we shall shew that all these things were j)redicted of Him." {Contra Hcer. lib. ii. c. 2o6 Note 3 [Lect. 32.) " Celsus," says Origen, " asserts that il' we are asked why we believe Jesus to be the Son of God, we reply that He healed the lame aud the l)liiul, whereas he himself attributes these works to magic. I answer that we hold Jesus to be the Son of God on account of these miracles, but on account of them as having been foretold by the prophets." {Contra Cds. lib. ii. s, 48.) " Know," says Lactan- tiuR, " that Christ is believed by us to be God, not only on account of His miracles, but because we see in Him all those things accom- plished which were announced by the Prophets. He wrought miracles : we might have thought Him a magician as ye think Him, and as the Jews did, if all the Prophets had not with one mouth fore- told that He would do those very things. Therefore we believe Him to be God, not more from His wonderful deeds than from the Cross itself, because that Avas foretold. Nor therefore do we repose faith in His divinity on account of His own testimony, but on account of the testimony of the Prophets, who long before predicted what He would do and suffer ; — a kind of proof which cannot belong to ApoUonius, or Apuleius, or any of the magicians." {Divin. Inst lib. v. c. 3.) Augustine takes his stand upon miracles and prophecy together : " Exceptis enim tot et tantis miracuiis, quae persuaserunt Deum es^e Christum, prophetiee quoque Divinse fide dignissimoe proecesserunt, qua3 in illo, non sicut a patribus adhuc creduntur implenda), sed jam demonstrantur impleta3." {De Civ. Dei, xxii. 6.) Jackson represents with toleral)le fidelity the patristic view : — " By Christ's miracles alone considered, they v)ere not bound abso- lutebj to believe He was the Messias, hut by comparimj them with other circumstances, or presupposed truths, especially the Scripture's received and approved prophecies of the Messias : though no one for the greatness of power manifested in it could of itself, yet the frequency of them at that time, and the condition of the parties on whom they were wrought, might absolutely confirm John and his disciples ; because such they were in these and every respect, as the evangelical prophet had foretold Messias should work Such signs and wonders might be wrouglit l)y seducers If any man say to you, Lo, here is Christ, or Lo, He is there; believe it not : for false Christs shall arise, and false prophets, and shall shew signs and loonders, to deceive, if it were jiossihle, the very elect. And possible it was to have deceived even these, if it had been possible for these not to have ti'ied their wonders by the written xvord." {Comments on the Creed, bk. iii. ch. 20.) It was this sense and deep estimate of the value of prophecy, as evi- dence of the Messiah, and as a voucher for the Divine design in, and the authentic nature of the miraculous evidence accompanying Hini, that sent the Fathers into the region of heathen prophecy, to discover and collect the scattered traces of that wider and earlier reve- 1 1] Note 3 207 lation wliicli Lad from the first shadowed forth this mighty Person, and had sjjread dimly and irregularly from the fountain-head of prophecy. Theii' idea was to carry the evidence of a Messiah hack as far as possible — hack into the infancy of time, and into the first dawn of inspiration ; not only that inspiration which had been reposited in the sacred books, but that also which had travelled out of the sacred line of testimony into the world at large, and scattered itself with the ramifications and migrations of the human race : it was to connect the Messiah with the first forecast of the future which had been imparted to mankind, and with a great prophetic wish which had thus from the first seated itself in the heart of mankind. Thus the Sibylline prophecies, which contained as interpreted by Virgil the original ele- ment of a great anticipation, but which had become corrupted by inter- polations, were ajspealed to by the Fathers with the interest and fondness of writers who delighted to see the exj^ectation of a Messiah rooted in the mind of the human race. (See Augustine, Be, Civ. JDei, xviii. 23 ; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i. 6 ; iv. 6, 15.) " It was a sound and healthy feeling," says Neander, " that induced the apologists of Christianity to assume the existence of a prophetic element, not in Judaism alone, but also in Paganism ; and to make appeal to this, as the apostle Paul at Athens, in proclaiming the God of revelation, appealed to the presentiment of the unknown God in the immediate consciousness of mankind, and to those forms in which this consciousness had been expressed by the words of insjiired poets. Christianity, in tnxth, is the end to which all development of the religious consciousness must tend, and of which, therefore, it cannot do otherwise than oft'er a prophetic testimony. Thus there dwells an element of prophecy not barely in revealed religion, unfolding itself beneath the fostering care of the divine vintager (John xv.) as it struggles onward from Judaism to its complete disclosure in Chris- tianity ; but also in religion as it grows wild on the soil of Paganism, which l)y nature must strive unconsciously towards the same end. But the apologists .... allowed themselves to be imposed upon by sjjurious and interpolated matter. " Thus, for instance, there were interpolated writings of this descrip- tion passing under the name of that mythic personage of anti(|uity, the Grecian Hermes (Trismegistus) or the Egyptian Thoth ; also under the names of the Persian Hystaspes (Gushtasji), and of the Sibyls, so celeljrated in the Greek and Roman legends, which were used in good faith by the apologists. Whatever truth at bottom might be lying in those time-old legends of the Sibylline prophecies, of which the profound Heraclitus, five hundred years before Christ, had said, ' Their unadorned, earnest words, spoken with ins2:iired mouth, reached through a thousand years ; ' the consciousness of such a pro- phetic element in Paganism, that which in these predictions was sup- jjosed to refer to the fates of cities and nations, and more particularly 2o8 Note 3 [Lect. to a last and golden age of the world, gave occasion to divers interpreta- tions taken from Jewish and Christian points of view." {Church llistoi-y, vol. i. p. 240.) Lactantius claims the tribute of contemporary oracles to our Lord, and reports the response of the '' Milesian Apollo" to the question whether Christ was " God or man" — dvrfToz irjv Kara crdpKa, k.t.X. (Divin. Inst, iv, 13.) The patristic feeling is again represented by Jackson : — " Plutarch's relation of his demoniacal S])irit3 mourning for great Pan's deatli, aboiit this time, is so strange, that it might perhaps seem a tale, unless the truth of the common bruit had been so constantly avouched by ear-witnesses unto Tiberiiis, tliat it made him call a convocation of wise men, as Herod did at our Saviour's birth, to re- solve him who this great Pan, late deceased, should be. Thamous, the Egyptian master (unknown by that name to his passengers, until he answered to it at the third call of an uncouth voice, uttered sine aidhore from the land, requesting him to proclaim the news of great Pan's death, as he passed Ijy Palodes), was resolved to have let all pass as a fancy or idle message, if the wind and tide should grant him passage by the place appointed ; but the Avind failing him on a sudden, at his coming thither, he thought it but a little loss of breath to call out aloud unto the shore, as he had been requested, ' Great Pan is dead.' The words, as Plutarch relates, were scarce out of his mouth before they were answered with a huge noise, as it had been of a multitude, sighing and groaning at this wonderment. , . . The circumstance of the time will not permit me to doubt, but that under the known name of Pan was intimated the great Shepherd of our souls." {Comments on the Creed, bk. i. ch. 10.) But Ijecause prophecy was in the judgment of the Fathers wanted to guarantee the Divine source of miracles, and give them their proper eflect as evidence, it is not to be considered that the Fathers superseded the intrinsic force of miracles, and merged it in prophecy. Each of these kinds of evidence, in their view, stood in need of the other ; miracles to shew who was the object of prophecy, prophecy to mark the DiAdne character of the miracles ; but neither of these Avas regarded as sufficient without the other. It was not supposed that prophecy of itself would be enough to point out the Messiah to the world upon His arrival, and give mankind a justification for fixing ujion a particidar individual as being that great Personage. For how does the case stand ? A mighty Deliverer and Redeemer of mankind from sin and death is announced beforehand, but how is He known when He does come? His office is principally mysterious and supernatural, and does not bear witness to itself. The circum- stance therefore that One who will fulfil this office is predicted does not supersede the necessity of some adequate marks and signs at the time to indicate who the predicted Person is, and distinguish Hiiu I] Note 3 209 wlien He arrives from others. And the natural mark of such a Per- sonage is miraculous power. This in the idea of the Fathers is wanted then to point out at the time " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," as prophecy is wanted to mark that mira- culous power as divinely bestowed and indicative of the Divine will. Prophecy announced beforehand that such a Personage would come ; the signs by which He would be recognized, when He did come, must depend upon other considerations, viz. what are, the natural and adequate evidences of such a Personage, His character and mission. This is a question of judgment and reason, mth which prophecy has nothing to do. Prophecy in proclaiming Him beforehand implies that He will be known and distinguishable upon His arrival ; which im- plies that He will be accompanied at the time by sufficient evidences : but prophecy does not settle what those evidences are, much less does it supersede the need of them. The patristic structure of evidence was indeed, like the modern, a mixed one, consisting of dilferent materials — prophecy, miracles ; the remarkable peculiarity of the spread of Christianity in the world, that it ascended from the lower classes of society to the upper, an'l not by the reverse process ; and that the new religion was first pro. mulgated by rude men unacquainted with learning* and rhetoric, and gained ground by the force of jiersuasion, amid persecution and dis- couragement, m spite of torture and death ; the moral result of Chris- tianity, that it converted men from the lowest sensuality to the practice of virtue and piety, and wherever it had been received had "wrought a wonderful change in the habits of mankind. The patristic argument consisted of all these considerations, only not collected into the compact body of statement which modern writers have produced, but given out as each point happened to suggest itself to the writer's mind, and occurring often in the midst of other and extraneous matter. Even the professed Apologetic treatises of the ancients are deficient in plan and method. But the materials of the modern treatises on evidence are there ; and with the direct proofs of Christianity the collateral also appear. " Ineruditos liberalibus disciplinis, et onmino, quantum ad istorum doctrinas attinet, impolitos, non peritos gram- matica, non armatos. dialectica, non rhetorica inflatos, piscatores Christus cum retibus fidei ad mare hujus seculi paucissimos misit." (Augustine, J)e Civit. Dei, xxii. 5.) Lactantius appeals to the rude- ness and simplicity of the first promulgators of the Gospel as evidence of the genuineness and sincerity of their own belief in the facts which they reported (Div. hist. v. 3), to the progress of the faith under per- secution {Ibid, v. 1 3), to the virtues of Christians, especially their 2 1 o N^ote 3 [Lect. humility and " equity," i.e. their all looking upon themselves as equal in the sight of God, and the rich and gi-eat among them lowering them- selves to the level of the poor : — " Dicet alicpiis, Nonne sunt apud vos, alii pauperes, alii divites ; alii servi, alii domini ? Nonne aliipiid inter singulos interest ? Nihil : nee alia causa est cur nobis invicein fratrum nomen impertiamus, nisi quia pares esse nos credimus." (v. i6.) Origen retorts upon Celsus the taunt of the lowly l)irth and parentage of Jesus, and draws an argument jor the Gospel from the circum- stance of our Lord's surmounting such obstacles : he draws attention to the rapid spread of His doctrine, the comprehensive power by which it has drawn over to itself wise and unwise, Greek and bar- barian, the violent persecutions it enabled them to endure, the difficult moral virtues which it enabled them to practise. [Contra Ccls. i. 27 et seq.) The success of Christianity, that it had gained ground, that it icas believed liy such a large jiart of the world, — this matter-of-fact argu- ment has a place in the jjatristic evidences : " Nemo Apollonium pro Deo colit," says Lactantius {Div. Inst v. 3). This argument has even more of a place than might have been expected at that early stage of the progress of Cluistianity ; and even before Augustine talked of the conversion of the " world," which when the Roman Emjoire was gained he might colourably do, Origen boasted of the " world's " subjugation to the Gospel — ws fu-^crat 6\ov Kua-fxav aiVy iirilBovXeiiovTa (Contra Cels. i. 3), Indeed, Augustine rhetoricallj^ pushes the argument of the success of the Gospel to such an extent that he appears at first to assert that that success of itself is evidence enough of the truth of Christianity, and that besides the miracle of this success no other miracle is wanted. ' Si vero per Apostolos Christi, ut eis crederetur, Resurrexionem atque Ascensionem pra3dicantibus Christi, etiam ista miracula' facta esse non credmit ; hoc nobis umivi grande miraculvvi sufficit, qnod earn ter- rarum orhis sine ullis miraculis credidit." (De Civ. Dei, lib. xxii. c. 5.) But when we examine Augustine's argument w^e find that what he asserts is not that Christianity is independent of the evidence of miracles, but that the evidence of the miracles is so strong and over- whelming that the fact of their falsehood, in spite of this evidence, would be more extraordinary than the fact of their truth. He is arguing for the doctrine of the resiirrection of the body against the ^ " Ista miracula " alludes in Augustine's argument to the miracles of the Apostles, by wliicli they con finned their testimony to our Lord's Eesur- rection and Asrension. " If you do not believe in these miracles," lie says, " you have to believe in as great a miracle, the beliel' in the Kesur- rection without them." Tlie special allusion, however, to the Apostolic miracles is not necessary to the argument. I] Note 3 2 11 heathen philosophers who thought it incredible : " Sed videlicet homines docti atque sapientes acute sibi argumentari videntur contra corporum resurrexionem." (De Civ. Dei, xxii. 4.) And against this notion of the incredibility of the resurrection of the body, he urges the. fact of our Lord's bodily resurrection. This fact, he says, is now accepted by the whole world. " Sed incredibile fuerit ali- ([uando : eccejam credidit mundus suhlatum terrenum Christi corpus in coelum, resurrectionem carnis et ascensionem." (c. 5.) But that the whole world, he says,should believe that a thing intrinsically incredible has taken place is itself incredible. He thus reduces the philosophers to the dilemma that they must believe something incredible, either the incredible fact itself or the incredible belief in it ; and therefore that the apparent incredibility of the miracle of Christ's Resurrection is no reason against it. The argument is rhetorical and not a rigid specimen of evidential reasoning ; but what the argument aims at is the proof of the truth of the miracle of our Lord's Resurrection, not the conclusion of the truth of Christianity being independent of that miracle. " Si rem incredibilem crediderunt, videant cpiam sint stolidi [the heathen sceptics against whom he is arguing] qui non cre- dunt : si autem res incredibilis credita est, etiam hoc utique incredi- bile est sic creditum esse quod inci-edilnle est." (Ibid.) Why should the resui-rection of the body and the particular resurrection of our Lord's body be disbelieved as incredible, when if we disbelieve that we must believe something else which is quite as incredilile. We meet the same argument in Chrysostom : Tld^e;' t6 a^Loiria-Tov ^axov ; Swep yap ^(pdrjv elirwv, el aTjfjieluv x'^P'-^ ^weiaav, TrdXXy fJ-eX^ov to davfia alveTai. {Horn. vi. in Cor. tom. x. p. 45.) So again Augustine says (Contra Ep. Mnniclioii, c. 5) — " Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicse ecclesioj comrnoveret auc- toritas," — which some might interpret to mean that he accepted the Gospel upon the testimony of the Church solely, and did not recjuire the proof of miracles. But Thorndike in commenting on this passage distinguishes between two functions and capacities of the Church, one false, the other true ; one, according to which the Church was an infallible asserter, and her assertion enough ; the other, accord- ing to which the Church was a body of men witnessing to the trans- mission of certain doctrines and scriptures, upon certain evidence ; witnessing, i.e. to the evidence of those credenda, as well as to the credenda themselves — such evidence being principally miracles. This is Thorndike's fundamental distinction in treating of the autho- rity of the Church and the inspiration of Scripture — his answer to the dilemma, to Avliich the Roman diraies profess to reduce us upon the 212 Note 3 [Lect, latter question, urging that we receive the inspiration of Scripture upon the autliority of tlie Church ; and that therefore we stand com- mitted to tlie princii)le of the authority of the Church in the fact of our helief in the Bi1)le. We do, is Thorndike's reply, but not to the authority of the Church as an infallilde asserter, but as a body vdtnessing to the transmission of certain evidence for the inspir- ation of Scripture, contained in Apostolic history, — viz. the assertion of their own inspiration by the Apostles, attested by miracles. He explains then Augustine's statement in accordance with this dis- criminating view, " The question is whether the authority of the Church as a corporation would have moved St. Augustine to believe the Gospel because they held it to be true ; or the credit of the Church as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those reasons which the Gospel tenders, why we ought to believe." {Principles of Christian Truth, 1)k. i. cli. iii.) Tlie Fathers indeed assign other inferior uses to miracles besides the most imi^ortant pui"i30se of evidence ; such as those of exciting and stimulating, awakening men from the torpor of custom ; and in the light of this advantage they speak of miracles as an accommoda- tion to human weakness. Thus Augustine : " Quamvis itaque miracula visibilium naturarum videndi assiduitate viluerunt, tamen cum ea sapienter intueamur inusitatissimis rarissiniisque majora sunt. Nam et omni miraculo quod fit per hominem majus miraculum est homo. Quapropter Deus qui fecit visibilia, coclum et terrani, non dedignatiir facere visibilia miracula in coclo et terra quibus ad se invisi- bilem colendum excitet animum adhuc visibilibus deditum." {De Civ. Dei, X. 13.) Chrysostom looks upon miracles in the same light, when he accounts for the cessation of the gift of tongues by remarking that Christians of that later day did not need such wonders to move their faith. " Tongues, as Paul saith, are for a sign not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. Ye see that God has re- moved this sign, not to disgrace but to honour you ; designing to shew that your faith does not depend wpon tokens and signs." (torn. ii. p. 464.) In this light too the Fathers would seem to view miracles, when they join the current miracles of their own age to those of Scripture in the evidential office. The Fathers assert uno ore that miracles had then ceased ; yet they sjieak of miracles taking place in the Church then, and even of these miracles witnessing in a sense to the truth of the Gospel. We must reconcile these two conflicting state- ments by supposing that they recognized certain powers working in and events taking place in the Church, which, though not rising uj) to the level of the miracles of Scripture, still shewed extraordinary I] Note 21 Divine action, and in the degree in which they did possessed an evi- dential function, and kept alive the faitli of the Church. " Christian doctrine," says Origen,' " has its proper proof in the demonstration, as the Apostle says, of the Spirit and of power \ of the Spirit in prophecy, of power in the miracles which Christians could then Avork, and of which the, vestiges still remcmi among those who live according to the Christian precepts — t^vr) 'in a-w^eadai." {Contra Gels. lib. i. s. 2.) " It is a magnificent act of Jesus, that even to this day those whom He wills are healed in His name." {Ihid. ii. 33.) Ire- nseus, after asserting that our Lord's miracles were verified by pro- phecy, which shewed Him to be the Son. of God, adds, " Wherefore in His name His true disciples now perform deeds of mercy:" he mentions exorcisms, cures, &c. {Contra Hair. ii. 32.) " That Jesus," says Justin Martyr, " was made man for the sake of the believers, and for the subversion of daemons, is manifest from what is done before your eyes all over the world ; when those who are vexed by daemons, whom your own enchanters could not cure, are healed by our Chris- tians abjuring and casting out the daemons in the name of Jesus." {Apol. ii. s. 6.) " si audire eos velles," says Cyprian, " quando a nobis adjurantur et torquentur Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas, timeri ab eis quos tu times." {Ad Demetr. xv.) Augustine, speaking of the miracles attributed to the interference of the martyrs, says, " Cui nisi huic fidei attestantur ista miracula in qua jjreedicatur Christus resurrexisse in carne, et in coelum ascendisse in carne ? Quia et ipsi martyres, . . . pro ista fide mortui sunt, qui ha3c a Domino impetrare possunt, propter cujus nomen occisi sunt." {De Civ. Dei, xxii. 9.) I have endeavoured to state the j)atristic use of the evidence of miracles, and the characteristics by which it was distinguished from the modern popular argument. With respect, however, to the Fathers' appeal to this evidence, it must be remeinbered that their recognition of the evidential value of miracles, and of the need of them to attest the truth of the Divine nature and office of our Lord, is seen more as a great assumj^tion underlying the whole fal)ric of patristic reasoning on this sulyect, than as anything formally expressed and developed in statement. The Fathers undoubtedly made deduc- tions from the force of miracles as evidence ; but that the person of the Messiah and Son of God who came to be the Mediator between God and man, and to atone by His death for the sins of the whole world, would, when He came, be known and distinguished wholly without any miraculous element in His birth, life, or death, simply living in and passing through the world in that respect like an ordinary man 214 Note 3 [Lect. — was an idea which never even occurred to the mind of any Father, and whicli, had it been presented to him, he would liave at once dis- carded. The ancients, in their whole representation of the evidence of Christ's nature and supernatural office — the evidence that He Was what He professed to be, the only -begotten Son of God, the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world — assumed the gi-eat miracles of His Birth, Resurrection and Ascension ; the Creed was used not only as a statement of our Lord's Divine character, but as the proof of it as well. Christ as a superhimaan Personage, the Head of a supernatural dispensation, must be known from other men by some ade([iuite marks of distinction : the Fathers always took for granted that that dis- tinction must be by means of something miraculous : that where there was an invisible supernatural, which it was necessary to believe, the sign and token of it would be the visible supernatural. The Creed stated this miraciilous proof, so far as it attached to the person of our Lord — His Birth, Resurrection, and Ascension. The Creed was thus in essence a defence as well as an assertion of our Lord's supernatural character — a defence of it upon miraculous grounds. In the very act of worshipping Jesus Christ, the Fathers indeed assumed the miraculous evidence of who Jesus Christ iras ; for to worship a person who had liveil and died like an ordinary man, with however excellent gifts endowed, was an idea which they could not have conceived ; the miraculous testimony to His own assertion of His nature was taken for granted in the simple prayer, " Son of David, have mercy upon lis." " The facts of Christianity," says Archdeacon Lee, " are represented by some as forming no part of its 'essential doctrines ; ' they rank, it is argued, no higher than its ' external accessories.' It is imjjossible to maintain this distinction. In the Christian revelation the fact of the Resurrection is the cardinal doctrine, the doctrine of tlie Incarnation is the fundamental fact. Christianity exhibits its most momentous truths as actual realities, Ity founding them upon an historical basis, and by interweaving them with transactions and events whicli rest ujion the evidence of sense." {On Miracles, p. 5.) Let us beware, in conclusion, of depreciating the groundwork of Christian evidence laid down by the Fathers, because these ancient writers entertained some points of belief relating to the class of inferior spirits and the art of Magic which are not accepted at the present day. Such partial thaumaturgic pretensions as the art of Magic displayed, even could we suppose them real, would not interfere with the l)roper force of the miraculous evidences of the Gospel ; nor therefore was the belief in them inconsistent with a true insiLrht into Chi'istian I] Note 4 215 evidence. Nor must we forget that the most indiscriminating belief in magic and witchcraft continued up to very recent times in the Chris- tian workl. Tlie divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, wli ether English or Continental, must have been singularly removed from the prejudices and ideas of their times if they were not more or less under the influence of the belief in these powers.^ Yet we should justly complain if upon this ground any one refused to allow those divines the credit of being able to weigh Christian evidence. Jackson, Hamniond, Thorndike, and others lived when the popular impression of the power of witchcraft to produce sensible supernatm-al effects upon human bodies and minds was strong, and not confined to the lower and untaught classes, but shared by the educated. Yet Christian evidence was in their day a definite department of theology. Grotius had produced a treatise which reigned in our schools, and Pascal meditated another, of which the fragmentary beginnings are pre- served in his " Thoughts." Our divines all that time discussed the miraculous proofs of Christianity, and shewed themselves quite ade- quate to that task. Sir Matthew Hale, in the year 1665, declared his own belief in witchcraft upon the occasion of condemning two women to ■ death for that crime ; yet it would be a very mistaken inference to draw from the existence of such a belief in that eminent Christian lawyer, that he could not have a correct percejjtion of the evidences of Christianity, or was unequal to draw up a sound and rational statement of those evidences. The Fathers j)artook of the popular ideas of their age, which did not however incapacitate them for judging of Christian evidences, or neutraUze their statements on this subject. NOTE 4, p. 19. " I THEREFORE proceed," says Spinoza, " to the consideration of the four principles which I here propose to myself to demonstrate, and in the following order : ist, I shall begin by shewing that nothing happens contrary to the order of nature, and that this order su.bsists without pause or interruption, eternal aiid unchangeable. I shall at the same time take occasion to explain what is to be under- stood by a miracle. 2nd, I shall prove that mii-acles cannot make known to us the essence and existence of God, nor consequently His providence, these great truths being so much better illustrated and proclaimed by the regular and invariable order of nature. . . . ^ " All the nations of Christendom," says Dr. Hey (Norrisiau Professor 1 780- 1 795), "have so far taken these powers for granted, as to provide legal remedies against them. At this time there subsist in tliis Universitj^ one if not several foundations for annual sermons to be preached against them. " {Bishop Kay's Tertullian, p. 171.) 2i6 Note 4 [Lect. " (i) . . . . As nothing is absolutely true save by Divine decree alone, it is evident that the universal laws of nature are the very decrees of God, whicli result necessarily from the perfection of the Divine nature. If therefore anything happened in nature at large repugnant to its universal laws, this would be equally repugnant to the decrees and intelligence of God ; so that any one who maintained that God acted in opposition to the laws of nature, would at the same time be forced to maintain that God acted in op- })osilion to His proper nature, an idea than which nothing can )e imagined more al)surd. I miglit shew the same thing, or strengthen what I have just said, by referring to the truth that the power of iiiiture is in fact the Divine Power ; Divine Power is the very essence of God Himself. But this I pass by for the present. Nothincj, then, happens in nature xchich is in contradiction with its universal laivs.^ Nor this only ; nothing hapjiens which is not in accordance with these laws, or does not follow them : for whatever is, and whatever happens, is and happens by the will and eternal decree of God ; that is, as has been already shewn, whatever ha2)pens does so according to rules and laws which involve eternal truth and necessity. Nature consequently always observes laws, although all of these are not known to us, which involve eternal truth and necessity, and thus preserves a fixed and immutable course " From these premises, therefore, viz. WvAi nothinrj ha-ppens in nature which doea not follmv from its laws ; that these laws extend to all which enters into the Divine mind ; and, lastly, that nature proceeds in a fixed and changeless course ; it follows most obviously that the word miracle can only be understood in relation to the opinions of mankind, and signifies nothing more than an event, a ]ihenomenon, the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance, or, in any case, which the narrator is unable to ex])lain. I might say, indeed, that a miracle was that the cause of which cannot be ex}>lained by our natural understanding from the known principles of natural things " (2) But it is time I passed on to my second proposition, which was to shew that from miracles we can neither obtain a knowledge of the existence nor of the providence of God ; on the contrary, that these are much better elicited from the eternal and changeless order of nature But sup])ose that it is said that a miracle is that which cannot be explained by natural causes ; this may be understood in two ways : either that it has natural causes wliich cannot be inves- tigated by the human understanding, or that it acknowledges no cause save God, or the will of God. But as all tliat happens, also happens by the sole will and power of God, it were then necessary to say that a miracle either owned natural causes, or if it did not, that it was inexplicable by anj^ cause ; in other words, that it Avas something which it surpassed the human capacity to understand. But of any- ^ Spinoza says in a note, — " By nature here I do not understand tlie material universe only, and its affections, but besides matter an iuiiuity of other tliiiitrs." I] Note /\. 217 tiling in general, and of the particular thing in question, viz. the miracle, which surpasses our jjowers of comprehension, nothing what- ever can be known. For that which we clearly and distinctly under- stand must become known to us either of itself, or by something else which of itself is clearly and distinctly understood. Wherefore, from, a miracle, as an incident surpassing our powers of comprehension, we cannot understand anything, either of the essence or existence, or any other quality of God or nature " Wherefoi'e, as regards our understanding, those events which we clearly and distinctly comprehend, are with much better right en- titled works of God, and referred to His will, than those which are wholly unintelligible to us, although they strongly seize upon our ima- gination and wrap us in amazement ; inasmuch as those works of nature only which we clearly and distinctly apprehend render our knowledge of God truly sublime, and point to His will and decrees with the greatest clearness For if miracles be understood as interruptions or abrogations of the order of nature, or as subversive of its laws, not only could they not give us any knowledge of God, hut, on the contrary, they toould destroy that ivhichtve naturally have, and would induce douljt both of the existence of God and of everything else." {Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, c. vi.) The argument of Spinoza under the first head is based upon an ambiguity in the meaning of "Nature," one sense of which it uses in the premiss, and another in the conclusion. In the premiss, Spinoza uses " Nature " in the sense of the universe both spiritual and material ; in which sense it is true that " nothing hapi:)ens in nature which is in con- tradiction with its universal laws." For even a miracle, though con- trary to the order of the material world, or an interruption of it, is in agTeeraent with the order of the universe as a whole, as proceeding from the Power of the Head of that universe, for a purpose and end included in the design of the imiverse. In the conclusion he slides from the universal sense of nature to the sense of nature as this ma- terial order of things. The miracle, or violation of the order of nature wliich is pronounced impossible, is the literal historical miracle, which is only a contradiction to this visible order of nature. The conclusion, then, is not got legitimately out of the premiss. God cannot act in opposition to the law and order of the whole universe, in which case He would be acting against His own intelligence and will. But it does not follow that God may not act in contradiction to the order of a part, because the part is subordinate to the whole : and therefore an exception to the order of a part may be subservient to the order and design of the whole. Spinoza, it may be added, from the term " law " extracts " a fixed and immutable course of tilings," or necessity : but " law" in this sense is a pure hypothesis, without proof. The argument of Spinoza under the second head is based upon 2i8 Note \ [Lect. overlooking a miracle as an instrument, its acting as a note and sign of the Divine will, and only regarding it as an anomaly beginning and ending with itself. Emerson adopts Spinoza's aspect of a miracle, when he says, — "The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian Churches, gives a false impression ; it is a Monster. It is not one with tlie Idowing clouds and the falling rain." (Lee on Miracles, p. 92.) NOTE 5, p. 24. Whether or not Mahometanism stands in need of miracles to attest its truth, must de2)end upon what Mahnmetanisni is ; Avhether or not it pretends to be a revelation in the stiict sense ; i.e. a revela- tion which communicates truths undiscoverable by human reason. Were Mahometanism simply Deism, or rather Monotheism ; did it only inculcate upon mankind the great principle of the Unity of God ; impressing together with that doctrine the obligation of worship and other moral and religious duties wdiicli were obvious to reason ; in that case Mahometanism could not require the evidence of miracles to witness to its truth. Because the principle of the Unity of God is one which naturally approves itself to the reason of man. I. But Mahomet did not adopt this position : he did not confine himself to the ground of human reason, but professetl to have a new and exjjress revelation of his own to communicate to maiddnd, a reve- lation which came to him straight from heaven. "We reveal unto thee this Koran," ^ God is represented as saying to Mahomet in that book ; " Thou hast certainly received the Koran from the presence of a wise and knowing God." (chap, xxvii.) He professed to have had this revelation imparted to him by the medium of an angel, tlie angel (iabriel : " Galniel (God is rejjresented as speaking) hath caused the Koran to descend upon thine heart, by the permission of God." (chap. ^ " Which wc have sent down in the Arabic tongue." {Koran, chap, xii.) Sale says : " Tlic Mahonimcdans aljsolutcly deny tlmt the Koran was cDniposed by their prophet hiinseU', or any other for him ; it being their general and orthodox belief that it is of divine original, nay, that it is eternal and uncreated, remaining, as some express it, in the very essence of God ; that the first transcrij)t li;is been from everlasting by God's throne, written on a table of vast bigness, called the preserved table, in which are also recorded the divine decrees j)ast and future ; tliat a copy from this tahh?, in one volume on paper, was, by the ministry of the angel Gal)riel, sent down to the lowest heaven, in the month of Ibtmadam, on tlie night of power: from whence Galjriel revea!e