y of Fringe y —_——_——__ Fa = FEB 10 1888 i oe WS 7 wee Pl TPES OR ¥ ¥ = | 7° *. 4 — > a > - » « 2 - * ae . = ¥ . ¥ t op a ' ¢ 4] a « -_ % wi . ' a i rs - ‘ = ‘ * s be + *. L . € “ a . ? . ¢€ , + ; . “ . 4 ‘ i Fe ' r s ws: ro yay a 7 ‘ » we 4, “4 “ + = a. s * i * - = 7 ‘ . } : F. - > : ' 1 ° - ' “ys, * _< ~~ - 7s ~, - , ee 5 4 : us - : . a - 4 * r . Z es in 3 ‘ / ~ ¢ * f : ’ ‘ Ff t i > 2 fs . 2 * ye . ¢ - , ¥ , 7 4 ; “ “4 ty « + « . % -s ? = - . 7 4 or J s L * = . ts uf Yet - ‘ 2 ¢ - it IEG LON Sales) OB aa se ITS DIFFICULTIES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES COMPARED AND CONSIDERED : BEING The Donnellan Lecture in the Auibersity of Anblin FOR THE VEAR 1877-8. BY / JOHN QUARRY, D.D., RECTOR OF DONOUGHMORE, AND CANON OF THE CATHEDRAL OF CLOYNE. DUBLIN: HODGES, FOSTER, & FIGGIS, GRAFTON-STREET. LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.,,PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1880. . "7 ‘ A Bs - awl ee : vote), x CT we a Pe DUBLIN PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LO THE REV. HUMPHREY LLOYD, D.D., PROVOST OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, In Testimony of ADMIRATION FOR HIS HIGH CHARACTER AND DEVOTED ATTACHMENT ) TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, COUPLED WITH PURSUITS WHICH HAVE PLACED HIM IN THE FOREMOST RANK AS A MAN OF SCIENCE, Ohese Hectures ARE, WITH HIS KIND PERMISSION, DEDICATED, BY THE AUTHOR. * RE Te ve PREFACE, HE comparison of ancient and modern difficulties affecting the reception of religious belief, which is indicated in the title of this work, has been carefully kept in view throughout. It was necessary, however, in the earlier Lectures to make this comparison in a some- what informal manner. The difficulties were akin, and often identical, arising from objections which ancient philosophy and modern science concurred in opposing to those fundamental principles of religious belief which fell in with the natural instincts, and found a response in the natural emotions of mankind in general. The subject of the two last Lectures rendered a separate treatment easier, and more needful. I have thought it desirable in these to consider first the modern difficulty felt in accepting a belief in any Divine interference in the production of miracles. As this affects the possibility of any reasonable belief at all in supernatural interfer- ences, it seemed. well in the first instance to lay a founda- Vi Preface. tion for that belief. Without this, a discussion of the difficulty felt in ancient times, in regard to the evidence afforded by miracles to Divine revelation, would have re- ference rather to a curious phase in the history of human thought, than to a matter of vital interest. Moreover, what I endeavoured to show in the former case was needful for the adequate consideration of the latter, the discussion of which is really complementary of the former. | Throughout I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to reason on the ground of the objectors, and I have tried to show that, admitting the truth of much of what is presented to us in modern scientific theories, we have still abundant reason for religious belief. The whole discus- sion has been conducted rather in a critical than a dog- matic spirit. Having great sympathy with scientific investigations, and being sensible of the force of much of those indications which have led many to adopt con- clusions adverse to religious belief, I have felt it needful, not less for my own comfort than for the satisfaction of others, to find a way out of difficulty, on the supposition that these conclusions might yet offer themselves with such evidence as might suffice to produce a general con- viction of their truth. But I would not be supposed, in consequence of this, to have given an unqualified accept- ance to all that I have not thought it necessary to deny, though where I have felt the ground sure, I have not Preface. Vii hesitated to make my own opinion sufficiently clear. So many suppositions that were once thought fatal to re- ligion, or at least to Christian belief, have since found universal acceptance, while yet the general belief in re- ligion has remained unshaken, that it is well to endeavour to check the panic occasioned by opinions now regarded with like alarm. And I feel no doubt that when the novelty of these opinions has worn off, and people have had time for calm reflection, a satisfactory modus credendi will again be found, as has already been the case in regard to like occasions of difficulty at other times. In seeking for this it is far safer for us to look before than behind, and, in anticipation of what may yet turn out to be true, to oc- cupy a position of security. Should the course of thought take a different turn, and, as may happen, revert to its former channels, the friends of religion will not find themselves worse off for having secured their position in view of what may turn out to be a false alarm. For every enlargement of thought, and every reconciliation of seem- ingly adverse opinion with an unshaken belief, is itself a safeguard against like alarm in the future. If older diffi- culties have vanished, so, I firmly believe, will those of the present day, though each time will no doubt bring its own trials. It is part of our probation here that faith should be maintained under difficulties, without which it might lose its vitality, or sik into superstition. If there is something beautiful in the innocent faith of the child, Vill Preface. there is a grandeur in the firm grasp of the mature intellect which has confronted the difficulties, proved all things, and holds fast that which is good. For the per- manence of the Christian faith I have no fear. It may for a moment, as at other times, seem ready to sink for ever. Derses profundo, pulchrior evenit. It will emerge more pure and bright. It is in the spirit of these remarks I venture to offer the following discourses to the candid consideration of the reader. CONTENTS. ae ee LECTURE I. PAGE SHEL ALURSTIOM TOR MV Ilys Sink she eae yh ae et el 1 Jon, i. 9, 10. ‘¢ Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side ?”’ LECTURE II. THE COU MESELOBAGOD. on ML fc th, Peta as 34 IsAIAH, Xxviil. 21. ‘¢The Lord will rise up, that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act.’’ LECTURE III. Pre EEEDOM- OF MANO ¥a siecle, Lol ay fae ee 64 DEUTERONOMY, xxx. 19. “T have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life.” b x Contents. LECTURE IV. PAGE Tre bering oF God, 6! Ge icces Se 94 GENESIS, i. 1. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”’ LECTURE Y. MopERN Views oN THE EvimENcE FROM MIRACLES IN Proor oF Drvrne Revenation, ...... #£44I3!i SiS ORNy vs a fe 7 ‘My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” LECTURE VI. EvIDENCE OF REVELATION FRoM MIRACLES, AS REGARDED in Anctent Trmzs, GN erated Wate erst eee! 4! td Bas S. Joun, iii. 2. ‘No man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with Him.” LECTURE I.* THE QUESTION OF EVIL. Jos, i. 9, 10. “ Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side ?”’ N this commencing chapter of the Book of Job we have a representation of the Court of Heaven, to which, at an appointed time—the day, as it is in the original Hebrew—the high dignitaries of the heavenly kingdom, who are called, after Oriental fashion, the Sons of God, come to present themselves before the Supreme. Amongst these, one presents himself who is named Satan in our English Version. This word, as is well known, was not originally a proper name. It was the word in common use to denote an adversary, and only acquired a special signification when it had the definite article, as here, pre- fixed. Whether the being we commonly call Satan was here intended or not, the person described appears, in accordance with the general representation taken from the customs of earthly courts, somewhat in the capacity of a * Delivered on Sunday, November 25th, 1877. Bb 2 The Question of vil. [LECT Ad, public accuser—one who, with the watchful suspiciousness of his kind, was ever on the look-out for faults, and ready to suggest deficiencies. Of this adversary the Lord in- quires whether he had considered His servant Job, a per- fect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed. evil. The words which I have read for the text are the answer to this inquiry. They suggest that Job’s right- eousness was not disinterested, that he had been so hedged about by the kind providence of God, so guarded from temptations and trials, that there was no satisfactory proof of the reality of his goodness, and that at best it could not be regarded as virtue of the highest order. It would give way at the first serious trial, and could not bear the test of any strong temptation.* * The prominence given to this at the very outset of the book, and the permission given to the adversary for Job’s affliction in consequence of his suggestion, plainly show that the probative use of our present trials formed an important part of the instruction intended to be conveyed. The ill- natured suggestion of Job’s wife, that his sufferings were a proof that he had not retained his integrity, was afterwards taken up by Job’s friends, and holds a more prominent part in the sequel, owing perhaps to special circumstances when the book was written. The reader needs not to be reminded of Warburton’s famous theory respecting this book. ‘The unre- lenting severity with which Job’s three friends press this suggestion of secret guilt lead Job, in his replies, to dwell fully on his own integrity, which he stoutly maintains. But the probative use of his afflictions is not wholly overlooked by him. Thus, in xxiii. 10-12, he says: ‘‘ He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips.’? When Elihu appears on the stage he introduces another lesson. While he blames the three friends for the severity of their judgment, he insists also on the undue confidence of Job’s self-justification. The corrective and disciplinary use of affliction is brought out in his discourse. It is remarkable that when God Himself is introduced at last, he condescends not to give any explanation of His deal- ings with His afflicted servant. His own greatness, as shown in the works of creation, and the consequent duty of unquestioning submission, in our necessary ignorance of His purposes, is the burden of the Divine discourse. PECIY 1 | Lhe Question of Evil. 3 Now of course, as I suppose, this representation is not to be taken as literally descriptive of any actual scene in the courts above. But when we pass from the letter to the spirit, we find a deep moral and spiritual significance. And though the words of the text are put into the mouth of a malignant adversary, I cannot doubt that Divine wis- dom intended them to embody a great truth which the sequel was designed to elicit. The highest order of moral excellence is not that which is presented under circum- stances which offer no difficulty, afford no real test of goodness, and do not constitute an effective probation. The suggestion of the adversary is, indeed, one that natu- rally occurs to our own minds; and if it often gives rise to The moral uses of God’s providential dealings are left to our own reflec- tions, the preliminary to any profitable exercise of which must be our entire submission to God’s will. As long as the mind rebels against that, all such profitable reflections are shut out. The English version of the words of Job’s wife, ‘‘ Curse God, and die”’ (the Vulgate has denedic), is justified by the apparent reference in the writer’s mind to the assertion of the adversary, that if Job were afflicted he would curse God to His face. What the adversary predicts he would do, that his wife suggests to him to do. On the other hand, it is to be said that her words may be read in the better sense, ‘‘ Bless God, and die,’ and thus would correspond to Joshua’s words to Achan, “ My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him,’’ Josh. vii. 19. Moreover, Job’s rebuke is scarcely strong enough for so impious a sug- gestion. The foolishness he lays to her charge is sufficiently exemplified in the supposition that his afflictions proved that he had not maintained his in- tegrity. The LXX., if they read as in our present Hebrew copies, appear to have been in doubt, and have left the question undecided, saying merely, eimdy Tt pha ets Kiptov—say something, whether good or bad. It is pos- sible, however, that their copies might have had, by a transposition of letters and a slight variation, 127 instead of m3. That their copies must have varied from ours is evident from their introducing a speech of some length instead of the brief sentences put into her mouth by the present Hebrew copies; and for the question, “ Dost thou still retain thine integrity ?” they have substituted simply, “ How long wilt thou hold out?’’ omitting all mention of his integrity. B 2 4 The Question of Evil. [LECT. <1 eynical remarks, and occasions unjust and ungenerous suspicions, it may be also turned to good account by lead- ing us to form charitable judgments of the failings of others, whose trials and temptations may have been more severe than ours, and to exercise a strict judgment in estimating our own conduct, which, however it may have borne the test of such trials as we have had to encounter, might possibly have succumbed under greater difficulties. But it is not with this practical consideration, however useful, that I am now concerned, but with the general principle, that for the establishment and proof of the highest order of righteousness and goodness in beings such as we are, endued with freedom otf choice and of will, a severe probation is needful. And it may be that under the limitations imposed on us, this is only of possible at- tainment out of such trials as may be attended with many failures, that it requires hard discipline and vigorous fighting with evil, issuing in the conquest of forces, which for the very purpose of the probation must be such as to endanger and possibly occasion failure at the first, and which may prove too strong for principles felt, but not as yet rendered habitually prevalent by the very conflict in which they are engaged. I think it may, perhaps, be seen that it is in this line of thought we may best find our way out of the perplexity which the existence of evil has at all times caused to the minds of men. And here, before passing on to the fuller consideration of this sub- ject, let me quote a striking passage from one of the most ancient writings of the primitive Church, commonly, though I believe erroneously, called the Second Hpistle of S. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, but at any rate the oldest example we have of a primitive sermon or HECT. I;,| The Question of Evil. 5 homily. The words, for their value, were preserved by one of the later Greek fathers (John of Damascus), but they occupy their proper place in the recently discovered MS. of this document in its integrity. The writer says : “ Let not this disturb your mind that we see the wicked abound- ing in wealth, and the servants of God straitened. We, however, have faith, brethren and sisters. We are con- tending as athletes in the lists of a living God, and exer- cise ourselves in the life that now is, that we may be crowned in that which is to come. None of the righteous has been wont to receive a speedy recompense, but waits for it. For if God all at once repaid the reward of the righteous, we should straightway be engaged in a profit- able trade instead of the practice of godliness, for we should have been righteous in appearance, pursuing not piety but gain ; and for this cause Divine judgment would have hurt the spirit as not being righteous, and a bond would have weighed it down.’”* The existence of evil, physical and moral, in a world supposed to owe its being to an omnipotent, all-wise and * "ANA mnNde exeivo Thy Sidvo.ay buay TapaooéTw, STi BArAémomey Tovs &dlikous wAOVTODYTAs, Kal TTEVOXWpPOUMEVOUS TOUS TOU Mead SovAous- Thoredv- ouev ody, GdeAdpo) Kal adeApal’ Oeod (Gyros wetpay aOAodmEy Kal yuuva- Cucba TH viv Bly va To wéAAOYTL TTEPavwOGuev. Ovdels THY Sikalwy Taxdy Kaptov @aaBev, GAN exdéxeTat atév. Ei yap tov mioddv Tay Sikalwy 6 @eds guvTdéuws amedidov, ev0éws eumoplay joKoduey Kat od OeooeBeiay’ edoKkoduev yap elvat Sika, ov TH evoEBES GAAA Td KEpdaAdcoy SidkovTes, Kal Sia TodTO @ela Kplois ZBAave mvedua, wh dv Sixaov, kal éBdpuve Seouds.—Clem. ad Cor. ii. 20. Ed. Bryennio, Constant. 1875. I have not thought it necessary to adopt the conjecture of Bryennius, that for moredouey we should read morevwuev. If any change is to be made, I should propose to read yody instead of ody, and I have translated accordingly. If I might hazard another conjecture, it would be to read éBaewWe for ZBAawe in last clause but one—‘‘ the Divine discernment would haye beheld the spirit not truly righteous.”’ 6 The Question of Kutt. Poon all-beneficent Creator, is a difficulty which has ever per- plexed the human mind. Even in the minds of the devout, who might feel willing to stand mute in the pre- sence of the fact of its existence, in the faith that all is right and best as far as God’s agency is concerned, the — questionings of reason will ever and anon present them- selves; while to minds less disposed to acquiesce in this belief, the fact has given rise to disbelief in all religion, or — to forms of religion worse than no religious belief at all. That there is a limit beyond which our minds cannot penetrate in this inquiry is indeed plain enough; but if within this limit we can see sufficient to make it likely that if we could see farther we should see more to satisfy our doubts and remove our difficulties, we shall perhaps feel that the inquiry is not without its use. As an obstacle to religious belief, the existence of evil does not indeed seem to me to touch the question of a Creator, though it may affect the view we take of His character. So far as human reason enforces the belief in a supreme cause of all things, an evil world—a world much worse than this appears to the greatest pessimist— requires a Creator no less than a world of good unmixed, or a far better world than actually exists, if we have any right to suppose that a better world, taken all in all, could have existed, as far as the action of the Creator was con- cerned. I may here advert to the well-known position of Hume—that if it be granted that the existence of the world demands the acknowledgment of an. Author of Nature, we have no right to ascribe to that Author of Nature any attributes beyond what were needed for the production of such a world as actually exists. In regard to this I shall only remark, that evén if we grant the EECD.{1. | The Question of Evil. "i truth of this position, it would still lead to the belief of the virtual omnipotence and all-wisdom of God, provided we admit, as it is reasonable to suppose, that, regarding it in the full extent of its vastness and duration, and the comprehensiveness of the Divine purposes, it really is the best that He was able to produce. For it is to be supposed that a Being working for his own satisfaction would make his work, taken all in all, the best in his power. I suppose we shall readily perceive that if there be an Author of all things, whatever that Being could not do Himself, He could not enable another to do, so far as power is con- cerned, for this would be practically doing it Himself. By the supposition, therefore, if there is anything that in respect to power God could not do, that must be practically and virtually impossible, as there is, and can be, no Being in existence able to do it. I say practically and virtually, because it may very well be that we are able to see no contradiction in the supposition of its being done; as in the case of the ancient royal Spanish astronomer, who said that if he had been by at the creation of the heavenly bodies, he could have given some useful hints to the Almighty.* I make this remark on the position of the samous sceptic with special reference to the power and wisdom of God. Mr. Mill supposes that the evidences of * Halley, in his Preface to Newton’s Principia, remarks :—‘‘ Systematis Mundani Compagem elegantissimam ita tandem patefecit et penitus per- spectandam dedit; ut nec ipse, si nunc revivisceret, Rex Alphonsus vel simplicitatem vel harmonize gratiam in ea desideraret. Alphonso X., sur- named the Wise, was a great astrologer, which in those days meant an astronomer; ‘“ and after he had deeply considered the fabrick of the world, the following saying of his, reported by Lipsiuws, denotes him to have been none of the most pious, viz., That if God had advised with him wm the creation, he could have given Him good counsel.” See Jeremy Collier's Great Historical Dictionary, s. v. Alphonsus the Tenth. 8 | The Question of Evil. [LECT. I. contrivance which indicate an intelligent Creator are them- selves a proof of the limited power of God, as omnipotence could have made them unnecessary. Matter and force he sees no reason for thinking to have been created, but in- dependent existences, and in the intractableness of these and the contrivances to overcome it, he sees evidences of this limitation of Divine power. Of the independent existence of matter and force I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. But for the present I shall only say, that no reasonable believer in religion supposes that the exercise of the power of God in creation has not been carried on under limitations. Creation itself implies limi- tation, unless we should suppose that God created Himself over again in his creatures. Limitation enters into the very conception of material things, and limitation of force seems necessary for the orderly working of a material and moral world. It in no way, therefore, impugns the ability of God to say that He worked in creation under limita- tions, but they were limitations imposed on Himself for the very ends He had in view—ends not confined to the material universe, but embracing the moral and intellectual world also. This is enough for the present in regard to the alleged deficiency of God’s power. Of His goodness I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. What I have now said suffices for my present purpose. Now, we can conceive a creation without rational beings, as this earth is supposed to have been during the vast periods in which there was animal life, but in which we have no evidence that man existed. It would not have been such a noble creation as the present. Or we might conceive the existence of rational beings, without freedom of choice and will, mere reasoning machines. I suppose ECT. Ti} The Question of Evil. 9 most will think, that, wonderful as that would be, it would not be so noble as a world comprising intelligent and reasoning beings endued with freedom. Nor would a world containing such beings be as grand a conception as if we superadd to reason and freedom a moral sense and capacity, such as man has heretofore been supposed by most to possess. But that there could have been moral beings without freedom of choice and will seems to me to be a contradiction, the very essence of morality being in the choice of good in preference to ill. And that there could not have been real freedom without the risk of transgression, such as has actually taken place, seems equally clear. At least, as far as I can see, it could not have been hindered without such a restraint as would have impaired or destroyed the freedom of choice, and so the morality of actions, or such an hedging about of circumstances as would have largely detracted from the excellence of the goodness or righteousness of men, in accordance with the suggestion of the adversary, when questioned about the character of Job. I cannot but think that Job himself was raised to a far higher scale at the end of his trials than that he occupied at the first, even though he did not go through them without some lapse. For he could say at the last, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; therefore I abhor (my former state), and repent in dust and ashes.’’* This question of evil was met in ancient times in various * Job, xlil. 5, 6.—It is possible that in the words, ‘‘ now mine eye seeth thee,’’ there may be a reference to the confident anticipation expressed in xix, 27, that in (from) his flesh Job should yet see God. The least which this latter passage can be justly understood to signify is, that in his bodily state he should see God, whether in the present or in a future life, 10 The Question of Evil. [LECT. I. ways. Some stultified their reason by the assumption of a blind fate, or by the unintelligent operation of self- existing atoms. Into the discussion of these theories I do not enter at the present moment, but shall now rather consider the remedies resorted to by those who could not surrender themselves to what seemed to them as to me so unreasonable an explanation of the difficulty—an expla- nation which really explains nothing, and amounts to no more than saying that things are as they are, because they are so. My purpose just now is to consider the views of those who tried to solve the difficulty without doing violence to the demands which reason makes for an adequate cause. In early times one great resort was to that principle of or in both. That the words may be referred to the present life is possi- ble. But he anticipates some kind of bodily vision, as indicated by the parallel clause, ‘‘mine eyes shall behold and not another.” That the anticipation extends to another life, if his death should be the result of his present sufferings before the expectation could be realized, which was not unlikely, would seem to be implied. At any rate, that the words should lend themselves so remarkably to the idea of a resurrection is not to be wondered at, if we adopt the now prevalent supposition that this book is to be ascribed to post-captivity times. The same idea is strongly brought out in Dan., xii. 2—‘‘ Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”’—to say nothing of many earlier intimations of a less explicit nature. And the doctrine of a resurrection had come to be a prevalent belief with the larger part of the Jewish people, no doubt, finding Scriptural authority in these passages, before our Lord’s time. It was not in any disparagement of these authorities that our Lord rested on the words spoken to Moses from the burning bush. His argument was with the Sadducees, whose denial of the resurrection was founded on their denial of a spiritual nature in man dis- tinguished from the body. It served his purpose, therefore, to rely on a proof of the spiritual existence of man after death. This followed from the words, ‘‘ I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living.’”” And the force of this clause is not in the mere wording of the first clause, which might mean that he was the God they worshipped when living, but in the consideration that if he had been their God, He would not let them perish if He had it in his power to preserve their existence. Hence, he prefaced his argument by saying: RECTAN, | Lhe Question of Evil. II duality which is exemplified in the Zoroastrian doctrine of Ormuzd and Arihman, the doctrine of a beneficent and a malignant, a good and an eyil God. And in early Christian times this doctrine sprung into new life in various forms in the heresies which rose up in the Christian Church, or amongst those who, clinging to the pagan philosophy, desired to reconcile it with certain parts of the Christian faith. Tertullian tells us that the heretics in general languished about this question of evil; unde malum ? whence came evil was the main subject of their inquiry. In most of the so-called Gnostic systems the remedy was not radical. They pushed back the origin of evil to one of those subordinate deities that sprung in the descent of endless genealogies from the Supreme. The ‘* Ye know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God.’’ But if in the words of Job we translate, as some would, ‘‘ without my flesh,”’ we introduce the idea of a vision of God in a disembodied state, which was not less alien from early Hebrew conception than that of a resurrection, and which is less consistent with the subjoined parallel clause, “ whom mine eyes shall behold and not another.”? Ihave also no hesitation in saying that the sense without is here inadmissible, and would not have been sup- posed but because the proper sense of the preposition seems to favour the notion of a resurrection. Ewald’s rule concerning the use of the preposition yO or ~0, in the sense of without, is sustained in all other cases of this usage. Ein Nominalbegriff wird als sich entfernend, weichend, neben einen andern gesetzt.—Critische Grammatik, p. 599, 1827. In every such instance there is some other word joined which gives to the combined expression the sense of separation; as ‘‘ desolate from a house,”’ i.e. without a house, ‘‘ peace from strife,” that is, without strife. The absence of any exception elsewhere justifies us in saying that the present case is not one. The preposition does not mean without when used thus absolutely. If the words be rendered with the proper meaning of the preposition ‘from my flesh,’’ no one would suppose it meant without, but would take the natural sense of looking from, as from a window, or in accordance with the ancient conception of vision as proceeding from the body of the person who sees. * Languens enim (quod et nunc multi, et maximé heretici) circa mali questionem : Unde malum ?—TZertullian adv. Marcionem, i. 2, 12 The Question of Evil. [LECT.~L defect which thus originated resulted in the creation of this material world, supposed to be therefore essentially evil. But while the evil in this world was thus accounted for, the difficulty of its previous origination was leit untouched. But the doctrine of Marcion, like the ancient dualism, was thorough. He supposed that the Creator of this world, the God of the Old Testament, was a self- existing malignant being, but that there exists also a good God, who, having long lain by, wrapped up in His own all-sufficient retirement, at last interposed, through the mission of our Saviour Christ, for the deliverance of mankind, and the correction of the ills produced by His rival. However irrational this theory otherwise was, it had at any rate the merit of accounting for evil. It sur- vived or revived in the Manichzan heresy which continued long to subsist, and even lingered into the Middle Ages. Indeed I am not sure that we have not a survival of it still, in the exaggerated and exorbitant powers which some appear to ascribe to the devil. But with all these the essential evil of matter was a fundamental principle—matter either in its existence or its qualities being the work of an evil Demiurge. And the Christian Church did not escape the baneful influence of this principle, leading, as it did, to an excessive practice of ascetic mortifications. With the heretics themselves it led the worser part into “a wretchlessness of unclean living.” Unable to escape from that matter which sur- rounded them on all sides, and which they carried about with themselves, they seem to have thought they might as well make the most of an unavoidable evil, and get all the pleasure out of it which they were able. The better sort resorted to the practice of mortifications, which the Chris- HECT. “1, | The Question of Evil. 1G tians seem to have imitated, that they should not be out- done by opponents in what to the world might seem only a superabundant excellence; though no doubt they had themselves imbibed from their observation of, or former participation in, pagan impurities an extravagant feeling on their own part of the evil of material things. It is known to you all that S. Augustine passed into orthodox Christianity from the Manichwan heresy. I cannot help thinking that this had much to do with his predestinarian notions, though doubtless his controversy with the Pela- gians tended also to lead him to an opposite extreme. It seems to me as if,in modifying his former belief of a good and an evil deity, he may naturally have imported into the good some of the characteristics of the evil deity, and so, in a manner, “to form a third, have joined the other two.’* But there were some who, retaining the belief of a sole Creator, endeavoured to free him from all complicity in the origin of evil, by resorting to the Aristotelic and Stoical notion of the eternal self-existence of matter. In this two courses were pursued, against both of which Origen (or the writer of a tract which is embodied in his works, whom Eusebius calls Maximus) reasons from his own philosophic standpoint with great acuteness. While all held that matter was the source of evil, some sup- posed that this self-existent matter was originally without qualities, the work of the Creator being the imparting of qualities and the formation of the world out of the mate- rials thus provided. I need not say how contrary to all * “To the last he bore within him that which once had made him a Manichean.’’—Canon Westcott, in the Contemporary Review for June, 1879 x p. 502. 14 The Question of Evil. [LECT a: our conceptions is this notion of matter subsisting without qualities, all the tendencies of modern philosophy being to merge the substance into the more or less permanent assemblage of qualities or occasions to us of sensible phe- nomena. In fact, the only meaning of such a phrase as matter without qualities would be the as yet unrealized possibility of sensible objects. Origen meets this notion by observing that it is self-contradictory, as being without qualities is itself a quality, and by remarking that if it were conceded, it would not free the Creator from the authorship of evil, as evil itself is a quality, and by the supposition was, with other qualities, imparted by Him. The other course was to suppose the self-existent matter to have possessed qualities originally, but that the Creator, in forming the world, had altered these qualities to his own purposes. In regard to this, he observed that, evil being one of these original qualities, God must either have wilfully left this unaltered, which would still involve Him in the virtual authorship of evil, or in complicity therein; or else have left it unaltered, by reason of some impotency, which was contrary to the conception of God. This view of the eternity of matter therefore wholly failed to attain the object for which it was adopted, and even tended to establish the Divine authorship of evil, which it was designed to avoid.* * Origen, Philocalia, xxiv. The Stoics also held this doctrine of the eternity of matter, and that without qualities: ’Apxds elva: Tay SAwy dt0 7d Toiody, Kal Td) mao xo" Td uev ody mdoxov elvar Thy &mooy ovolay Thy HAny, Td dE ToLody, Toy ev avTH Adyov toy Oedv. Todrov yap byTa aldioy bia mdons avTis Snucoupyeiy éxaora.—Diog. Laert. in Zenone Cittieo, ed. H. Steph., p. 519. “ There are two original principles of all things, the active and the passive; the passive is the substance without qualities, namely matter, the active the LECT a. | Lhe Question of Evil. 15 I said that the existence of evil does not really touch the question of a Creator at all; but it does touch very closely what is of far more practical importance, the esti- mate which we form of the Divine character—whether in fact He is a beneficent and righteous Being, or a malig- nant and evil one; or, being the former, impotent to secure His own designs. We shall probably be in great measure—such as the God we believe in—at least, if his supposed character falls in with our own propensions, just as, on the other hand, men’s gods are apt to be very much like themselves—“ Thou thoughtest verily that I am such a one as thyself.” The whole value of a belief in God de- pends on the estimate we form of His nature and character. It would be better to believe in no God at all than to believe in a God whose nature and character would render the belief degrading to our own moral character and con- duct. Although the predestinarian views of S. Augustine and of many good people amongst ourselves have been so overborne by the benignity of the Christian faith, held conjointly with these views, as to render them practically inoperative, yet I cannot but think that they impute to God somewhat of the malignity ascribed by the heretics to the evil Creator of this world, and that if this doctrine was not a mere theory held in abeyance by the over-mastering power of the truth of the Gospel, it would be a belief fatal Logos (or reason) in it, namely God. For this being eternal, pervading it all, creates all things particular.”’ Seneca, in his Liber de Providentid, v. (ed. Lipsio, p. 141), having stated that God is the ordainer of fate—Scripsit quidem fata, sed sequitur. Semper paret, semel jussit (wrote the fates, but follows them ; always obeys, once ordained)—asks how then was God so uneven in the distribution of fate 2 His answer is derived from the intractability of matter—Non potest artifex mutare materiam: hec passa est: ‘“‘ The workman cannot alter the 16 The Question of Evil. Beene to true virtue and godliness. But, in fact, it has rarely been a practical doctrine pushed to the antinomian conse- quences that would naturally follow from it. It has rather been caught at as a theory to relieve the minds of devout and godly men from the pressure of the question of evil. It was not in any of these ways the early apologists of Christianity and opponents of the heretics met the diffi- culty. They found an all-sufficing answer to the question of evil in the freedom of the human will, as well as that of other fallen intelligences: man was created avTe&ovaloc, absolute master of his own actions.* And it was as good material: this has been passive.’ This last phrase corresponds with Zeno’s tr) méaxov. ‘Some things cannot be severed from certain others ; they cohere and are indivisible ; when languid and sleepy minds are tied to sluggish elements, to be a man requires a stronger fate.” Now, it may be remembered that, apart from the eternity of matter and its want of quali- ties, there is a certain truth in these words of Seneca. Matter and mind, regarded as creatures of God, are both subject of necessity to limitations. Limitation enters into the very idea of matter, and mind without limitation of capacity would be another God. If, now, to the limitations of material objects, and the varying defects of intellect and wisdom in men, we add the indeterminateness of the volitions of men endued with freedom of will, we ean see how the variations of men’s lot in life arise, and that these could only have been avoided under the same conditions by a continually repeated series of Divine interpositions, which would keep men constantly in leading- strings, and upset the whole order of nature, which we are placed here to grapple with, as the occasion of all moral, intellectual, and material pro- gress in society. We have seen that this is a partial anticipation of the views of Mr. J. Stuart Mill. | * Thus Ireneus, adv. Hereses iv. 9: Homo vero rationabilis, et secun- dum hoe similis Deo, liber inarbitrio factus et sue potestatis, ipse sibi causa est, ut aliquando quidem frumentum, aliquando autem palea fiat. “ Man being rational, and in this respect like to God, being made free in will and in his own power, is himself the cause to himself that he sometimes becomes corn, sometimes only chaff.”” And again, ch. lxxi.: Veterem legem liber- tatis hominis manifestavit, quia liberum eum Deus fecit ab initio, habentem suam potestatem, sicut et suam animam ad utendum sententia Dei volun- tarié, et non coactum a Deo. Vis enim, a Deo non fit. ‘Showed the ancient law of man’s liberty, for God made him free from the beginning, LECT. I. ] The Question of Evil. 17 and sufficient an answer as is within our reach. The ex- istence of human freedom I assume for the present, but it will form the subject of a future Lecture. To give our actions the character of righteousness, there must exist a moral sense, or faculty of discerning actions as right and wrong, whether it be original or acquired ; and there must be freedom of choice and will in respect to them. These being presupposed, for the quality of right- eousness, the right thing must be done or the wrong avoided because they are respectively right and wrong, not on account of any other motive. Human laws cannot having his own power as well as his own soul, to follow the mind of God voluntarily, and not forced by God. For God does not use force.’? Passages like these might be multiplied easily. Hippolytus, the scholar of Irenzeus, makes the following remarks :—‘O 5¢ yevouevos &vOpwros (Gov aditetovo.oy jv, odK kpxov, ov (&pxov dv, Words- worth) votv éxov, ove emivola kad étovola kad Suvduer mdvTwy Kpatody, GAA dovAov kal mdyta exov Ta evayTia: ds TE avtetovoioy imdpxelv, TH Kakdy em- yevva, x GuuBeBnkdros amroTeAotmevoy mev ovdev, edy u}) Tops. "Ev yap TO Oérew Kad voulfew tt kakdy, Td Kakdy dvoudCerat, odK dy am’ apxis, GAD’ emvyivduevoy. Ov avtetovotov dyTos, vduos br) Ocod dplCero, od udtnv’ ov yap un eixev 6 dvOpwros Th Perc kal Td mh OéAew TI, Kal vduos @pl(eTo. ‘O vomos yap adrddyw (dw odx SpicOhoeTa, GAAG Xadwds Kad udorik, avOpdmw Se evToAy Kal mpdotimoy TOD Toleiy TO MpooTETaymEevoy, Kad uy Torey. ‘* Man at his creation was a living being having himself in his own power, not dominant, having reason, not ruling all things by thought and authority, and power, but serving and haying all things opposed; who by having power over himself generates evil, nothing, however, accomplished by acci- dent if you doit not. For in willing and thinking something evil, evil has its name, not being from the beginning but superadded. As he was free, a law was ordained by God not in vain, for else he would not have been able to will or not will anything, though a law had been ordained. Fora law will not be ordained for a brute animal, but a bit and a whip; but for man a law and a recompense for doing what has been enjoined, and not doing.’’—Philosophumena, x. p. 336, ed. Miller. So also Justin Martyr :— "AAN’ ws eylywoxe Kaddv elvar yeverOat, emolnoev avtetouciovs mpds dixatompatiayv, kal ayyéAous, Kal avOpdmous. ‘As He knew it was good to be done, He made both angels and men with power over themselves C 18 The Question of Evil. [LECT. I. for the most part penetrate to the heart, and we can only in certain cases infer the motive from the act. But in the forum of conscience and before the Searcher of hearts, the motive is as essential to the virtuousness of the act as the act itself. Yet the degree and measure of the righteous- ness may still vary, though the motive and the act may be right. If we suppose an entire indifference towards any- thing apart from its being right or wrong, I think we should say that the virtue in such a case would be of the very lowest order at all consistent with the quality of virtue. In regard to such cases, the character would have for the performance of righteousness.”—Dial. cwm Tryph. p. 329 a, ed. Morell. Par. 1615. Much of the same kind exists in the other works com- monly ascribed to this Father. Tertullian has much on this question. I take the following :—Liberum et sui arbitrii et suse potestatis invenio hominem a Deo institutum, nullam magis imaginem et similitudinem Dei in illo animadvertens, quam ejusmodi status formam. Non enim facie et corporalibus lineis, tam variis in genere humano, ad uniformem Deum expressus est, sed in e& substantia quam ab ipso Deo traxit, id est anime, ad formam Dei spondentis, et arbitrii sui libertate et potestate signatus est. Hune statum ejus confirmayit etiam ipsa lex tunc a Deo posita. Non enim poneretur lex ei qui non haberet obsequium debitum legi in sua potestate. “ I find man instituted by God free, his own arbiter and in his own power, perceiving no image and likeness of God in him, more than the form of such a condition. For not in face and corporal lineaments, so various in human kind, was he expressed after the uniform God, but in that substance which he drew from God, that is, of the soul, answering to the form of God; and he was sealed with freedom and power of his own will. Of this condition of his, even the law itself then imposed by God gaye assurance. For a law would not be imposed on him who had not in his own power the obedience due to law.’’—Contra Marcionem, ii. 5. , The following is from Clement of Alexandria :— Aitixa Td ep’ fuiv éotw obmep em tons adtod re Kdpiol eouev, Kar Tod GvTiKemmevou a’TG, ws To pirogopery 7} wh, Kal Td moTeve 7 amoteiv. Aw 7 obv Td éExatépov Tay ayTiKepevov em Tons elval juas kuplous, duvardv etploxera Td ep juiv. ‘‘ The thing depending on ourselyes is just that of which we are masters, equally of itself and of its opposite, as to philosophize or not, to believe or not believe. Hence, by our being equally masters of each of the opposites, the thing LECT. 1. | The Question of Evil. 19 but little opportunity of being tested, or formed and established in righteousness. In proportion to the diffi- culty attending the performance of duty, or the strength of the temptation to do wrong, right doing rises in its measure of excellence and claims approbation. Whether it be from the nature of the circumstances, or the force of propensions or appetites, innocent in themselves but natu- rally excited by the objects to which they tend apart from all considerations of duty, it would seem that for any high order of virtue and for strengthening habits of righteousness, there must be a moral conflict, a contest depending on ourselves is found possible.’’—Stromat. iv. p. 536 a, ed. Sylburg. Paris, 1641. The next authority I shall quote is Clement’s disciple, Origen. It will suffice here to quote the following in reply to the question of the Psalm, **Who will show us any good?’’:—“Or: péev ody év mpoaiperixots éorw 4 Tay ayabay pics, Tas boTicody amodexduevos Thy mep) Kploews Adyov Gd:- ddktws buoroyhou &y. ‘That the nature of things good is in matters which we are free to choose, everybody that admits the doctrine of judg- ment would acknowledge, without being taught.’’—Philocal. xxvi. I shall hereafter have to quote more from Origen on this subject. No one could more strongly insist than he does continually on the rd é@ jyiv and the rd exovotov, as belonging to human nature. I shall conclude this catena by the following from the Octavius of Mi- nucius Felix, xxxvi.:—Nec de fato suo quisquam aut solatium captet aut excuset eventum; sit sortis fortune, mens tamen libera est; et ideo actus hominis, non dignitas judicatur. Quid enim aliud est fatum, quam quod de unoquoque nostrum Deus fatus est? qui, cum possit praescire materiam, pro meritis et qualitatibus singulorum etiam fata determinat. Ita in nobis non genitura plectitur, sed ingenii natura punitur. ‘‘ Nor from his fate let any one either catch solace or excuse the event; let his lot be what it may (Zit. let there be the lot of fortune; sortis is sometimes used as a nomina- tive), still the mind is free; hence the act of a man, not the dignity, is judged. For what is fate, but that which God has declared concerning each? As He is able to foreknow the matter, He determines also the fates of indivi- duals according to deserts and qualities. Thus in us not geniture is blamed, but the nature of the disposition is punished.’? I cannot see why the Com- mentators make a difficulty about dignitas in this passage. It plainly means one’s rank in life; afterwards.called genitwra, with reference to the fatality of the stars, his sors fortune. 9 C 20 The Question of Evit. (Leer. 5. with external difficulties, or a law in the members warring against the law of the mind. Such a law in the members has got a terrible mastery over us, as we now are. But prior to this it would seem, from its very nature, not to be subject to the law of God in itself, but only as brought into subjection to the law of the mind by the mind itself. As a law of nature, its tendency is to the satisfying its own desire, apart from any other cause. Hence I think it probable that it is not only of the carnal mind, as it exists in us fallen creatures, but as it would have existed even in unfallen man, that S. Paul says this ¢pévnua capkoe “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” that is, in and of itself; though, no doubt, he had the case of fallen men specially in view. Now, we might conceive God creating a being with a natural sense of right and wrong, and with opposing ten- dencies of appetite, but with such a natural predominance of conscience as might equal the results now attainable only by long and habitual striving with evil, and by the formation under difficulties of confirmed habits of right- eous acting. Though Butler* questions how far this might be possible, it is at least conceivable. I think the righteousness of such a person would not be of a very high order of merit. Such a constitution would in fact be equivalent to a limitation of the freedom of will, and so would detract from the excellence of the conduct that might be manifested in such a case. Or again, we might suppose such an absence of strong propensions, or such a profusion of the means and opportunities of lawfully satisfying them—such an absence of circumstances calcu- lated to test the character, or increase by habit the natural * Analogy, pt. i., ch. v., p. 91. Ed. Bp. of Killaloe RECL. Dirty Pd ey 2 c a / ee ftv altia TAEloTA THY OK EP TMLY EOTI, Kal Auets OmoAoyHGTomEV’ GY fi) yevouevav, A€yw St rev ovK ep’ Huiv, ovK by Tddé Twa Tov ep huiv empar- -, / \ Ig / cas a5 Fe: Peas cal A nr reto’ mpaTreTar de TADE TiVa THY Ed HMLY axdAovda Totade Tots mpoyevome- vois oon ep’ Hiv, evdexouévou Tod éml rots avrots mpoyevouevors Kal ErEpa, mpator map’ & mpdrrouer. ei dé Tis CnTet Td ep’ jmiv amroAcAumevoy elvat TOU naytos, bore ph did Tdde cuuBeBnkdta juiv huds aipetoOa rdde, ém- AeAnoTa Kéomov MEepos Gy, Kal eumeptexduevos avOporwv Kowwvia Kal Tov TEpLEXOVTOS. ele) The Freedom of Man. [LEG IverEL vation here made in favour of the possibility of our acting under the same circumstances differently from what our ac- tual conduct has been in the exercise of our freedom. Our probation is to use that freedom rightly under our existing circumstances, and not under any other conditions impos- sible for us. And when, in our present state of moral infirmity, due to the long-accumulating evil derived by inheritance, what we call original sin, we supply in our view of things the aids of grace, I doubt not afforded to all in the measure needed for each step to be next taken, if we will only be guided thereby, and in our own case the mighty influences of the Gospel of Christ and the abiding gift of the Divine Spirit, we may feel assured that God has not left us hopelessly to combat with evils too potent for us to over- come them. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” But observe—it is “led,” not forced or driven. Grace is not intended to force or to super- sede the action of free-will. It supplies the gentle stimulus that prompts our action without constraining. If we are guided by that first prompting of good, larger aids and fresh impulses may be relied on for our future help in the contest with evil, while the Gospel supplies, in the sense of Divine love and all its other motives of good, those consi- derations which leave to us Christians, at any rate, no such excuse or mitigation of guilt as will, I doubt not, have just weight in the Divine estimate of the culpability of those who are unhappily destitute of the blessings con- ferred on us by the faith of our Saviour Christ. *.* In the foregoing Lectures I have spoken of the risk of trans- gression unavoidably incurred in the creation of intelligent beings, possessed of freedom, innocent at first, but not hedged about with PECL, 111. The Freedom of Man. gI circumstances such as to hinder the unrestrained exercise of choice, under the opposing influences of temptation and a sense of right and duty. How in such a case the choice came to be determined on the side of ill-doing at the first must be left as part of the insoluble resi- duum which, after all discussion of the phenomena and operation of will, defies any further analysis. But in regard to this unexplained fact, it is to be considered that man is not the only created moral being. The Scriptures tell us of angels that kept not their first estate, and of innumerable hosts that have retained their integrity. And when we survey creation in its vastness, and consider how subordinate a part this world of ours fills even in our own planetary system, we may well feel convinced that nothing can be more improbable than that man stands alone in creation as a moral being. However un- suited the physical conditions of other planets may be to the existence of animal life such as known in this world, differently constituted animal life may find its fitting place under widely different conditions from those with which we are familiar. But apart from animal life spiritual intelligences may exist, such as we conceive the angels men- tioned in Holy Scripture to be. Now man, at the first beginnings of the human race, and the angels that kept not their first estate, may be reasonably supposed to have borne a very small numerical propor- tion to those in the whole creation that did not transgress. At least we are entitled to believe that they were not the greater number. It is impossible for us to estimate @ priort what was to be expected, on any such considerations of probability as we are accustomed to apply to cases within our own experience and means of observation, when we think of what we may call the outer side of that sphere of moral existence, to the interior of which our knowledge and means of obser- vation are confined. But so far as we might venture on any estimate of probability in respect to that outer side of the sphere, it may not seem very strange to us that out of a vast number possessed of free- dom some should have fallen. However, outside our experience are the prior conditions on which any such estimate of probability might be safely formed : we are accustomed to calculate probability with more or less confidence, not only from a knowledge of the conditions tend- ing to particular results, but also from observed results, when we have no knowledge whatever of such conditions. And the fact that under unknown conditions transgression has actually taken place 92 The Freedom of Man. [LECT aut may justify us in supposing that, under those unknown conditions, there was something in the very nature of the case to warrant a presumption of some degree of anterior probability that it would actually happen; for that the conditions were such as to render it possible is clear from the event. However rash it would be to lay any stress on this presumption of anterior probability, perhaps the consideration of it should not be wholly neglected in discussing the great questio mal. I do not think that the difficulties of this question are materially affected by the supposition of the evolution of intelligent and moral beings from a previous state of unreasoning and unmoral existence. If in this previous state habits were formed leading to actions which had in them no moral delinquency, because there was no sense of right and wrong, but which would be evil if a moral sense existed, we might then suppose that on such a being becoming all at once possessed of a moral sense, the acquired habits would give a pre- ponderating tendency to ill-doing ; so that this rise of the creature into the dignity of a moral being might have been his fall from a state of unmoral innocence to a state of moral delinquency. ‘This, at the first surprise, would perhaps scarcely be regarded as sin, ex- cept in the now awakened conscience, while it might have a salu- tary operation in putting the person on his guard against surprise on a subsequent occasion, or against a more deliberate transgression. But it might on the other hand have laid a foundation for future transgression, and become the source of what we are accustomed to speak of as original sin. But there are two considerations unfavourable to this supposition. One is, that in fact the habits acquired by lower animals, and even those that approach most nearly to ourselves, are not perhaps such as to have in them any decided tendency to ill-doing, if accompanied by a sense of right and wrong. Habits of violenee are mainly directed towards their natural enemies, as also are habits of artifice and concealment: the desire of acquisition is for the most part limited to the immediate supply of necessities ; and other impulses are in some respects under greater practical restraint from natural causes than even morality imposes on mankind. ‘Though the restraint is not similarly applied, yet plainly in the lower animals approaching towards ourselves there seems no opportunity of forming what with us would be dissolute habits. Be- LECT. III. | The Freedom of Man. 93 sides, we are entirely in the dark as regards all those supposed missing links in the chain between the highest of brute animals and the low- est of the human race. What seems, on the supposition of the absence of reason and a moral sense, to be the most likely source of habits being formed that would be of evil moral tendency afterwards, would be the acting continually on the impulse of the moment. But this leads tothe other consideration I referred to, namely, that the transi- tion would not have been sudden. Carried on through many genera- tions, it would have afforded room for an ever-growing influence of the reflective faculty, which would constantly tend to subdue the habit of acting on sudden impulse. We see this to some extent in children; the infant acts on mere impulse, while the gradual and in- creasing exercise of reflection brings the impulsive tendency under restraint. It is true there has not been in the infant a long-formed habit of impulsive action. But lower animals are capable of being taught self-restraint, and the growth of this, produced by the in- creasing influence of the reflecting faculty, as it grew through suc- cessive generations, might have entirely corrected the previously formed habit of acting without reflection, by the time the being could first be regarded as actually possessed of a moral nature. But the theory of evolution, by reason of that heredity on which it is so largely founded, must still have its own doctrine of original sin through all the descents of the race after a course of evil acting has once been entered on by the now-developed moral being. So long as morality is not regarded as purely arbitrary and positive, and any real dis- tinction of ought or ought not is recognized in the voluntary acts of men, the doctrine of the evolution, either of man’s nature in general, or of conscience itself, no more gets rid of original sin in theory, than universal experience allows us to deny it in fact. LECTURE IV.* THE BEING OF GOD. GENESIS, i. 1. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” [* my former Lectures the argument proceeded on the assumption, necessary for its purpose, that there is an Author of Nature—an almighty, all-wise, all-good, and righteous God, as it was my endeavour to show on the supposition that there is a God at all. I shall now en- deavour to make good that assumption in opposition to ancient and modern views of the self-existence of the ma- terial universe, and a blind necessity in the laws of nature, depending upon no intelligent cause, and issuing in the production of thought and reason, as well as of all the sensible phenomena that fall under our observation. But before I proceed, I desire to remark how unjust, as it appears to me, is the complaint frequently made in the present day, that Butler in his Analogy assumed the ex- istence of an Author of Nature as his postulate, without entering into an extended proof of this, but satisfying himself with a very brief summary of the arguments * Delivered on Sunday, February 17, 1878. LECT. IV. | The Being of God. 95 commonly relied on for its reception. Butler's conten- tion was with the English Deists, who acknowledged the existence of God; and he himself assigns, as his reason for not entering at large into the proofs of it, that “ it did not appear, so far as he could find, to be denied by the generality of those who professed themselves dissatisfied. with the proofs of religion.”* But in fact, though Butler did not profess to prove the existence of God, he went a great way towards establishing it. For the proofs of God’s existence, that prevail with the great bulk of man- kind, are not founded in ontological or metaphysical con- siderations, or on recondite and abstruse reasonings, but on those practical considerations which offer themselves to the common apprehension of ordinary people. The com- mon observation of intelligence and design in the order of the world, which no arguments to the contrary can dis- prove to the ordinary intelligence of men, the demand of man’s reason for an intelligent cause of all things, cor- responding in kind to the causation which he is conscious of in the exercise of his own reason and will, and, above all, the sense of responsibility which he finds in his own con- * Analogy, Introduction, p. 9, Ed. Bp. Fitzgerald. He says he ‘‘ takes for proved that there is an intelligent Author of Nature, and natural Governor of the world. For as there is no presumption against this prior to the proof of it; so it has been often proved with accumulated evidence; from this argument of analogy and final causes; from abstract reasonings ; from the most ancient tradition and testimony ; and from the general consent of man- kind.’? Bishop Fitzgerald’s note on this passage is as follows :—‘* The argument from final causes is an argument from analogy of this type. Cer- tain things in the structure of the world resemble the known effects of design; therefore they have a cause proportionably resembling the known designing causes which we have observed. It may be observed that ‘ the general consent of mankind’ is not a separate independent argument, but a consideration which corroborates the other arguments—a presumption in favour of their validity.”’ 96. The Being of God. [LECT. IV. science, and in the imperative feeling of obligation to a superior authority, above that of human law—all these practical grounds of belief are near to the common appre- hension of mankind. So readily do they offer themselves to the mind, that the existence of God would have been ~ doubted by few who did not dislike the belief, or were not prepossessed with some special study the subject-matter of which is unduly exalted in their imagination, but for the difficulties which arise from the existing state of the world and the ills that prevail in it at present. These have rendered some unwilling or unable to believe that a world, such as this now is, could be the work of a good, a wise, and an almighty Creator. In removing these diffi- culties in the wonderful manner in which Butler executed the task he set himself, he left the mind open to the force of those practical proofs which are ready to urge them- selves on the reason and the faith of mankind. I say faith, because in regard to this subject the intimations of reason form a legitimate basis for that faith, which, by the very conditions of our existence and the constitution of our minds, carries us of necessity in all practical matters be- yond the limits of actual demonstration, and penetrates from the seen to the unseen. Nor are our modern sceptics slow to act on this principle of faith in their own way. Thus one materialist writer* says: ‘‘ Where are we when we talk of feeling determining action? In, I maintain, the gray morning of that intel- lectual light which is still far from having reached its noonday splendour.” Here plainly faith is the substance of a hope, which for most men would in the sense intended be the extinction of all real hope and of every noble aspi- * The late Mr. Spalding, in Nature, August 2, 1877. PECTALV. The Being of God. 97 ration which animates the human breast ; and the evidence of that yet unseen time, when the stars of Divine light which gleamed amid the darkness of ancient times, and drew up the thoughts and held up the heads of men under all the debasements of ancient superstition and wicked- ness, are to be finally quenched in the predicted noonday splendour of the intellectual light of material intelligence. As an eminent foreign naturalist whom I shall mention again has recently said: “ Generally a difference is only made between objective and subjective knowledge, but there is a certain intermediate part—I mean belief—which also exists in Science, with this difference only—that here it is applied to other things than in the case of religious belief.”* What else but faith is the belief of one that “all the organic beings which have ever lived upon this earth may have descended from one primordial form,” because “‘in all, as far as at present known, the germinal * Address delivered at Munich by Prof. Rudolf Virchow, of Berlin, be- fore the German Association.—See Nature of December 6, 1877. I extract a few sentences in continuation of that quoted above: —‘‘ It is somewhat un- fortunate, in my opinion, that the expression ‘belief’ has been so completely monopolized by the Church that we can hardly apply it to any secular object without being misunderstood. In reality, there is a certain domain of belief even in science in which the single worker no longer undertakes to prove what is transmitted to him as true, but where he instructs himself merely by means of tradition, just what we have in the Church. I would like to remark, on the contrary—and my conception has not been contradicted by the Church—that it is not belief alone that is taught in the Church, but that even ecclesiastical dogmas have their objective and their subjective sides.” _.“In this the ecclesiastical and the scientific doctrines are alike. The cause of this is that the human mind is a simple one, and that it carries the methods which it follows in one domain finally into all the others as well.... But we must be aware at all times how far each of the directions mentioned ex- tends in the different domains.’’? After illustrating this in regard to reli- gion, he proceeds, ‘‘ All this we find again in natural science. There, too, we have the currents of the objective and the subjective doctrines.” H 98 The Being of God. [LECT. IV. vesicle is the same; so that everything starts from a com- mon origin”*? Yet here the identity is confessedly only built”on our present means of observation, limited as they are; and the phrase “as far as at present known” clearly shows what part faith has in producing this conclusion, which never perhaps can, from the nature of the case, be verified by experience. Or what else but faith is the ex- pectation expressed by another, that if it were given him to look back to the beginning of things, he should witness the evolution of living protoplasm from not-living mat- ter?+ Or what else is the supposition that matter at last begins to think, or the whole belief in the atomic consti- tution of matter, which is a good working hypothesis, but still only a belief? Phenomena are to a certain extent explained by it, but beyond that limit, and even within it, it is still but a belief. And already the belief in atoms of irreducible and indivisible solidity is fading. But a short time las elapsed since this country was startled by an eloquent exposition of atoms as possessing the potency of life. Already the atoms of that day are melting into mere force by the revival of an almost forgotten theory, but one arrived at by a sound and reasonable mental analysis. And force acting in straight lines is becoming absorbed into what are called vortex-rings. These are illustrated by wreaths of smoke; perhaps they will end in it. But they are not so substantial as smoke, which is at any rate cog- nizable by our senses; though it has performed none of the feats’ supposed to be done by the vortex-rings now believed in. If these vortex-rings are supposed to be at any time * Darwin—see Fraser’s Magazine for September, 1877, in Article, Modern Prophets. t+ Huxley, gud supra. LECT. IV. | The Leng of God. 99 of their existence open at the end like a spiral, or if they should become bent from a plane so as to overlap one another, they would form a curious revival of the Lucre- tian atoms supposed to be hooked. And it is to be remembered that when mathematics are applied to any hypothesis such as this, the mathematicians have a great deal in their power in modifying the conditions so as to make the results suit the given phenomena. And however the results may be satisfactory, it will still be only an hypothesis, possible or probable, but not certainly esta- blished, until it may be shown that no other hypothesis is possible which can explain the facts. But however satisfactory any of these suppositions may be, however they may with the aid of a large amount of faith explain the mode of material operations, they do not account for the force itself, a vortex-ring, for instance, being itself as hard to be accounted for as any of the sen- sible phenomena it is devised to explain. If anyone can persuade himself that force existing of itself and produced by nothing, blindly acting from no purpose or will, yet acting systematically and consistently with all the indi- cations of design, is a sufficient account of all existence, he must have as large a faith—as much credulity I might say—as any he is wont to charge, not merely on the more reasonable of the believers in religion, but even on the superstitious. And in fact there is a superstition con- nected with science, no less than with religion. And let us remember that the belief in God has been and is in possession, in the possession of mankind from the dawn of human history ; and that so universally as to give no small credit to the supposition that it is a divinely im- planted instinct. It is at any rate a belief that commends H 2 100 The Being of God. [LECT: IV. itself to the common intelligence of our nature. And it not only commends itself to ordinary intelligence, but has been found satisfactory to reason and intelligence of the highest order and cultivation. Moreover, it satisfies not only the rational but the emotional parts of our mental constitution, which are as real and as exacting of due satis- faction as intellect and reason itself. It has held its ground in spite of the efforts of philosophy, from the earliest days of philosophic speculation, to overthrow it, the theories of the present day being only revivals, in a dress suited to modern fashions of thought, of those which philosophy of old invented without success. It is simply a question of belief against belief. As the very eminent foreign natur- alist recently mentioned has said, in reference to equivo- cal or spontaneous generation, “If we indeed want to form an idea how the first organic being cow/d have originated by itself, nothing remains but to go back to spontaneous generation. This is clear, if I do not want to suppose a creation theory—if I do not want to believe that a special Creator existed, who took the sod of clay and blew His living breath into it; if I want to form some conception in my own way, then I must form it in the sense of genera- tio equivoca, Tertium non datur. But we have no actual proof for it.’* He has rightly divined; men do not want * Address delivered at the Munich Meeting of the German Association, by Prof. Rudolf Virchow, of Berlin, in Nature of Nov. 22 and Nov. 29, 1877. In this Address the author, claiming for science the fullest liberty in teach- ing ascertained truth, urges the importance and necessity of caution in insisting on what is as yet, at any rate, only hypothetical. The entire Address, now published separately, will repay a careful reading; I can only make a few extracts from it:—‘*I would like to adduce a few practical in- stances from the experience of natural science, how great a difference there is between what we give out as real science in the strictest sense of the word—and that larger domain, which belongs more to speculative expan- LECT. IV. | The Being of God. 101 to believe, or rather want to disbelieve in God. Now, it is hard that mankind should be asked to surrender their old-established belief for opinions, theories, or a faith which, whether acknowledged or disguised under the name of the scientific use of the imagination, goes out of the sphere of scientific knowledge, and stretches itself into the region of undemonstrated, if not undemonstrable belief. Especially is this hard when this new faith makes no pro- vision: for, no appeal to, and finds no response from, the religious emotions of mankind, which yet the men of science acknowledge to be a very real and dominating part of our nature. I may now proceed to a more special consideration of the question before us, remarking that it is these modern theories that make it necessary to travel beyond those practical evidences which seemed sufficient in Butler’s day, and to enter into a more abstract region of thought. Amongst the ancients, the Greeks and Romans more particularly, the idea of fate in some form appears to have been almost universally prevalent. It seems to have been adopted as affording some relief to men’s minds from the oppressive sense of the mysteries of human life, the seem- ing irregularities in the conditions of men, and those moral problems which forced themselves upon their at-- sion’’... ‘* We certainly should not forget, Gentlemen, that what here we express, perhaps still with a certain timid reserve, is propagated by those outside with a confidence increased a thousandfold.”... ‘‘ It is easy to say: ‘A cell consists of small particles, and these we call plastidules; plastidules, however, are composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and are endowed with a special soul; this soul is the product or the sum of the forces which the chemical atoms possess.’ Indeed, this is possible; I can- not judge of it exactly. This is one of those points which are yet unap- proachable for me; I feel there like a navigator who gets upon a shallow the extent of which he cannot guess.’’. ..“‘ The history oi our natural science 102 The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. tention, but which a debased and degrading idolatry was unable to solve. Some steeled their minds against inevit- able calamities, and gathered fortitude in coping with difficulties, by the supposition of a blind and overruling necessity which governed gods and men alike. With others, particularly the more thoughtful, it seems to have been the conception of an overruling Providence more or less distinctly recognized, of a God above the gods, a principle of reason and of justice, guiding all things, and overtaking wickedness with a late but certain nemesis. Dark and mysterious in its operation as this seemed to be, it yet afforded a basis for the morality which approved itself to the reason and moral sense of mankind, but which the current mythology only tended to overthrow. How widely this was felt may be seen from the way in which Tertullian and other early apologists urged the fact that, when the heathen expressed their hope of the success of their projects or desires, they were accustomed to say, “Tf God will,” instead of naming Jupiter or any other of their deities. Indeed, in the writings of the Stoic Seneca, the view of fate which he held approximates to the Divine ordering taught in the Bible, and so far as it goes beyond that resembled the predestination of some Christian divines. Tt extended to external events and actions, but left in- ternal freedom to the will. In this he followed the founder of his school, Zeno of Cittium, who described has numerous examples, which ought always to cause us more and more to confine the validity of our doctrines in the most stringent manner to that domain only in which we can actually prove them, and that we do not, by way of induction, proceed so far as to extend doctrines immeasurably which’ have been only proved for one or several cases. Nowhere the necessity of such a restriction has become more apparent than on the field of the theory of evolution.’’ a UJ — eee eee eee oe LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 103 God as “a living Being, immortal, reasonable, perfect, or intelligent ; in a state of happiness, unreceptive of all evil, exercising providence over the world, and all things in it, not having human form, the Creator and Father of all.”* Amongst the Greeks, one of the names of fate was expressive of dividing to each his lot, which at least did not exclude the idea of justice in the distribution.t Another name, aioa, from the same root as the word for praise, and akin to the Latin aio, I say, like the Latin fatwm, implied the utterance and decree of a living person. This doctrine seems to have been the saving element of Greek and Roman religion in ancient times. But it is not with this high, and in some measure even holy aspect of fate, which by the very idea of nemesis connected with it implied the ireedom of the human will, that Iam concerned, but with that other conception of a blind unreasoning necessity supposed to have bound all things by an absolute and irreversible decree, an impersonal decree, self-existing, issuing from no authority, and expressive of no will. Over against this notion, as its extreme opposite, but practically equivalent to it, was the Epicurean doctrine which supposed all things, gods and men, and the world at large, to have originated in atoms acting spontaneously. But spontaneously must in this case mean fortuitously. For though the atoms were then as now supposed to have their proper qualities, yet their concourse and disposition must have been fortuitous ; as Lucretius describes them in * @cdy 5é elvar Gov AOdvatov, AoyiKdv, TéAELOV, 7) voepdy, ev evdaimovia, Kakod mayTos avemidexTov, mpovontixdy Kdcmou Te Kal TOY ev Kdguw wh elvat wey tor avOpwrduoppov’ eivar Se Toy wev Snurouvpydy Tov dAwy, domwep kal matépa mévtwy.—Diogenes Laertius, Zeno, pp. 527-8. Ed. Casaubon. + Eluapuévn, from pelpoucu, to divide, whence also woipa. Another name for fate, wempwuévn, is a form of the verb répw, to contrive or provide. 104 The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. their descent through space by their own weight, turning aside a little from time to time, and so getting hooked on one to another. Now, it is here to be laid down, as what will I think be readily perceived on a little reflection, that between a blind unreasoning necessity and the most per- fect fortuitousness, there is really no practical, I may say no essential, difference except in words. The necessity itself, resulting by the supposition from no prior reason, no ordaining will, must exist fortuitously, and so must all its issues be fortuitous, both collectively and individually, rigid as their sequence may have appeared to be. The very idea of necessity which is not logical or mathematical is that of an ordinance imposed on things by a higher power. If that be excluded the term is self-contradictory, and merges in its opposite fortuity.* Both are only dit- ferent ways of saying that things are as they are, because they are so. The forces of the material atoms must have existed in this way fortuitously, and their continued exist- * Perhaps it was some obscure perception of this that made the Octavius of Minucius Felix seem to use an apparently inconsistent manner of speak- ing in the passage quoted in p.19. Though the sortis fortune there men- tioned was, no doubt, said in reference to the astrological determination of each man’s lot, like the Greek 6 kAfjpos ris toxns, yet there is plainly a certain fortuitousness implied in both expressions. And this is more pro- bable, as Cacilius had set out with the Epicurean doctrine of chance, and this seems to be the reply to that. Fatwm would in this case be its equiva- lent, a blind unreasoning fate or necessity. But Octavius goes on to describe the true meaning of the word to be quod Deus fatus est, the divine predesti- nation being founded on’ the foreknowledge of men’s deserts and disposi- tions, as in the Arminian view of predestination. Alexander of Aphrodisias (Eusebius, Prep. Evang. vi. 17), thus speaks of destiny :— “In what class of efficient causes should we place destiny ? Is it amongst things done for no purpose, or is that wholly unreasonable? For we always use the name of destiny in the case of some end, saying that it has been accomplished in accordance with destiny. Wherefore we must place destiny amongst the things done for some purpose.’? *Ey tly T@v momnTiK@Y airlov xph TiWévar Thy eiuapuéevnv; apd ye ev Tols ovdevds ryiryvomevols LECT. IV. | The Being of God. 105 ence and uniform operation in the future must be fortuitous also. “What fortuitously exists, or exists bya blind neces- sity, may fortuitously cease to exist, or cease by a blind ne- cessity also, which in fact means the same. Such a system affords no certainty of continuance or future uniformity. Tt has been acutely shown by Mozley, on a like occasion to the present in another University, that no amount of past experience by itself gives any certainty that the like will happen again ; and Hume is quoted in support of this position, which so far 1s perfectly true. But I cannot agree with that able and now lamented writer that our belief in continuity, and so all our estimates of probability in regard to the future, are wholly “without a reason,” and to be referred to one of those “irrational departments a which, he says, our nature constitutionally contains ; according to which view the foundation of all natural science and of our whole conduct in life would be irra- tional, and the science and conduct itself in like manner.* xdpw; } TodTo wey wayTdmacw troyoy ; aed yap eml Tédous TWds TH THS eiuapuevns dvduate xpoucba, cad’ eiuapuevny Te avTd A€yovTes ryeryovevat 31d ev Tors éverd, Tov yivomevors avaryKaiov Tidevat Thy eimapmerny. * Bampton Lecture, Lect. ii., pp. 39-46. Butler was not insensible of the fact that some explanation is required in reference to the grounds of our belief in probability. Having set out in the Introduction to the Analogy with a statement of the nature of probable evidence, and the dis- tinction between probable and demonstrative evidence, he says that what “constitutes probability is expressed in the word likely, i.e. like some truth or true event; like it, in itself, in its evidence, or in some more or fewer of its circumstances.” Having exemplified and made some applications of this remark, he says: ‘‘It is not my design to inquire further into the nature, the foundation, and measure of probability ; or whence it proceeds that likeness should beget that presumption, opinion, or full conviction, which the human mind is formed to receive from it, and which it does necessarily produce in everyone; or to guard against the errors to which reasoning from analogy is liable. This belongs to the subject of logic, and is a part of that subject which has not yet been thoroughly considered’’—pp. 8, 9 Bp. Fitzgerald’s edition. 106 The Beng of God. [LECT. IV. I propose, therefore, to discuss this question a little more particularly, as essential to my present argument. ‘The principle that whatever is will continue to be unless some- thing extrinsic causes a change must be valid backwards as well as forwards; the existing state, if not locked in a rigid, unvarying, and perpetual identity with the past, must have had its cause as well as any future alteration of that state. Ifthe existing state is by a blind necessity, which is as I have said equivalent to being purely fortui- tous, there is no reason why another state may not arise in the same way. We are accustomed indeed to regard as axiomatic the first law of inertia, that a body at rest will remain at rest unless 1t is moved by some extrinsic force. But it can scarcely be regarded as axiomatic on the supposition I have been considering. ‘The second law, that a body in motion will continue to move uniformly until it is affected by some other force is, I think, on no supposition axiomatic. Motion itself appears to be a state of continuous change, which might seem to demand a cause continually renewed. It would otherwise seem as if a finite cause producing the first movement were capable of producing an infinite effect. But not to insist on this point, the law in question appears to be an inference from observed facts, facts that never in our experience practi- cally verify the inference completely, but only tend to its verification in a way that can leave no doubt on the mind. It has all the appearance of an imposed law. Hence it is that Newton and most writers on this subject explain the law, and prove it not by abstract reasoning, but by point- ing out the observed facts from which the law is derived as an inference.* ‘These laws are only particular cases of * Newton's First Law is thus stated: Corpus omne perseverare in statu LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 107 that general continuance on which we all rely. If the con- tinuance already observed or inferred has been by a blind necessity, as all the forces of nature are on the atheistic hypothesis, or by a fortuitousness which we have shown to be the equivalent of a blind necessity, these may at any time operate to a discontinuance also. It is true we can- not help relying on continuance, and believing that things will be and happen as they have done in time passed, and we cannot help acting on that belief. But it cannot be justified to reason on any ground ot fortuitousness or blind necessity. It can be justified to reason, and can be only justified to reason, on the supposition of a presiding reason, an intelligent purpose and ordaining will. That gives a guarantee for continuance. We know in ourselves what constitutes purpose and design ; that it is the act of mind, that it has respect to the future, and to the best of its ability effectuates its own end. The higher the reason and intelligence, the more definite and fixed are our own purposes, the less likely to be altered or abandoned. Our whole arguing from probabilities and anticipation of the future, in regard to the conduct of one another, is founded on the supposition of that purpose and design, whether expressed in words or implied in actions, which we find in suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare. This is then justified by the ob- served facts, as follows: Projectilia perseverant in motibus suis, nisi quatenus a resistentia aeris retardantur, et vi gravitatis impelluntur deorsum. Tro- chus, cujus partes coherendo perpetuo retrahunt sese a motibus rectilineis, non cessat rotari, nisi quatenus ab aere retardatur. Majora autem Plane- tarum et Cometarum corpora motus suos et progressivos et circulares in spatiis minus resistentibus factos conservant diutius. Principia, p. 12, ed. 1714. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, Astronomy and General Phy- sics, ix. x. xi. considers the Mechanical Laws in general, as Gravitation and the Laws of Motion, to be not necessary but imposed, and enters at some length into the reasons for thus thinking. 108 | The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. ourselves and infer by parity to exist in others. In like manner, our whole dependence on the uniformity of nature in accordance with the so-called laws of nature, our whole reliance on their constancy for the future, has its only rational ground, its only justification to reason, in the be- ' lief of the purpose and design of a far higher intelligence than ours, an infinitely more far-seeing providence than any we find in ourselves, but of the same kind as, or at least analogous to, that which exists in ourselves as think- ing beings. In regard to such a Being, the uniformity of past operation, where all seems meant for our guidance, becomes a reasonable ground of security—a sufficient guarantee that He will continue to act as He has done as long as it pleases Him that this whole present state should continue to exist at all, except in those rare cases in which a sufficient cause for deviation might arise, where the reasonableness of the occasion and the manifest exception- ality of the deviation would only prove more strongly the ordinary uniformity of the rule. Whether, therefore, our anticipation of future uniformity and constancy be an in- stinct of our nature or the instantaneous and unconsciously acquired conclusion of reason, it alike finds its reasonable justification in this way. If it be the result of a process of reasoning so rapid as to be unnoticed in consciousness, the reasoning is thus made good. Ifitbe a natural instinct, as I think it probably is, that instinct is thus only an anti- cipation, beneficent in its operation, of what is afterwards found to be a conclusion of reason, just as in lower animals it is a substitute for such a conclusion. And whether re- cognized or not as a conclusion of reason, it is thus corre- lated with design and purpose in the Creator; and the fact that we have such a fundamental instinct is then to us a reasonable warrant for believing that it was intended = LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 109 for our guidance in connexion with the uniformity of operation manifested in the world, under the purpose of One above all caprice, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. It may be questioned whether the words necessary or fortuitous can properly be applied to the simple existence of any Being supposed to have existed from all eternity. Prior to the supposition of all existence, we can see no reason why anything should have existed at all; and on the supposition of anything existing from eternity, there never was any opportunity for its alternative of non- existence; and, consequently, either term seems to me to be predicated improperly of a Being so existing. Such an existence can only be called necessary so far as that there never was an opportunity or occasion of its possibly not being. Existence in some form however is a given fact, and eternal existence of some kind is an unavoidable conclusion from actual existence. Our choice is then prac- tically* between God and a blind, unintelligent, senseless matter existing from all eternity. In the case of this latter supposition, if we cannot properly use the term necessary or fortuitous of its eternal existence, the same is not the case in regard to the successive sequences of the operations or events following. Taking place by a blind necessity equivalent to fortuitousness they give no reason- able guarantee of continuity. In the case of the belief in God, we introduce into our view a reason, purpose, and will which afford the highest ground for uniformity and continued order in the universe. It is no longer a con- * I say practically, because in fact there has existed a third belief, now I suppose nearly, if not universally, abandoned—namely, that of an eternal God and the eternal independent existence of matter. 110 The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. tradiction to our own intelligence. We find a sufficient cause of all causes, apart from which our whole know- ledge of the forces of nature is of mere antecedents and consequents, at best of causes caused, and not of causes causing, if that can be called a cause at all, the necessity of whose operation being blind and without a reason, can only be regarded as accidental, however uniform it has appeared to be in its operation. By the supposition of an eternal Being such as we call God, we satisfy our reason- able demands for an ultimate and sufficient cause, the source of all derivative causation—we supply a basis for the uniformity of its operation, and the conformity of the future to the past, a basis founded in the very nature of reason and intelligence, judging by the only means of judging which we possesss, namely, our own reason and intelligence; though that must be in God the result of immediate intuition, which in us is derived from a slow process of reasoning, and His wisdom casts the shade of folly on the highest attainments of wisdom in us. And as caprice and fickleness and acting without a settled purpose are in us contrary to all reason, so in attributing the highest reason to God we attribute to Him that fixity of purpose which makes the uniformity of nature and of the operation of the laws of nature to be no longer a fortuitousness to which we are obliged to attribute constancy without a reason, but a certainty founded in the highest reason. I said that I thought the word necessary was inapplicable to existence from all eternity; and if in reference to this it should be asked, what reasonable guarantee have we of the continued existence of God? I should answer that just in the same way the word fortuitous is inapplicable to God’s existence. That which existed from eternity could ——— ee LECT. Iv. ] The Being of God. III not have existed by chance. There is nothing, therefore, to suggest the extravagant supposition of His ceasing to exist by chance. Still more extravagant would be the supposition of His ceasing by the only other conceivable cause, namely, His own will. But ifso extravagant a sup- position as either were to be entertained, according to all just conceptions of Him “in whom we live and move, and have our being,” such an event would involve the simul- taneous collapse of all other existence also, a catastrophe of which none would be the wiser. There would be no voice to utter the cry, “Great Pan is dead!” I only men- tion these extravagances lest I might seem to have over- looked a flaw in my argument, as it might appear to be if I had not adverted to it. We can only conceive a thing eternally existing in- dependently of something else eternally existing as its cause, as an ultimate fact. In supposing the eternal existence of dead, insensate, and unreasoning matter, prior to or independent of thought, we are assuming the existence of that of which we cannot by any possibility know anything whatever. Of matter as a thing in itself, or as anything beyond the phenomena we are conscious of in sensation and thought, we know nothing, except that we reasonably infer an extrinsic cause or occasion of our sensations, presented or represented in mind and thought. What that is apart from mind is wholly and absolutely beyond our power of guessing. In assuming, therefore, the eternal existence of this matter, as the cause not only of our sensations but of mind itself, we assume the wholly and absolutely unknown. In assuming an eternal self-existing mind as the necessarily required cause, we assume that of which, in kind at least, we do know much, and which I12 The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. embraces in itself all we know of anything else whatever. It is true we do not know mind as an object of sense ; that it cannot be, from its very nature. But we know it and its operations in consciousness, in which alone we know even the objects of sense, which are so often talked of as the known, whereas they are wholly unknown beyond the sensations of which we are conscious in our own minds. Our mind can represent in memory the presentations of sense, and that at times with all the vividness of reality belonging to the original sensation. We can present these to others also in varied combinations, giving them at times almost the vividness of reality to other minds also. In this we have an approximation, remote no doubt, but still an ap- proximation, which enables us to conceive how the Su- preme mind may present sensations to our own minds. Hence we are accustomed to speak of the products of fancy and imagination, of the works of the poet, or of any of the performances of genius in art, as creations. In assuming, therefore, as we must, an extrinsic eternal cause of} our existence, and of the sensations which are all we know of anything outside ourselves, we are making a much more reasonable and philosophic assumption, just because we do not travel out of the region of the known into that of the wholly and absolutely unknown, beyond what analogy suggests. It is the part of true philosophy to justify to reason the practical instincts and conclusions of mankind, .for the purposes of life in its nobler sphere of thought, and in its intuitions of morality. For this it does make a great difference—that men should have a generous and elevating belief, not one which reduces the sense of right to an irresponsible calculation of prudence, a belief which invests us with a sense of freedom to be controlled by a LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 113 sense of right, not one which reduces us to a mere mecha- nism which leaves no room for morality at all, and will surely in the end extinguish all morality if this should ever become a popular belief, as soon as time has allowed the remnants of old religious belief to be gradually but thoroughly worked off. I may here remark that this University, in the person of one of its greatest members, has given to the world a good, rational, and to many minds satisfactory account of the sensible world and its existence, from the side of mind, and thought, and God. The philosophy of this explana- tion, with certain modifications but still in its fundamen- tal principles, is now the prevailing philosophy in the Schools of metaphysics, and is not questioned even by many of the Materialists of the present day, however strange the inconsistency may appear. ‘This philosophy has the merit of going outside and taking up into itself all that its opponents, from Reidto Hamilton, have alleged against it. Would that in accepting the philosophy men had not rejected the Theism, to which it directly leads us up for the causation of that whole system of presentation in sense that constitutes the sensible world as known, and only known, to us in thought, without which it is only a system of universal scepticism, as it was made to appear in the hands of Hume. On the other hand, no scheme has been offered or, as we may confidently aver, can possibly be offered, which will explain the phenomena of mind and thought from the side of matter. While all we know of matter is in terms of thought, no observation or analysis can ever enable us to resolve the phenomena of mind and thought into functions of matter, or to con- ceive them as such, matter being regarded as something I 114 The Beng of God. [LECT. IV. subsisting apart from and independent of mind, as it ap- pears transferred into an external world. In this one fact the Theistic side of the argument has a great and pre- eminent advantage over the Atheistic or so-called material. Between the theory of Berkeley, which makes our sen- sations a direct presentation to the mind from God, and the gross view according to which our sensations are trans- ferred into external subsistences, whether in their entirety or in the form of what are called primary qualities, stands the Kantian doctrine of the unknown “ thing in itself,” as the source of our mental perceptions of phenomena. It strikes me that the resolution of matter into localized force or energy affords a possible basis of reconciliation between the views of Berkeley and Kant. When I use here the word /ocalized, I speak in accordance with that translation of our sensations into space, which in accord- ance not only with Berkeley’s view, but with Kant’s own theory, is by the constitution of our minds the form in which they are intuited by us. This resolution of matter into localized force affords, on the one hand, a sufficient satisfaction to our natural instinct of belief in an external world, distinct alike from our own minds and from God. On the other hand, force being, properly speaking, only action, and energy the potency of action, and both alike pointing naturally to an agent, we can thus bring in the constant operation of God, without rejecting the notion of some kind of interntediary between God and our own minds. Such an uniform system of operation in space, whatever our conception of space may be, will constitute a world extrinsic to individual minds regarded as separate in space, whatever the nature of that separation may be: though separate in space, on any view of space, it cannot i i i i - LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 164 be from Him whose omnipresence can know no such separation.* In reference to the remarks just made, I may observe that Mr. Lewes in his recent work, The Physical Basis of Mind,t observes in his Preface, that ‘‘ Materialism, in at- tempting to deduce the mental from the physical, puts into the conclusion what the very terms have excluded from the premisses; whereas, on the hypothesis of a phy- sical process being only the objective aspect of a mental process, the attempt to interpret the one by the other 1s as legitimate as the solution of a geometrical problem by algebra.” He supposes them to be only “the two faces of one and the same reality.”’ On this I have merely to remark, that the objective aspect is only known to us as a * According to the views of Berkeley, the permanent thing in itself is the idea in the Divine mind; the phenomenal object of sense, a direct pre- sentation by the Divine Being to our minds, which at the same time is a representation of the idea in the Divine mind. According to Kant, the phenomenal object is a representation of an unknown thing in itself, not viewed as an idea of the Divine mind, but having a permanent existence extrinsic to our minds, but of which space is not an attribute. If spatial relations are not attributes of the thing in itself, the question where it exists cannot be asked, using the word where in relation to place. Extrinsic i therefore, a more correct word to use than external, when we speak of the thing in itself as existing outside our own minds. A constant action of Divine power, according to fixed and definite modes of operation, constituting the basis of what we call nature—an action which on the one hand realizes the Divine idea, and on the other produces in us the phenomena of a sen- sible world intuited under the forms of time and space, though intermediate and permanently intermediate between the Divine idea and our sensation, can only properly be regarded as localized, by transferring to it in our con- ception the forms under which its effects in our own minds are perceived. But the phenomenal world being that with which we are conversant, man- kind will always use language corresponding to their sensations. As Lacy- des said, when non-plussed by his servants: 4AAws radTa, @ waides, ev Tats SiatpiBats Aéyerat Nuiv, UAAws de (uev.—See apud Kuseb. Prep. Evang. xiv. 7. t Page 9. 116 The Being of God. [LECT ane function of the subjective and mental. And no analysis of our subjective sensations and perceptions can ever carry us outside the subjective, except as it carries us to the conception of a cause, which our own consciousness tells us we have not in ourselves; though it does tell us that we have something in ourselves analogous to that external causation, which in the absence of any knowledge or even conception of anything else in kind, we may, and indeed must, reasonably suppose to be the same in kind as that of which we are alone aware.* Amongst the proofs of a Divine Creator heretofore re- lied on, the argument from final causes had great weight ; and it seemed unanswerable, until it had in the estimation of many received a rude shock, at least in the form in which it had been expounded, from modern notions of evolution and development. The indications of special provision for the particular wants, and of mutual adaptation amongst the various parts of creation for the general advantage, more especially of living beings, seemed at last to be accounted for by the mutual interaction of things and a process of natural selection and survival of the fittest. I have already endeavoured, in the course of these Lectures, to point out that this does not vitiate the argument. It * Kant’s Refutation of Idealism, directed mainly against Berkeley, Critique, p. 166, Ed. Bohn, is, as Kuno Fischer justly remarks, really no refutation at all. ‘* His whole demonstration comes to this—that it is only the exist- ence of things without us which renders possible the perception of ourselves. As if, in the true spirit of the Critic, things without us could be anything else than things in space—as if space could be anything else than our re- presentation—as if things without us could be anything but our spatial re- presentations! This is no refutation of Berkeley, but merely a flat denial of Idealism, by which Kant abandoned his own teaching in the most incon- ceivable manner.’’—Kuno Fischer’s Commentary on Kant’s Critick, trans- lated by Mr. Mahaffy, p. 132. Itis right, however, to add Mr. Mahaffy’s — (ECT. IV. | The Being of God. 117 only substitutes for a series of several and particular pro- visions a wider and more comprehensive design, embodied in the potency of primordial creatures, and carried into effect by the foreseen and intended development of that potency into results, which could not have followed if the original constitution had not been such as to provide for them. The variations which become available for selection " cannot justly be called sports, as a recent writer designates them, not apparently using the word in sport, though qualifying it by the subsequent explanation of “ quasi spontaneous action of the organism.”* Every physical variation must have had its proper antecedents or causes in the preceding terms of the series, and it is a mere beg- ging of the question to assert that these antecedents car- ried back to the primordial state were not designed. ‘'o suggest that there was anything in them accidental or fortuitous even in sport, by the use of phrases such as I have named, is manifestly unfair. All turning out as we soe for the manifest welfare and improvement of the crea- ture, and plainly not being fortuitous, we are justified in claiming them as indications of a design grander and more comprehensive, more expressive of Divine wisdom, perhaps, than any of the previous conceptions of Divine provision in the constitution of the world. note to this remark of Fischer: ‘‘ Kant probably meant nothing more than this—that the representation of permanent phenomena in space is logically antecedent to the representation of myself as a phenomenon determined in time. Hence, the non-critical Idealists have been euilty of a dorepov m™po- repoy, and to imagine the external world necessarily presupposes our having perceived it.’”? But then the externality, so far as it is spatial, is by Kant’s doctrine supplied by the mind itself in the intuition which is the subject- matter of the perception. See further on the whole. of this subject the note (1) appended to this Lecture. * Prof. Clifford, in the Nineteenth Century, for October, 1877, Article, “ (osmie Emotion.”’ 118 The Being of God. [ LECT. IV. Amongst the instances of provision and adaptation that are observable, there is one which does not seem to me, perhaps in my ignorance, to have received due considera- tion, and which I am the more ready to insist on, as it is anterior to any development or evolution of living things, and unaffected by any views we may entertain in respect to these. It seems to me to verify in a striking manner the often-quoted words of the author of the Wisdom of Solomon, xi. 24, “Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight.” This our world, and perhaps so far as observation enables us to judge or analogy to suppose, the other parts of the universe, viewed comprehensively, do not consist of elementary substances existing apart in their separate state, but of compounds, reducible no doubt to a compara- tively small number of simple elements, but only reducible by the analysis of the chemist. These compounds have all the appearance of having been made, while the elements of which they are composed do not enter into composition with one another indiscriminately, nor in any indefinite, but in fixed proportions. Yet all these seem to fit into their several places with a wonderful mutual adaptation both in quantity and quality, without leaving any large unused residue or superfluous store to be drawn on for future occasions. Their qualities are not variable, and their quantity is fixed. ,If there is no deficiency, there is like- wise no superfluity. Perhaps the only apparent exception to this statement of any significance is to be found in our atmosphere.* The components of this are not combined * The water of the ocean is no exception. It holds about a twenty-first part of its weight of compound salts. Any other matters contained in it, such as iodine and bromine, are of comparatively infinitesimal amount, and serve the uses of organisms existing in the sea. LECT. IV. | The Being of God. 119 sn the form of a fixed chemical compound; but neither are they so loosely united as that the heavier should sub- side and the lighter rise, as other gaseous substances like carbonic acid do when casually mixed in the atmosphere. The proportions of its components, though not those of exact chemical combination, are fixed in their amount, and pretty uniform everywhere. If it serves as a store of elementary matter for general use, this is not stored tor consumption without being restored again, so as that the quantities should be maintained in such proportion as alone fits the atmosphere for the uses it serves. This, therefore, is only an apparent and not a real exception, as far as the present argument 1s concerned, and seems rather to favour design. There is only one elementary gaseous substance light enough to float aloft on the out- side of our atmosphere, as it possibly does in that of the sun, where its existence is analogous to the elements in our atmosphere. In this latter case the conditions are altogether different, and we have no knowledge of a stra- tum of hydrogen above our atmosphere.* But few other substances are found in their simple state, and these are of comparatively insignificant quantity—such as a few diamonds and a little gold and silver, only used appa- rently by man for his own purposes, but not serving any known purpose in the general economy of nature. The carbon which exists in a somewhat pure state, and in larger amount, in the form of coal, is not an original part of our globe, but has been produced in nature’s laboratory from the remains of previously-existing organic * At the meeting of the British Association in 1878 it was suggested that above the atmosphere there might be a store of carbonic acid in some atten- uated form. This, however, would be compound, 120 Lhe Being of God. [LECT. Iv. compounds. Any other substances naturally existing in their elementary state are so rare as to find a place in the museums of the curious—at any rate, not in quan- tities to bear any proportion to the great bulk of the earth.* They are either things that do not readily combine with others, or small residues, which piety might have regarded as specially provided for the use of mankind. The main constituents of the world are therefore, as I have said, compound substances already made, or being made by the mutual interaction of previously-existing com- pounds. In the interchange of elements which thus takes place, the elements are not first separated in bulk and then re-combined, but each element is separated atom by atom, and finds its place again in the new compound without deficiency and without waste, and with a seeming nicety of calculation as to quantity and quality, which justly excites our wonder and admiration. Now, if the world originally consisted of these compounds—already made as they must then have been—made up of elements not previously existing apart in their separate elementary state, it would seem to give a great shock to reason to allege that they existed thus eternally. If not the same compounds that now exist by mutual interaction, they still were ready-made articles and self-existing compounds, the elements of which have yet all the appearance of having been nicely calculated in weight and measure, and care- fully adapted in quality for the production of such com- * Native sulphur is partly of volcanic origin, probably set free in the pro- cess of eruption. The deposits of sulphur found in some secondary strata may have been in like manner set free from a compound state. At any rate, their extent seems extremely inconsiderable as compared with the bulk of the earth. LECT. IV. | The Being of God. 121 pounds. Or if we suppose that, prior to the existence of such compounds, the elements existed in an uncompounded state, mixed promiscuously, whether in bulk or as a multi- tude of loose atoms, which afterwards found their places by their relative attractions or repulsions, and varying affinities, we have still to face their marvellous mutual adaptation in number of atoms or quantity of separate elements, and in their respective qualities. For this made them capable of forming compounds in definite proportions and of various degrees of stability, without waste or super- fluous residue—such compounds as this world has consisted of in every period to which we can trace its existence back. If it should be thought that elementary substances exist in the sun in an uncompounded state under the influence of great heat, it would be contrary to all analogy to sup- pose that they exist im proportions unsuited to the for- mation of stable compounds under the process of the cooling that is doubtless going on. Whether some such mixture as I have spoken of exists in fusion in the centre of the earth is a matter we know but little of. The igneous rocks that have been ejected are compounds of elementary substances or aggregates of compounds. The only pure elementary solid substance that to any extent is known to issue from these lower regions is a little brimstone. Of gaseous substances, the only one that would fly aloft and be unobserved is hy- drogen, already mentioned. Other elementary gaseous substances would lie low, and, if produced, soon find their place in some combination with other things. In all this I think we can perceive a creative foresight wisely calcu- lating results, and preparing elements in due proportion and of suitable quality, the belief of which foresight 1s i 122 Lhe Being of God. [LECT Mem borne in upon our minds in a way that we cannot avoid without doing violence to reason.* Whatever defects of scientific knowledge I have betrayed in stating this argu- ment, I believe for the purpose of the argument I have been sufficiently exact. It is an argument derived from the very framework of the material world that could not have been insisted on before the discovery that the rocks and ribs of the world, its fluids, and its gaseous substances are not, comprehensively speaking, simple elements, but chemical, or quasi-chemical compounds, the elements of which being only known by analysis, were long undis- covered. And it has the advantage of being prior to all considerations of evolution or development, which could only have followed some primordial state, in which the compounds existed as ready-made articles, or made out of previously-existing elements, nicely adjusted in quantity and quality for their producing the compounds in which they are only found. Nor would our view of this adjust- ment be altered by supposing that the particles of matter were originally identical in their nature, deriving their several qualities from a subsequent evolution. Whether as something like the ancients’ matter without quality sup- posed to have existed from eternity, or as matter having some original identical character, the supposition of the attainment of such varying qualities as the elementary atoms came afterwards to possess, without some primitive causative design, seems to me as great a violence to reason as any that could be imagined, to say nothing of the gra- * Compare Philo, apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. vii. 21. ’Eoroxdoaro mpds Thy Tod Kdopou yeveow 6 Oeds adtapkertdrns bAns, ds wht’ evdéo1 whe bwep- Barro. ‘God estimated for the creation of the world most sufficing material, so that there should be neither deficiency nor excess.’? The whole passage is worth reading. LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 123 tuitousness of the hypothesis of an original identity of quality beyond the faintest indications. If all be resolv- able into such a condition, it remains to ask, What first started this identity into a course of such wonderful and consistent variety? And if, being once started on the course of variation, the rest was left to natural selection, we may ask, What has become of the unselected varieties ? For they could not perish like organisms, and organisms ave for the most part supplied from compounds.* What is commonly called Pantheism is far from being a single or definite conception, but 1s presented in different phases. At the lowest extremity of the scale is the applica- tion of the name of God to the sum of all particular exist- ences, material and mental. This was common in ancient attempts to give some rational significance to pagan my- thology.t ‘To call the aggregate of things by the name of God is, however, only to use a good name, without the slightest shade of propriety, to escape the odium that attends the open profession of Atheism. But at the top of the scale the notion scarcely differs from the immanence of God in nature, regarded not as a work completed once for all, and left then to go on of itself, like a clock wound up, but as the effect of the constant never-ceasing opera- tion of Divine power, acting according to an uniform mode of procedure which constitutes the so-called laws of nature. Between these extremes there seem to be varying shades of opinion, according to which the power and action of a living intelligent will are more or less merged into an impersonal unintelligent power —opinions scarcely differing * See note (2) appended to this Lecture. + We may see the proofs of this in the extracts from Porphyry and others, contained in the Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius. 124 The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. from pure Atheism. Such as this is the now well-known “stream of tendencies that make for righteousness.” That there is such a stream of tendencies may be thankfully admitted. ‘That there is an opposing stream of tendencies that make for wickedness is also unhappily too true, and it is too true that men are often carried along by it. It is only the conviction that the stream which makes for righteousness flows from under the throne of the Supreme Ruler of the world, while that which makes for wickedness runs counter to His will, that can make the former etfectu- ally check the tendencies of the other. But to give the impersonal stream of tendencies itself the name of God is only a like abuse of the name to that already mentioned, in order to screen an unpopular opinion. Such an im- personal stream carries with it no authority, and cannot supply the place of God in the production of righteousness, or present an object for the religious emotions of our nature, which are on all hands acknowledged to belong to our constitution. The like may be said of the Comteist God of humanity. This as a mere abstract idea has no existence at all but in idea and a word, nor indeed does it exist even in idea, but as conceived in some particular man or men. The aggre- gate of mankind must therefore be intended. But even this has no reality except in the existing population of the earth. According to, this teaching the dead are wholly extinct, and posterity is not yet, and its predicted im- provement takes place but slowly, atid may at any time lapse again into barbarism, as it is likely to do when all thought of the living God is banished from the world, as some men hope it will be. What sort of object the existing population of the earth, or the aggregate of men in any LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 125 age of the world’s history, is or has been for our adoration st is needless for me to point out. The common run of men know themselves and their fellows too well to be ever carried away with such nonsense, whatever charm it may have for a few enthusiasts who will grasp at any shadow, if only they can banish the hated thought of a living and personal God. Again, there is the “ public opinion,” put forward as the authority to which we are amenable in re- gard to conduct, and the basis in connexion with self-love, of all conscience and sense of right and wrong in our minds, which I have already discussed.“ “ These be thy gods, O Israel!” But what does the setting up of all these strange gods betray, but the impossibility men find of getting rid of the notion of God, whether in their own minds or the minds of mankind at large? If we are not to go up to the Lord to Jerusalem, there must be calves in Bethel and in Dan. Nothing, however, will satisfy the cravings of the | human mind but a personal God. In applying the word person to God we use the term that most nearly expresses our meaning, though it must be only something analogous, but certainly not identical, with the sense in which we use +: to define circumscribed and limited intelligences, and ‘ndeed to. mark their limitation and individuality. It is only when freed from such limitations that we can apply the word to the Divine Being. But it not the less serves to mark an analogy between our sense of personality and that which corresponding thereto belongs to God. The degree in which anyone uses the word as applied to God with anthropomorphic conceptions will be in proportion to his want of intelligence or education. But the doctrine * See note (3), Appendix to this Lecture. 126 The Being of God. [LECT. IV. of the Incarnation is a great safeguard against anthropo- morphic conceptions of God as distinguished from His manifestation in Christ. That doctrine, from its very nature, severs the pre-existent divinity from the humanity in our conceptions. While it brings God near to us in the assumed humanity, and satisfies our desire to regard God in a somewhat human character, it in the same degree and at the same time withdraws the Godhead from all grosser anthropomorphic conceptions. * * (1) I said in the foregoing Lecture that the fundamental principle of Berkeley’s philosophy has the merit of going outside and taking up into itself all that can be urged against it in the way of argument. It is admitted on all hands that our sensations or feelings can have in themselves no resemblance to the so-called material causes or sources of them external or extrinsic to our minds. This 1s evident from the mere fact that they are sensations or feelings. All then that has been said in this regard of common sense and universal be- * lief, and the immediate perception of objects, can only extend to the conviction we all have that there is some permanent cause or source, or some constant conjunction of such causes or sources of our sensa- tions, external to, or rather not existing in or originating with, the mind itself. What that may be is admittedly beyond the reach of discovery by the senses or any immediate or direct means of percep- tion. The supposition of a direct and immediate presentation by the Divine Being to each individual mind of what we regard as the ex- ternal world has the merit of simplicity, as well as of introducing an adequate causation. On the other hand, it leaves the mind in per- plexity as regards its habitual persuasion of the existence of an exter- nal world, even when the individual mind is not perceptive of it. That perplexity is only partly relieved by the supposition of an unimagin- able ‘‘ thing in itself.’ This indeed supplies a hypothetical inter- mediary between God as the great agent and our mental perceptions. But if we attempt to pursue that in our thoughts, we can find no rest until we have reached the Divine Being making to us some represen- tation of His own ‘‘ eternal ideas.” In suggesting the resolution of the LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 127 supposed intermediary into a system of forces, I have been careful to point out that force is only energy except when in operation, and that it is then the operation of an agent, not a thing acting of itself; and it is only conceivable as such. The absence of some permanent inter- mediary is still the great stumbling-block in Berkeley’s theory. But if we recollect that, as he says, our sensations are the most real things, and that by the necessity of our constitution we intuite these in the form of space, and with spatial relations, this spatial form and these spatial relations are to us as real as the sensations themselves, which in this form and with these relations constitute the objects which we perceive. These, being alike for all, form thus practically for us, and really to us, what is called the external and material world. More- over, the absence of independent several substances, as distinguished from God, the universal substance on the one hand, and from the sensations perceived by ourselves on the other hand, is not so alien to the common apprehension as some might suppose. It was the philo- sophers that invented substance of this kind. As Berkeley has re- peatedly pointed out, to ordinary people not “ spoiled by philosophy” things or objects are only the several assemblages of qualities which are generally perceived in combination. Philosophers abstracted until they arrived at nothing, and that nothing they converted into an un- imaginable something, which they called substance. In connection with these remarks, the reader will peruse with inte- rest the following passage from 8. Basil’s first Homily, ‘‘ On the Six Days’ Creation.” Speaking of the earth, he says: ‘‘ Let us counsel one another not to be busy-bodies about its essence, what at all it is; nor to worry ourselves searching out by our reasonings the underlying thing itself; nor to seek some nature void of qualities, existing, by its own definition, without quality, but to know well that all the things perceived about it have been marshalled into the definition of its existence, being completory of the essence. For you will come at last to nothing, endeavouring to withdraw from the definition each of the qualities existing init. For if you remove the black, the cold, the heavy, the dense, the qualities as to taste existing in it, or if any others are perceived about it, that which underlies will be nothing.” SuuBovrdctwpev Eavrots my woAvTpayyoveiy avTijs Thy ovolay Hrs woTEe eo, unde KatarpiBecOa Tots Aoyiopots adTd Td brokelucvoy ex(nTodvTas unde (nrety Twa bow Epnuoy TmoioThTwy, kmowv imdpxKovoay THE EavTijs Adye, 128 The Being of God. [LECT. IV. BAAN eb eidévean Bri mdvTA TH Tep) adThy Oewpotmeva es Toy TOD Elva KaTaTE- rakTat Adyov, TUUTANpwTIKa THs ovolas bmdpxovTa. Eis ovdEV yap KaTaAhées Exdorny Tav eévunapxovoay adtTh woorhrwv dmetapetoOar TH AdYY TElpwMLEe= vos. day yap amoorhans Td uédav, Td Wuxpdy, Td Bapd, Td muKVdY, TAS KaTa yedow évurapxotoas avTh Tovorhtas, 7) ef tives BAAGL mepl avtTiy Aewpovy- rat, ovdéy éorat Td broreluevov.—S, Basilii, Hom. 1, in Hexaémeron, p.110C. D., Ed. Morell., Par. 1608. (2) The argument which I have ventured to derive from the chemical constitution of the world is not presented in a distinct and general form in Prout’s Bridgewater Treatise, Chemistry, &c. But it is sus- tained by a few general remarks and conclusions which he makes while pursuing the argument from design in various details. Thus, in p. 106, he states, that of the whole number of elementary bodies ‘snot above two or three exist, in any quantity, in an uncombined state, at least in those parts to which we have access ; but the whole are wrapped up, as it were, and have their properties concealed, in compounds.” Again, in p. 170, he remarks: ‘‘ If we pursue the sub- ject a step farther, and inquire into the means by which these beauti- ful adaptations we have been considering are effected, we shall find that they principally depend upon a certain due adjustment to each other of the qualities and quantities of the different substances ; and more especially, of the different elementary principles of which our globe is composed.” Into the detailed adaptations to which the author refers, it was beside my purpose to inquire, but the latter part of this quotation contains the chief premiss of my argument ; and much as chemical knowledge has been enlarged since the time of that eminent author, I do not think anything has been ascertained that militates against the argument in the form in which I have presented it. Prout insists, in p. 176, ‘‘on the general tendency of the whole to a state of repose or equilibrium.” This would probably now be set down to a process of natural selection. But the possibility of natural selection producing this result depends on the elements being given with due adjustment of quantities, qualities, and attractions. Other- wise, repose and equilibrium could not exist. Unless the several sub- stances could find their fitting match, they could not sort themselves in lasting unions; the world would be full of unmated elements and unbalanced forces. I have abstained from insisting on the adaptation of the lifeless world to the uses of living organisms, because it is now LECT. Iv. | The Being of God. 129 maintained that the living organisms have become adapted, through natural selection, to the conditions of the lifeless world. But this, at any rate, implies a capacity of mutual adaptation ; and the more we take away the design of this from the constitution of the brute material world, the more we increase the reason for believing in the exercise of design in making living organisms capable of becoming adapted to their conditions. Even if we suppose life to have been produced naturally from lifeless matter, we cannot exclude design from the creation of matter with such marvellous capacity. If we admit creation at all, we cannot exclude design ; else, we must have the credulity to believe that the whole is the result of chance. For we have above shown that brute unreasoning necessity is virtually equivalent to chance. On the other hand, the clearer are the indi- cations of design in the whole constitution of things, the greater are the probabilities, the practical proofs, that the whole is not the result of pure chance, or its equivalent, brute unreasoning necessity. If we are told that science only knows things as they are, that istrue. But science brings with it much belief, and men of science, even in the sphere of science itself, believe a great deal more than science has ascertained. (3) Apart from the fundamental sense of right or ought, as distin- guished from useful or prudent, which is the basis of the moral faculty, the doctrine of evolution as applied to morals is not a rea- sonable cause of apprehension to one who believes in God and in a creative purpose. What has been evolved under the necessary con- ditions of our existence must be regarded as forming part of the original design, and tending, as it manifestly does, to the welfare of men, is itself a practical indication of that design, and carries with it all its authority. As a matter of fact, while the recognition of the obligation of justice, veracity, and goodness, seems to be original and innate, evolution has always played a large part in determining many of the practical lines of human duty. Where it fails, as I have en- deavoured to show, is in producing the feeling of duty itself, what is called ‘‘the categorical imperative.” But even if that has been evolved also, to the Theist it commends itself as part of the original design in creation, and so carries with it Divine authority. It is for those who do not believe in God that the Theist has cause to dread this application of the doctrine of evolution. And to the non-Theist, K 130 . The Being of God. [LECT. Iv. if he cares for virtue, I think it should.be a cause of apprehension also. For it makes conduct to depend on each person’s own per- ception of utility, or else on the degree in which he chooses to be amenable to public opinion, without any prior sense of obligation. For if it is part of the hypothesis that this sense of obligation is like- wise evolved, yet the theory at the same time practically does away with it, by teaching that it is an obligation imposed by man, and not by a higher authority. That the utility of virtue, as it is commonly understood, viewed in regard to mankind in general, is to a large degree demonstrable, falls in with the Theistic view of obligation. But the person who does not perceive this utility, or prefers what he thinks useful or pleasant to himself, if he is taught that his conscience and all sense of obligation is a mere human product, is left at large to do what he likes, without the restraint of that conscience which he has learned to regard as devoid of all prior and fundamental authority. If the consideration of this fatal tendency cannot out- weigh positive proof of the theory in question, it shows where the theory fails as a foundation of virtue.. And it may reasonably lead men to pause in their generalization, and to confine the theory to those limits, within which positive proof of its truth may be found. It is admitted that evolution has determined many of the now recog- nized lines of duty. If it can be shown that it has determined them all practically, it has not, as I have tried to prove, produced the sense of duty itself. But even if it were shown that it has produced that also, the Theist would still see in this the result of Divine purpose, and find therein a Divine foundation of morality, the fitness of which in itself, or as otherwise shown, is correlated with that design. I may here quote a few words from Clement of Alexandria which, while reserving the original moral constitution of man, make pro- vision for the social evolution of duty. ‘‘ By nature God created us social and righteous. (We are not, therefore, to say that the right is shown by positive enactment only, but should understand that the good of creation is kindled up by the commandment, the soul being educated by instruction to will to choose what is best.” étce: 3’ad Kowwvikovs Kal Sixatovs 6 Oeds Huds ednurovpynoev’ dev ovde 7d Sikasoy éx pdvns dalvecOa THs Oécews Pnréov: ex Sk Tis evToARs avalwmrupeioba To THS Snuoupytas ayabdby vonréov, mabhaer madevdelons THS Wuxs eOeAcW aipetaOar Td KaAALOTOV.—Stromat. 1., p..286 C. Sylburg. LECTURE V.* MODERN VIEWS ON THE EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES IN PROOF OF DIVINE REVELATION. Sr. Jonn, v. 17. “‘ My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” | the line of argument which I have hitherto pursued in the course of these Lectures, I set out with the assumption that there is an Author of Nature, and that man was created with freedom of choice and will. I en- deavoured to account for the unhappy condition of this world in its present state, as the result of human freedom, for the imparting of which I tried to assign good and sufficient reasons. I then endeavoured to show that there was nothing in the existing state of the world, under such circumstances, inconsistent with the power and wisdom, the goodness and righteousness of God, at the same time pointing out the reasons for ascribing these attributes to the Creator. I then attempted to make good the two assumptions of man’s freedom and of an Author of Nature, with which I set out, and I made all along a comparison of ancient and modern conceptions in regard to all these subjects. I now proceed to consider the occasion arising * Delivered on Sunday, February 24, 1878. K 2 132 Modern Views on Miracles. [LECT. Vv. from the manner in which man has abused his freedom, for some communication from God over and above what may be learned from the observation of the external world, or found written in our own nature ; the manner in which alone such a communication can be guaranteed to have come from God; and the possibility or credibility of the supernatural proofs of such a communication in accord- ance with ancient and modern views on these subjects. And, as I have already intimated, whatever difficulty we may feel in accounting for God’s creation of beings en- dued with freedom, under the entire foreknowledge of its abuse, at any rate our belief in God’s goodness naturally suggests to us the reasonableness of expecting that He should communicate to us some remedy for ills we have brought on ourselves through the misuse of the freedom bestowed upon us. The words of our Lord which I have read for a text give the key-note of much of what I have to say on the present occasion. The significant expression in them is the word “hitherto.” It seems to me that our Lord did not intend to mark any distinction between the work of the Father in times past and His own work thenceforward. So far from this, the added clause, ‘‘ and I work,” without any fresh indication of time, plainly connects itself with the word hitherto, and expresses the conjoint work of Father and Son all along, and that without intermission from the beginning of the world until then. But it is not as a proof of our Lord’s pre-existence and perpetual union with the . Father that I now refer to this passage, but as declaratory of the perpetual activity of the Divine operation through- out the entire course of the world’s history, as distinguished from a work finished and left off at the first creation. ‘The Lect. v.] Modern Views on Miracles. 133 occasion of our Lord’s speaking in this way will show what He intended. He had healed a man on the Sabbath day, and bid him take up his bed and walk. The Jews were offended at this, and accused Him of breaking the Sab- bath. The relevancy of our Lord’s answer to this accusa- tion is plainly this :—Though the works of creation were finished and God rested on the seventh day, yet the rest was not from continued operation, nor the completion of the works a cessation of God’s activity. The works were only finished in regard to kinds, according to the compre- hensive classification of them contained in the first chapter of Genesis.* The rest and cessation was only from the creation of things other in kind, and not included under that classification, but by no means a rest from the Divine activity still carried on in the continuance of the world from the first day until now. The things brought into existence at the first in their several kinds, whether those * In my work entitled Genesis and its Authorship, revised edition, 1873, I endeavoured at some length to show that the distribution of the works of creation in Gen. i. is artificial, that it is in fact a comprehensive classifica- tion under the so-called elements of the ancients, divided into a double series, each part consisting of three members. In the first series we have light, which the ancients identified with elemental fire, then the gaseous and fluid liquids, under the names of water and the ‘‘ expanse’’ or atmosphere, miscalled firmament in our Version after the Latin translators, and, thirdly, the earth with its vegetable clothing. The members of the second series correspond in order with these, being what Thomas Aquinas calls their occu- pants, habitatores eorwm, the heavenly luminaries corresponding to light, the animals that occupy the air and water answering to the second member of the first series, and corresponding to the third, the animals, including man, that dwell on the dry land. ‘These are represented as so many days’ work of the Divine Artificer; and the classification being comprehensive enough to include all the works of Nature, God is then said to have finished His works, finished them in the completeness of their kinds, and to have rested by the cessation from creating others not comprehended in the foregoing enumeration. 134 Modern Views on Miracles. |LECT. v. several kinds were yet developed into their specific several- ness or not, were thenceforth sustained in their existence, carried into their succession, or developed into new forms, by just the same exercise of Almighty power as that which called them into being at the first. On Sabbath days and on week days alike, God worked all along from the beginning of the creation until then, and any exercise of that Divine operation on the Sabbath, as by our Lord’s miracle, was no violation of the commandment given to the Jews, while it showed that Christ was Lord of the Sabbath, and qualified thereby to bid the man who had been restored to take up his bed and walk, in demonstra- tion of the completeness of his restoration. According to these words of our blessed Lord, the crea- tion of the world was not, as in the common Deistic view, like the kindling of a fire, left then to burn itself out, or like the winding up of a clock, left to run itself down at the end of the time for which it was constructed, to be wound up again or not, asit might be. God alone through all was permanently existing, constantly acting; all else was only a continued becoming under the Divine agency, the whole world and all that is therein at each moment the immediate effect of a never-ceasing working of Omni- potence, the constant expression of Divine purpose and will, ever producing its intended effect. According to this view, what are called the laws of nature are not rules pre- scribed once for all to be obeyed not only by living and willing things, but by lifeless and insensate matter, as it were spontaneously and automatically. The energy said to be stored up in Nature does not thus bear the character of activity without an active agent, nor its operation of a force suspended as it were in vacuo, and acting of itself. Lect. v.] Modern Views on Miracles. 135 Indeed, I do not believe that anybody can really imagine or conceive dead matter acting by any inherent power, all the terms by which men have ever given expression to the operations in Nature being, consequently, derived from those which denote the activity of living agents.* The laws of Nature are merely the modes of God’s present operation; their uniformity and invariableness are the evidence of the wisdom of the Divine agent, the expres- sion of the purpose of Him who knows what He intends to do, and is able to do it, and knows the way of doing it, without any need of variation to meet physical emergen- cies. The energy which is said to be stored in Nature, and invariable in its amount, is the immediate energy of the Creator, fixed in its amount, not because He is incapable of greater energy, but because He knows what #In reference to the force of gravity, there is a remarkable passage in Sir Isaac Newton’s third letter to Bentley, which is equally applicable to all kinds of force between the several parts of matter, whether atoms or larger masses: “It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must be, if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be con- veyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to cer- tain laws, but whether this agent be material or immaterial I leave to the consideration of my readers.’’? It is plain enough what Newton’s own opinion really was, and it is to an immaterial agent he manifestly points. His remarks apply to all kinds of force which operate without absolute contact. This limitation is made with a view to the transmission of force. But he had already declined to be held responsible for the belief of inherent and essential gravity, and by parity of any other kind of force. 136 Modern Views on Miracles. [LECT. v. is needed to accomplish the work to be done in accordance with the Divine ideas, as Plato would have said; while this fixity of the Divine energy and mode of opera- tion affords to God’s intelligent creatures the requisite knowledge of the conditions to which they are subjected, the rules by which they are to be guided in their dealings with natural things, and the results on which they may reckon accordingly. This view of the permanent opera- tion of God in Nature is, to my mind, full of the most profound moral significance, and suggests very solemn reflections. It implies that God does not, as it were, hand over to us things in ourselves and about us, to be used rightly or abused at our peril, which seems to be the com- mon view of the matter, but within the limits God has set Himself, limits which constitute the laws of Nature, He lends the operation of His divine agency from moment to moment to man’s free will, to do his own choosing for better or for worse. When, therefore, we dishonour our- selves with sin, we are not merely committing a trans- gression of God’s law in the manner in which any human law is transgressed, nor merely doing an offence as we might offend one another, but inflicting a personal insult on the Divine Being, using His own power lent to us to do His will, to do what He hates. And thus the complaint made in God’s name of the Jews of old has a very literal meaning—‘‘ We make God to serve with our iniquities.” Only it must be remembered the sin is wholly in our will, not in the external action done by the use of the power lent to us. As a counteraction of this abuse by our free will of the Divine agency in Nature, Christianity tells us of another operation out of the sphere of Nature, also lent to our free will, not however to be misused, though it may Lect. v.| Modern Views on Miracles. 137 be unused or disused. This is by Grace and the Holy Spirit. And besides this, Christianity also recognizes a special and occasional operation of Divine power, whether in and through or beside the ordinary constant action of God in Nature, not in any way left to man’s free will or to the will or arbitrary choice of any creature, producing effects out of the common order, and so serving the pur- pose of a special attestation of Divine communications to mankind. It is with this last, constituting what is com- monly called a miracle, that | am now more particularly concerned. I cannot suppose that anyone will deny that this con- stant operation is at least a reasonable view of the Divine agency in the world. It seems to me to be the only rea- sonable view we can form of it in accordance with any just conceptions of the Divine Being or of natural force. It is correlated with the immediate presence of all duration to the mind of God, together with which it forms a rational foundation for what is commonly called Provi- dence, and for what piety regards as merciful interposi- tions of Providence, and for a belief in the answer to our prayers within the ordinary limits of Divine operation in Nature, an answer vouchsafed in such ways as God knows to be good. We are thus saved from the circuitous sup- position that our prayers and other contingencies were foreseen by God, and entered into the original plan, which provided for meeting them as the occasion should arise. This supposition was illustrated by Woolaston by the case of a wealthy man, who was enabled by some means to foresee that a certain person would ask him when dying to make him a bequest, that in the foresight of this, when making his will long before, he included in its provisions 138 Modern Views on Miracles. [LEcr. v. the bequest for which he knew that petition would be made ; and then, when the request was actually made just before his death, signified that he would grant the request as desired. Of course I see nothing impossible in this circuitous process as applied to God, except so far as it goes upon the supposition of a cessation of the constant agency of Divine operation in Nature, and implies the succession of time as well as of order in the Divine view of all things. Tio my mind, the constant immanence ot God in nature, His ever-continued direct operation, and the immediate presence to God of all temporal succession, to whom all succession is that of order and not of time, is a far more simple and satisfactory view of the matter, and more consistent with all just conceptions of God. Whether the conservation of energy, as known in ma- terial objects, is maintained in the transition from dead to living organism, or in the return from living to lifeless matter, is a question which perhaps no one is yet in a position to solve. Certainly, the ordinary transmutation of forces as it takes place in lifeless matter seems largely varied by introducing the factor of life. Chemical and other physical forces seem to be suspended or counteracted by that special form of force which is called life, by the withdrawal of which they return to their wonted operation in lifeless matter. ven the means by which the action of the heart is maintained, and the force by which the blood returns to it against the force of gravity, are not as yet, I believe, fully understood by physiologists.* But however it may be with mere life, the operation of volition seems due to a force wholly different in kind from the * See Edinburgh Review for January, 1878, Article, ‘“‘ Harvey and Cesal- pino,”’ p. 48. Lect. v.| Modern Views on Miracles. eye forces of material things. It does not indeed create any new energy or force in the material organization. But it controls, directs, and exhausts that energy, transferring it to surrounding objects, from which it must be restored again, else the organism must perish. And all this is done in ways in which no such disposal or transference would otherwise take place, and varying according to the volition. I don’t know that there is any evidence that mere passive consciousness in general, or in particular the existence in consciousness of a simple volition, or the actual volition itself, exhausts any energy, though a pro- cess of thought leading up to the volition and the subse- quent carrying out of the volition certainly does exhaust the energy of the material instrument it is furnished with, transferring energy through some channel to the outward world, and making a new supply from without to be re- quisite. But the assumption that the thought and voli- tion are merely functions of the energy stored in the material organism is entirely gratuitous, and seems to be made only for the sake of the doctrine of conservation. However true this doctrine is of material forces, to trans- fer it to the region of thought and volition which entirely transcend the order of material nature, is an instance of scientific superstition, such as I spoke of in a former Lec- ture. To extend the forces of matter and their laws into the region of thought and mind, is only an inversion of the superstition which ascribes to familiar spirits a control over the forces of the material world, however we know that our own spirits do exercise a control over the mate- rial forces of our own bodies, and through them over other objects external to ourselves. Of course, I speak here of the external world in its phenomenal and objective form. 140 Modern Views on Miracles. [LEcr. v. On any ideal system, which resolves the material world into a world of sensations, the sensations are effects pro- duced on the mind, and presuppose the existence of a conscious mind. Coming to us from a source extrinsic to the mind, and being effects produced on it, they cannot produce or be the cause of that on which they are effects produced. ‘The extrinsic power which produces these ef- fects, whether immediately or by any intermediate agency, would no doubt be the original power that created the mind on which these effects are produced, but the pre- existence of the mind is implied. The question is no doubt much simplified by such a view of Nature. But for all practical purposes it must be discussed in accord- ance with the ordinary conception of an external mate- rial world. If there had been no such thing in this world as intel- ligence and reason furnished with freedom of will, the whole system might have gone on without disturbance or derangement, other than that seeming derangement which is really only the working out in the appointed way of that end which is prescribed for the course of Nature. The Creator might have rejoiced in His handiwork, fulfil- ling without deviation the purposes and designs He had in view. It is free will which is the one disturbing element. Reason without will might go on working out mechani- cally its mathematical or logical processes to their legiti- mate results, whether unconsciously or consciously. I suppose such a thing is at least conceivable, as in those mental processes which we have grounds for thinking take place in sleep, and as in fact is supposed on any theory of absolute necessity imposed on the human mind and its operations. It is free will that alone causes dis- Lect. v.] Modern Views on Miracles. 141 turbance—an element in itself so noble, so near an ap- proach to the likeness of our Maker,” so necessary to the existence of righteousness in any of God’s creatures, that it was worth while that there should be this disturbing, this possibly lawless element in creation. Its operation on the material world is confined within the limits of the laws of the material universe. But inside those limits, and by means of those very laws, it is capable of pro- ducing, and has produced, much evil, which we may well believe God would never have suffered in His world, if it could have been hindered without destroying the very end contemplated in bestowing freedom on any of His crea- tures. But now, when God conferred on His intelligent crea- tures this perilous gift of freedom, which, if we might attribute human emotion to Him, we might suppose to have been done with a sigh, as our Lord sighed when He gave to the dumb man the perilous gift of speech; I say, when God bestowed this gift of freedom, with entire fore- sight as we must believe of its abuse, it is also reasonable for us to believe that not only would mercy rejoice against judgment in his dealing with us, but that it must have entered into His purpose to provide a remedy. But if the original design existed of producing that righteousness in His creatures, which could not be but in the possession of freedom, the remedy, with that end in view, must not be one of force and constraint, or such as should do violence to the freedom of our choice. Will must be stirred by knowledge and by motive, must be guided and governed by law, not law of physical necessity, but law in the moral sense prescribed to the thinking and willing, not to the * See the extract from Tertullian in the note, p. 17. 142 Modern Views on Miracles. [LEcT. v. lifeless and inert. Such a law—and by this I mean all that God might prescribe to man for his spiritual welfare— such a law must be prescribed to mind, communicated in the way of knowledge, and committed to reason and to conscience. And any such spiritual aids in the way of grace that our unhappy state may require should only be such as might stimulate the will in the right direction, but leave the choice free—such as should lead and not drive us into well-doing. Irresistible grace would leave no option, and its effect would have no moral character. What I have now said leads us up to this point, that there is no anterior improbability, but much anterior ground of pre- sumption, that God should make a revelation to His erring creatures. There are several ways in which a revelation might be supposed to come from God. It might be in the way of the law written in the heart, the thoughts accusing or else excusing one another, as in respect to justice, mercy, and faith, or veracity, and perhaps some other particulars. But for this these virtues must be recognized as duties, not as mere operations of intellect; conscience must take cognizance of them, and for this purpose must be corre- lated with will. Or instead of our supposing these duties to be originally prescribed to man’s intuition, we might suppose them, or the sense of them, to be evolved, as is not to be questioned in regard to many particulars of duty, under the social conditions of our existence, and by the use of reason and intelligence applied to these conditions. This kind of revelation of God’s will must be prior to any moral delinquency ; for ‘sin is not imputed when there is no law.” If, as I have said, under such a law free will had not in its waywardness transgressed, all might have Lect. v.] Modern Views on Miracles. 143 gone on well, without any interference of the Creator of a different kind from that which ordinarily takes place in the uniform course of Nature. Things might have gone on until the whole universe had attained that uniform temperature which is now predicted, and then it might have been superseded by a different order of things, or the world restored to its former condition by some secular causation which might fall within the range of uniform natural law; though this, from the vastness of the period of recurrence, might have to us the appearance of a break of continuity, like that in the transition from dead to living matter, and from living matter to mind, and con- sciousness, and thought. And simultaneously the rational and moral world might have gone on with no further communication from God, in the kind of uniformity pro- per to it, but for the waywardness of erring will. But as the errors of will are a break in that kind of moral con- tinuity which was no doubt the primary end in view, as expressed in our creation, so we might not unreasonably suppose some kind of break also in the manner of God’s dealing with men. If we might suppose the now sense- less materials of the world to be possessed of some power of choosing, which might at any time have interfered with the operation of physical law, I cannot see how this could be remedied but by some break in the continuity of God’s ordinary operation in Nature. Now this seems just what is the case in regard to the moral world. ‘The breach of moral continuity on our part has been the deviation from the intended observance of moral law, and moral law with its proper sanctions is therefore to be supposed insufficient asaremedy. Some new communication from God seems needful. 144 Modern Views on Miracles. | LECT. Vv. We might suppose such new communication to be made in some way answering to the original communication of moral law to the conscience. We might suppose to be borne in upon the minds of men in general some strong impression or conviction of a practical kind. So far as this might justify itself to men’s natural intelligence, it would doubtless have great force and weight. And we may thankfully acknowledge that something of this kind has, all along the course of the world’s history, kept alive the fundamental notions of religion in the minds of men, in so far as these might not have been the conclusions of natural reason, and even when they were the conclusions of reason, in support of them. As a matter of fact, these general impressions have exercised great influence on plain and unlettered people, but have been constantly disputed by philosophers. How insufficient they have been is plain from the debasing idolatry that almost universally accom- panied them. LHvidently this mode of communication would not suffice in respect to matters outside the scope of natural understanding. Facts in the supersensuous world, or any special significance of historical facts that we could not naturally perceive, such as in regard to the nature of Christ, and the significance of His sufferings, could not in this way acquire such influence as to be of practical value; not in such a way at least as to justify itself to man’s reason, and put it out of the sphere of superstition or of doubt. And superstition, though some- times beneficial in the absence of a better substitute for it, has plainly been the source of frightful evils, while doubt would tend to destroy or render ineffectual the influence designed. Again, we might suppose some strong convictions to be — ve ee een ee Se nn © _ = LEcT. V.] Modern Views on Miracles. 145 impressed on the minds of particular persons for the good of others, as well as of themselves. These were the pro- phets of mankind that have spoken to all ages and nations, of whom we may take Socrates asa type. Of him, in a work ascribed to Justin Martyr, it is said that “he knew Christ in part, for He was and is the word (or reason) that is in everyone, and spoke by the prophets.’* Of such, also, Clement of Alexandria tells us that, “as God willed the Jews to be saved, giving them prophets, so he distinguished from the common sort of men the most approved of the Greeks, raising up prophets proper to their dialect, according as they were capable of re- ceiving the benefit from God.”+ So far as their impres- * Xpiot@ BE 7H kad bed Swxpdrovs awd pwépovs yywoGévri, Adyos yap Hy kal eotw 6 év mayt) dv, Kal Sid TaY TpopynTay mpoeimoy TH méAAOVTA yivecar.— OCohortatio ad Grecos, p. 48-9. Ed. Par. 1615. And again in Apol. ii., p. 88: Toy Xpiordv—mpoeunvicauey Adyov byTa, ob may yévos avOpdhrav metécxe Kal of weTa Adyou BidoayTes xXpioTiavol cial, Kav BOeor evoulcOnoav’ olov év “EAAnot mev SwKparns Kad ‘Hpdkrerros, kal of duoror avrots. ‘* We have already shown Christ to be the Logos (or reason) of which every race of men partook; and those who lived with reason were Christians, though they were supposed to be without God, as amongst the Greeks Socrates and Heracleitus, and those like to them.”’ + Stromat vi., p. 696. Ed. Sylburg.— Ere? 811, kaddmep lovdalous od ec- Oar €Bovdeto 5 Ocds, Tod’s mpodhtas Sid0ds, obTws Kad ‘“EAAHvwv Tods SoxKi- pwrdrous oikelous aitav Th diadceTw mpophtas avaothgas, ws ololre Hoav déxec0a Thy mapa cod evepyeclay, Tay xvdalwy avOpdtwy diéxpivev. So also Justin, or the writer of the Cohortation to the Greeks, speaks of the Sibyl as having been moved by a certain mighty afflatus or inspiration. “Eora dt suiv padlws thy dpOhy OeooeBeray ek mépous Tapa Tis Taraas SiBLAAnS, Ze Twos duvaris émimvolas Sid xpnouav buas didacKovons, wav- Odvew Tav? mep eyyds eivar Soxet THs Tv MpopynTady didacKaAlas. ‘‘ You will be able easily to learn in part the true worship of God from the ancient Sibyl, teaching you by oracles from some mighty inspiration those things which seem to approach the teaching of the prophets.’’—Cohort. ad Grec., p. 34. Ed. Par. 1615. The so-called Sibylline Verses, with much spurious additions, contain no doubt some remains of genuine antiquity. To these were appended the pious frauds of later times, which by uncritical writers were accepted without question. L 146 Modern Views on Miracles. |LECT. V. sions and convictions approved themselves to natural intelligence, they no doubt had great weight with the better sort of men, and often, I am sure, helped those who were oppressed with the burden of sin and desired to escape from it. But with those, who ever were the greater number, whose prejudices and corruptions they opposed, they notably failed. Hence Justin, when he spoke of Socrates knowing Christ in part, noticed the ill-treatment he met with, and compared it with the ill-usage of the Christian martyrs. What right, people would say, have these men to preach to us, and to thrust upon us their ad- monitions and reproaches? Let them give us a sign from heaven (as the Jews demanded of our Lord), else we will not acknowledge their claim to be our teachers. This would especially be the case if they communicated matters that could not be ascertained by human reason or did not ap- prove themselves to it, or had reference to facts beyond the scope of human observation. Announcements of such things would only be received by a few blind and credu- lous followers, whose credulity would be prone to develop itself into all kinds of absurdity, and superstition, and debasing principles. Even to give an effective republi- cation of natural religion, to give certainty to men’s hopes and aspirations, to check with the force of unanswerable threats the vicious propensities of men, would some sign from heaven be needful. Above all, if God’s communi- cations to men are to go beyond what may be approved by natural intelligence, if they relate to facts above the range of sensible perception, or to any special significance of facts within our observation, the significance of which we could not ourselves discern, would such a sign be re- quisite, some proof that might guarantee the communi- Lect. v.] Zodern Views on Miracles. 147 cation to have come from God—something answering to what is commonly called a miracle. And I believe it is generally admitted that the only means by which an ex- ternal revelation from God, with respect to such matters as are beyond our reason, could be proved to us to be a Divine revelation, is the performance of miracles by those who are the agents and messengers of God to man. And this was unquestionably the common belief of mankind, both of wise and simple, through all ages within the range of history up to recent times. But now we are met in these later times by a twofold objection to any such miraculous proof of Divine revelation. The possibility of any miraculous interposition, or at least the reasonableness of expecting any, is denied. And, on the supposition of such an interposition taking place, the possibility of reasonably believing it as a fact is denied in like manner. I proceed to discuss these questions. 1. Of course my argument proceeds upon the supposi- tion of a Divine Creator.* Indeed, to try to prove the supernatural to one who denies the existence of any super- natural power would seem to be futile, though I suppose that a miracle acknowledged as a fact, and recognized to be outside the operation of the laws of Nature, would go far to convince such a person that at least there exists a power superior to, and able to control the, ordinary laws of Nature. This remark will recall to your minds the con- fession of the Latin poet, made no doubt in a scoffing ~ spirit, that he had been converted from what he calls the * It was shown in the preceding Lecture that for those who deny the in- telligent purpose of a Creator the expectation of the continuity of the order of Nature, founded on past experience, is without any justification in rea- son. Such persons have to rely on a persuasion which can scarcely be called scientific. L2 148 Modern Views on Miracles. |LECT. V. insane sapience of Epicurus by the occurrence of what seemed in his day to be miraculous, namely, the bursting of a thunderstorm from the clear and cloudless sky.* However little reality there was in the Horatian conver- sion, it illustrates what I have remarked. To those, however, who believe in a Divine Author of Nature, there can be no prior objection to the possibility of a miraculous interposition, so far as power is concerned. Nor can I see any reasonable objection to the supposition of it, if a sufficient occasion should arise, such an occa- sion as I have endeavoured to show in the preceding part of this Lecture actually did exist. There are those, how- ever, who think that God having once for all prescribed the laws of Nature, it is not to be supposed that He would ever interfere with their ordinary course of operation for any purpose whatever. They were ordained for our * Hor. Carm. I. Xxxiv. :— Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens, Insanientis dum sapientiz Consultus erro, nunc retrorsum Vela dare, atque iterare cursus Cogor relictos: namque Diespiter, Igni corusco nubila dividens Plerumque, per purum tonantes Egit equos volucremque cursum. ‘¢ A fugitive from heaven and prayer, I mocked at all religious fear, Deep scienced in the mazy lore Of mad Philosophy: but now Hoist sail, and back my voyage plow To that blest Harbour, which I left before.’’ ‘¢ For lo! that awful Heavenly Sire, Who frequent cleaves the clouds with fire, Parent of Day, immortal Jove! Late through the floating Fields of Air, The face of Heaven serene and fair, His thundering steeds and winged chariot drove.’’—F Rancis. LecT. v.| Modern Views on Miracles. 149 guidance; and, if they might be interrupted, all certainty in the course of Nature would be destroyed. I cannot see that this would follow from any just view of what a miracle is, which is not an arbitrary interference, happen- ing one knows not why, but announced for a special pur- pose, and by the very hypothesis only occasional, and not to be regarded as implying any further interference be- yond the particular event itself, or like events on like occasions, certainly no capricious interference. But for the interference resulting from the perverse abuse of human freedom, I suppose no one would think God’s work so imperfect, or so defective in its manifold provisions, as to need occasional tinkering, though perhaps we should go too far if we supposed that the original design might not have included the introduction, at some fixed period, of new forces, or the turning over of a new order in the whole system of Nature. Indeed, I should say something of this kind would seem quite as reasonable as a creation once for all, never to be modified by any subsequent change. But at any rate, where there exists the freedom of will, which by its perverseness has caused deviations from the order prescribed to it, which is moral, and not therefore carried out by physical necessity ; and where that perversity of will has operated not only to produce moral disorder, but much mischievous abuse and perver- sion of physical operation in a manner beside its proper and natural course, there surely is no reasonable ground for believing that God might not meet the perversities of erring will, extending in their effects even to the material world, by an interposition which should not only appeal to man’s moral faculties through reason and conscience, but should guarantee itself to be a Divine interposition by 150 Modern Views on Miracles. |LECT. V. sensible evidence. If we were to suppose the occasional and temporary introduction of a new force, or suspension of any of the existing forces, this being limited to the particular case, and its disturbing influence on the general system of Nature counteracted, the supposition would seem to have nothing in it absurd, or even unreasonable. But I do not think anything of this kind is necessary to be supposed; and I readily admit that if we could avoid the supposition our own position would be more satisfactory, considering the firm hold the continuity of the course of Nature has on all enlightened men ; and it would certainly be stronger as against those with whom our present con- tention is carried on. And indeed I may say that no- where—at least in ancient times—has the ordinary fixity of the laws of Nature, or of Him who gave to Nature a law that cannot be broken, been more strongly insisted on than in that Book which professes to contain Divine reve- lation authenticated by miracles; while the very suppo- sition of a miracle presupposes such fixity, without which no event could be regarded as miraculous. There is one large class of alleged miracles in which the supernatural may only be in the sphere of mind and thought. An event may be perfectly natural in its oc- currence, but if such as, by the supposition, could not be anticipated by any human intelligence, or by that old experience which may, as the poet says, “attain to some- thing like prophetic strain,” in such case the announce- ment of it beforehand would have the force of miracle. The passage of the Red Sea seems an instance of this kind. The holding back of the waters is expressly at- tributed to a cause within the ordinary course of Nature. The foresight of it, and its announcement for a special LECT. v.]| Modern Views on Miracles. 151 purpose, would have then been the miracle. This might apply to many other instances, such as the destruction of the Assyrian host, where the destroying angel might. have only denoted some natural cause, according to a not un- usual Scriptural way of speaking, and as certain intimations of history would seem to indicate. But there are very many of the alleged miracles which certainly cannot be explained in this way, and it is in reference to these I wish, if possi- ble, to show that there may be a Divine interposition producing a true miracle, and yet no interference with or suspension of the laws of Nature—no new force beyond that constant and immanent operation of Divine power in accordance with the laws of Nature which I have shown to be the true conception of God’s agency in the world ; though an unwonted use of natural forces is no doubt supposed in such case. The mechanic in his daily work calls into exercise and employs the ordinary forces of Nature in a way in which they would not be operative but for his voluntary action. He makes the forces of Nature do his bidding in manifold and marvellous ways. In all this, the first human cause is the volition of his own mind, the first step the operation of that on his own organism, and then through that he has worked on external objects. He has created no new force, but he has applied the existing forces of Nature to his own purposes. Again, the philosopher in his labora- tory, by a like process, interrogates Nature by his ex- periments, conducted out of the course of all natural operations, discovers forces undreamt of previously by phi- losophy itself, or modes of operation previously unknown, by means of which he enlarges our control over Nature, and marvellously extends the operation of will by means 5 2) Modern Views on Miracles. |LECT. V. of the existing forces of the material world. However his will might have been instigated to this by external causes, the first moving power, in the proceedings he is engaged in, is the volition which brings into exercise the force and energy stored in his own organism. The whole process may be explained, as men suppose, except in one particular. ‘There is one mysterious gap in the connec- tion of the order of sequences that for ever eludes our observation, that is, the mode in which volition operates in applying at will the energy stored in our organism. That power, according to the only testimony we have to rely on for all our knowledge, the testimony of universal con- sclousness, we possess within the limits of the microcosm of our bodies, and outside those limits by the use of our bodily action, though we do not create a new force, we employ at will the force that exists in Nature. ‘The force is in the body and in surrounding objects, the power is in the mind. That power which we possess in the microcosm of our own body may surely belong to God in the macrocosm of the universe. Hxtending the limits of the power of Divine will to the whole of Nature, with the same immediateness of operation in directing its forces into the desired chan- nels as we find in ourselves, ascribing to God a perfect insight into all possible combinations of those forces, and all needful combinations of them for any particular result, and an entire control of them in all posssible directions and modes of application, we have no need of supposing the suspension of, or irregular interference with, such na- tural forces, or the introduction of any new force or energy, beyond the ever-acting energy of Him whose immediate operation is active always in every operation Lect. v.| Modern Views on Miracles. 153 of natural force. The miraculous operation may be solely in that mysterious gap, such as exists in ourselves, between mind and will on the one hand, and its effects on matter on the other hand. And this will hold good whatever view we take of the constitution of material objects. The Divine will might apply the forces stored in a lifeless corpse in the needful direction and start the body into life again, by an agency not differing in kind from that by which we start the body resting in complete quietude into sudden and varied and violent motions. Certainly those who maintain that vitality is a function of purely material forces have the less ground for doubting this—the miracle being in this case the restoration from incipient decay to the condition adapted for life. If it is not so, but belongs to a different order, the imparting of vitality to a lifeless body would, as regards life apart from organ- ism, be outside material forces altogether. It seems to me to be the result of these considerations, that there 1s no ground for denying the possibility of a miracle or the reasonableness of supposing one to be wrought, on the assumption of an Author of Nature, whose constant opera- tion in uniform modes of action is really the operation of the so-called laws of Nature, if only there should exist a reasonable ground for expecting an unusual mode of Divine operation in the use of those laws to secure an important end. 2. I proceed now to consider the question of the credi- bility of an alleged miraculous performance, making only this preliminary remark, that in proportion as we may be able to remove the prior difficulties attending the supposi- tion of a miracle taking place at all, we have removed a large amount of the ineredibility, much of which is 154 Modern Views on Miracles. [LECcT. v. founded in the supposed unreasonableness of believing that a miracle might take place at all. For in proportion as the occurrence of any possible event is. regarded as un- likely, so will be the difficulty of persuading one’s self that it has taken place; and in proportion as one sees reason to think that an event highly improbable in itself might be expected under particular circumstances, will be the readiness with which he will give a candid attention to the testimony by which its actual occurrence might be accredited, when such circumstances appear to have arisen. And I think it is the allegation of its being a miracle, rather than the strangeness of the event, that pre- vails in the present day against the reception of many at least of the recorded miracles of Scripture. I shall have occasion presently to revert to this remark. I cannot but think that the difficulty now felt in regard to the belief of miraculous events is due rather to an acquired habit of mind than to anything in the nature of the case itself. ‘To say that miracles are contrary to all experience is simply to snatch the question. They cer- tainly were not by the very supposition contrary to the. experience of those who might have witnessed them; or what practically comes to the same thing for the purpose of the present argument, they were not contrary to the supposed experience of those who thought the events they saw to be miraculous. And I suppose any one of us would not question as a matter of fact any marvellous event which came under his own observation in circum- stances which should leave no ground for suspecting any delusion of the senses, whatever one might think of the cause of it. And surely there must be some amount of testimony sufficient to convince us of a matter of fact Lect. v.} Modern Views on Maracles. 155 observed by others which we could not hesitate to believe if observed by ourselves. The mere marvellousness of a well accredited fact is not a reasonable ground for dis- believing it. If it were, how many in the world would reasonably disbelieve many most marvellous things, which science itself has made matters of familiar occurrence with us, things beforehand as difficult to be believed as many of the Scriptural miracles merely regarded as strange events. If any of these had occurred merely as strange events, without the previous announcement expressed or implied that they would be miraculously performed, they would, if sufficiently testified, be not disbelieved, but rele- gated to the large catalogue of unexplained marvels the -yeality of which is not to be denied. Hence, I think, it is the allegation of being miraculous that causes, as I said, the difficulty felt in the present day, owing to a persuasion that a miracle is on anterior grounds not possible, or at any rate not to be at all expected or even supposed. ‘T'o these anterior difficulties I have already given the best reply I was able, a sufficient answer as I presume to think. Yet I believe that notwithstanding these difficulties and the prejudice now existing in respect to them, there are some of the miraculous events recorded in Scripture so contrary to general experience, that one would more readily be- lieve them as alleged miracles than as simple matters of fact. In this point of view “the dumb ass that speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet,” even if regarded in its most objective literality, stands favourably distinguished from the famous bos Jocutus est of the Roman historian. This was reported only as an un- connected event, left to be arbitrarily interpreted as an omen, while the former stands as a part of a series of 156 Modern Views on Miracles. [LECT. V. alleged Divine interferences, and connected with a suitable occasion. If we were credibly informed that a person who had been notoriously dead was alive again, we should naturally say it must be a miracle. And if the state- ments respecting it showed that it had been announced beforehand as a miraculous event, meaning by miracu- lous the special interposition of Divine power, this would, I think, make the event itself more credible to us, as it would assign a sufficient cause, and a reasonable occasion for the event, if there is any weight in what I have said respecting anterior objections to the belief in miracles altogether. I remark further that the event itself, apart from its cause, stands upon its own evidence as a mere matter of fact, to be received if well. attested as merely a strange event. The circumstances under which it took place, on which the allegation of its being done by a special interposition of Divine power is founded, also stand on their own evidence, and there is no difficulty in believ- ing what has been common enough in the world, the mere profession of working miracles. Now if this profession were followed by the event only in a single instance, we might reasonably say it was one of those strange coinci- dences that sometimes happen, like the coming true of a dream. But if the concurrence takes place frequently, and that with reference to one particular person’s claims, which gives connection and consistency to the whole series; if these repeated instances take place quite casu- ally, with no pre-concert or pre-arrangement, if they are free from all artifice or concealment, court no darkness, do not deprecate the presence of doubters or unbelievers ; if no attempt is made to derive gain or glory from the performance, no trumpet is sounded to spread the fame of tect. v.| Modern Views on Miracles. LS7 rw) the professed performer, but even all efforts to proclaim the occurrence often deprecated,* I say that in this absence of every suspicious circumstance, a very considerable number of instances having occurred to render mere coincidence so improbable as to be the less credible alternative, in such case we should be bound in reason to connect the event with the previous profession, and to believe that the pro- fession is well grounded, and that the alleged power is the cause of the event. The signality of miracles, to use the term employed by Bishop Fitzgerald in his great article on Miracles, in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, is a consi- deration essential to a just view of the question. The miracles recorded in the Scriptures do not stand as uncon- nected marvels, as mere examples of thaumaturgic power. They form a connected series extending from the earliest historic times down to the establishment of the Christian religion, as the evidences of Divine communications to men, the proper proofs, and only possible proofs, of an * It has, I believe, been suggested that in thus deprecating the noising abroad of the Saviour’s miracles, there was betrayed an unwillingness to draw too much attention to what might not bear close examination, or a secret distrust or disbelief in the miraculousness of the performance. If this were the case we might ask why was the precaution taken only on some occasions, while on others, and those the most marvellous instances, publicity was so far from being avoided, that its existence formed the very occasion of the performance of the miracle. Enough was done to show that our Saviour was not courting fame, and could rely on His miracles asserting themselves, while His brethren would have desired greater pub- licity, as in St. John vii. 3, 4, when they said, “‘ Depart hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou dost these things, show thyself to the world.” He knew Himself how best to show Himself to the world, and did so to some purpose. The perfect and transparent honesty of His entire character as pourtrayed in the Gospels is itself a sufficient answer to the suggestion I have mentioned. Even most of those who deny the miracles are not prepared to give up the Saviour’s character. 158 Modern Views on Miracles. [LECT. v. external revelation; of an ever-expanding and continued development of God’s revealed provision for the remedy of those ills which followed on the misuse of the freedom of man. It is in connection with their use as signs and evidences of this revelation that we ask men to receive them, or justify ourselves in their acknowledgment. They stand in this respect pre-eminently distinguished alike from the thaumaturgy of ancient times, and the so-called spiritualism of the present day, as well as from the alleged ecclesiastical miracles of later times. When we pass into these last from the temperate, unpretentious narratives of the Biblical miracles, we feel that we have passed from an atmosphere of sobriety and calm and well assured conviction of the reality of definite facts, into the heated atmosphere of enthusiastic excitement or downright fanaticism, of vague report and unrestrained exaggeration, of unconscious illusion or conscious deception. It is no part, however, of my present plan to discuss the weight of testimony in favour of the Scriptural mira- cles. That is a subject which forms a question distinct from my present inquiry, which has had reference to those difficulties prior to the consideration of particular instances which are felt in the present day. In my next Lecture I shall consider the way in which the alleged miraculous proofs of Christianity were re- garded in ancient times, and I shall make some remarks in connection with that, which seem to me to be worthy of attention. 1 LECTURE VI" EVIDENCE OF REVELATION FROM MIRACLES, AS REGARDED IN ANCIENT TIMES. S. Joun, iil. 2. ‘‘ No man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”’ | my last Lecture, I discussed the difficulties felt in the present day in accepting the supernatural evidences alleged in support of the Christian religion, difficulties arising from anterior objections to the occurrence of any- thing miraculous in general, and on the supposition of the occurrence of a miraculous event, objections to the reason- ableness of believing the occurrence on any amount of testimony. I now proceed to observe the way in which these evidences were regarded in ancient times. It is by no means in these later times only that the reception of the supernatural evidences of Christianity was met by objection. At the first promulgation of the Gospel these evidences met with a serious obstacle to their unqualified acceptance as proofs of the doctrine they were alleged to establish. But it was of an opposite kind to * Delivered on Sunday, March 38, 1878. 160 Ancient Views on Miracles. (LECT. VI. that which they have to contend with now. The dif_i- culty is now felt in believing in any miracle at all. The difficulty then arose from too great facility in believing in the performance of miracles, and from the prevalent notion that they might be wrought not only by God over all, but by the aid of demons, beings of superhuman ability, whose assistance might be obtained through sor- cery and the practices of magical incantation. Of the almost universal prevalence of this belief it would be superfluous to bring forward any evidence.* The few who saw through the artifices of pretended magic, and * The tendency to this belief amongst the Hebrews is evident from the care taken in the Old Testament to condemn and suppress it. But there is nothing therein to countenance the supposition that any real operation of evil spirits was exercised in the practices of sorcery. The words in common use were employed, but these are significant of purely human artifices. They aré expressive of wisdom or cunning, of the knowledge or interpretation of secrets, of whispering and muttering, of combining formule supposed to be potent for enchantment, and of ventriloquism. The ‘‘ familiar spirit”’ which is found in our Bibles is entirely due to the fancy of translators, and expresses only ventriloquism. -4dub was a leathern bottle first, then an inflated bag, and was used to signify the artificial inflation of themselves which the witches produced, giving a hollow sound to their utterances, and aiding their ventriloquism. This practice was also in use with the Pytho- ness, as scholars are aware. A woman who could practise this art was called ‘Ca mistress of Aub,’’ and this is rendered in the English Version as a woman who had a familiar spirit. Such was the Witch of Endor to whom Saul resorted. It is plain from the narrative that on that occasion Saul did not see the apparition himself, and that the frenzied woman had exceeded her own expectations. Saul had to ask what the woman saw, and the woman was terrified at the result of her own proceedings. If the apparition had any reality beyond the impression of her own heated imagination, it was due to no power of an evil spirit called into exercise by her. Whether the utterances of Samuel to Saul were in an external and audible voice, or were only subjectively perceived by him, assuming the reality to his perturbed mind of an external voice, it is not needful to inquire, nor how far the woman herself with her ventriloquism was the medium of conveying a warning of what was to happen. Saul’s resort to this woman to call up Samuel illustrates the phrase ‘“ seeking to the dead.” LECT. vi.| Ancient Views on Miracles. 161 disbelieved that it was attended by any superhuman as- sistance, or did not believe in the existence of the pretended demons, were fain for the most part to dissemble their unbelief, so closely was it connected in men’s minds with that general scepticism which laid one open to the re- proach, which was anciently regarded as the most odious of all accusations, the charge of Atheism. This odium that attended the profession of Atheism was not merely due to the influence of rulers who thought religious belief needful for keeping the common people in order, nor of priests whose worldly interests were wrapped up in the prevalent idolatrous rites, nor of fanatics who were de- voted to the prevailing superstitions. It had its roots far deeper, namely, in that underlying persuasion of mankind in general, that the existence of all morality was dependent on the belief in a Divine Being, a power concerned with the interests of righteousness, embracing and overshadow- ing the several deities of the current mythology, but so connected in the popular apprehension with these special- ized deities in all their grades, that the disbelief in the latter was supposed to involve the denial of the former. We see this exemplified in the accusation of Atheism which led to the condemnation of Socrates. And we see the dislike of incurring the odium of Atheism exhibited in the case of Celsus, whom Origen alleges to have been an Epicurean, but who in his attack upon the Christian re- ligion dissembled this fact, lest, as Origen says, he should destroy the weight of his attack on Christianity. ‘ For he knew,” says Origen, “that if he had professed himself to be an Epicurean, he would have had no credit in accus- ing those whose belief at any rate included the existence of Providence, and of a God supreme over all existing M 162 Ancient Views on Miracles. |LECT. VI. things.”’* And again he says to Celsust: “ You who in your work do not betray the Epicurean, but affect to be- lieve in Providence, have no right to ask how God knew all things pertaining to men, and did not set them right, nor by Divine power rid them all of wickedness ?” Now it is plain that this prevailing belief in the magical performance of miracles, and in the assistance rendered by demons to those who wrought these supposed works of wonder, must have afforded a great opportunity to the enemies of the Gospel of discrediting the supernatural evidences adduced by its advocates. And this was the more available as a ground of objection, because, as we shall see by-and-by, the Christian Apologists, instead of repudiating all belief in the supernatural character of the pagan miracles, seem to have generally admitted that they were performed by a real magical power and the aid of demons. We know the use made by the Jews of this belief, from their accusing our Lord of casting out evil spirits by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons. ‘The Jews afterwards appear to have accounted for our Lord’s miracles by pretending that He had surreptitiously be- come possessed of the true pronunciation of the Incom- municable Name by the use of which as a charm His miracles were accomplished. And we may observe the way in which the objection was employed by pagan op- posers of the Gospel, from the allegations of Celsus, who both maintained that our Lord wrought His miracles by * “Hder yap ott duodoyav ’Emikovpeios elvat, ove dy Exar Td akidmiorov év Te Karnyopew Tav dads wore mpdvoiay cisayaydvTwr, Kal Ocdy epiorav- twv Tols ovat. Origen, adv. Celsum,i., p. 8. Cantab. 1677. f Sol 58, wh mdvy éupatvovts 3:4 Tod ovyypdumaros Toy Emovpeior, GAAG Mpocmoioumevy mpdvoray eidévat, ovK emlons AcAeEETaL, K.T.A. IV., p. 163. LECT. Vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 163 jugglery,* and, building upon the Gospel story of the flight into Egypt, asserted that he had there acquired a knowledge of certain powers, by means of which, on his return to Judea, he tried to prove that he was a Godt— powers, as we shall see, supposed to be demoniacal. The wonder is that amid this prevalent belief, not re- pudiated by the Christian Apologists, the Gospel miracles should have had any share, as no doubt they had a great share, in producing the rapid spread and ultimate diffusion of the Christian religion. This could only have been in consequence of a clear perception that the Gospel miracles were wholly different in kind, and entirely distinguished in the manner of their performance, from the works of the magicians. Had this not been clear, the pretensions of our Lord and His Apostles to work by Divine power, apart from all the arts of sorcery, and in a way beyond * ‘Os yontelg Suvndévros & ote wapddoka wemoinnévar.—Orig. adv. Cel- sum i., p. 7. T éy0) yao ‘‘ aitdy oxdriov tTpapevta, micOapvhoayra eis Atyumroy, duvd- pedy Twwv mweipabévta, exeidev emavedOciv, Ocdy Sv exelvas Tas duyduers éavtov avayopevovtTa.” 1., p. 30. See on this subject the note of Edmund Law in his Considerations on the Theory of Religion, pp. 120-2, 4th edition. As a reason why the Christian miracles were not more regarded by many of the heathen, he specifies the following: “1. They might allow them to be true, yet on account of the old intercommunity of deities and multiplicity of demons, for some time draw no consequence from them, in prejudice to their own way of worship. 2. Multitudes of like nature reported among themselves might make others at a distance be looked on as less extraordinary. 38: The Atheistic notions prevalent amongst some who had the best opportunity of being informed about them might lead them to reject all such on principle. 4. Their usual way of attempting to account for these from such an unmeaning cause as magic must, in a great degree, defeat the effects which they would otherwise have had upon them. 6. The numberless false ones of all kinds propagated over the pagan world, and which had first brought the whole system into disrepute, might induce them to view all others in the same light, and not think any of them worth a serious examination.”’ M2 164 Ancient Views on Miracles. |LECT. VI. its pretended powers, would only have turned back upon them a charge of imposture which the Apologists after- wards would have found it difficult to repel. These added, however, other considerations besides the sole character of the works themselves. ‘Let us see how Origen refutes the allegations of Celsus. In reference to the assertion that our Lord had learned magical arts in Egypt, he says a “But I do not understand how a magician would have earnestly striven to teach a doctrine persuading us always to act on the belief that God would judge every man in respect to all that he has done, and how he should have thus instructed his disciples, whom he was about to employ as ministers of his teaching. Did these, then, gain hearers being thus instructed to work miracles, or did they work none? It is absurd indeed to say that they wrought no miracles, but that, while having no logical skill to rely on akin to the dialectic wisdom of the Greeks, they devoted themselves to teach a new doctrine to those amongst whom they might sojourn. On what did they in that case rely in teaching a new doctrine and making ‘nnovation? Butif they did perform miracles, how is it credible that magicians should have exposed themselves to so great dangers in teaching a doctrine that forbids all magical doings?” Here he plainly relies on the need of miracles to enable the Apostles, deficient in all dialectic skill, to teach as they did with such success so novel a doctrine as Christianity ; but he relies also on the sanctity of the Christian teaching, so unlike that of magicians, and he uses an argument like that of our Lord when he spoke of Satan casting out Satan, throwing also into the * Qud supra. LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 165 scale the sufferings they exposed themselves to in such a self-contradictory manner of proceeding. Allow me to notice another of the rabid objections of Celsus, and Origen’s reply. Celsus, in order to identify the miracles of our Lord with the practices of sorcery, exclaims: “O light and truth! with his own voice he expressly declares, according to your own histories, that others also would come to you using similar powers—evil men and impostors. And he names one Satanas as the contriver of such doings ; so that he himself does not deny that these things are nothing Divine, but the works of wicked men; but being forced by the truth, he at the same time disclosed the doings of others, and convicted his own. What a wretched proceeding, from the same works to conclude the one to be God, and the others im- postors! For why. should we, on his own testimony, from these works conclude the others to be wicked rather than himself? These works, at any rate, he himself con- fessed to be the tokens, not of a Divine nature, but of in- | iquitous deceivers.” From this we see how the argument was pressed by the opponents of the Gospel. Let us now hear the salient points of Origen’s rather protracted an- swer :—Celsus depraves the words of Christ, who did not simply bid us beware of those that should profess to work miracles, but added what they would pretend to be, namely, Christ, which the sorcerers do not pretend, and that wicked men using the name of Jesus should perform mighty works and cast out demons. The Divine power of Jesus is, therefore, commended by the fact that it should be possible for any, making use of His name, and working by we know not what power, in order to prove himself to be Christ, to do works resembling those of our 166 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT. VI. Lord. He then compares our Lord’s words with those of S. Paul respecting the Man of Sin, “ whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders.” Our Lord did not say these impostors should exercise like power with Himself; but just as the power of the magicians in Egypt was shown in the end to be dif- ferent from that bestowed on Moses, the one mere magic, and the other Divine, so also in our Lord’s case.* Hence the works of the Antichrists are described as “ signs and won- ders of falsehood, in all deceit of unrighteousness.” ‘The * I may take this opportunity to show that there was really nothing supernatural in their performances. The Biblical narrative in the briefest way only says, that ‘‘ the magicians of Egypt did also in like manner with their enchantments.’’ The practices of the snake-charmers both in ancient and modern times are now well known. They have an art by which the serpent is made quite rigid like a staff, out of which state they can again restore it to its natural condition. Like effects I have myself seen produced ona fowl. The turning of the water into blood by Moses seems to have been the producing on a great scale a not uncommon state of the Nile water, knownas ‘the red water,’’ where blood is used to express the colour, asin the turning of the moon into blood, in Joel ii. 31. It was not beyond the power of the jugglers to produce on a smaller scale a like effect. Irenzeus, i. 9, and after him the writer of the Philosophumena, vi. 39, describe how the heretic Marcus travestied the Eucharistic rite, prolonging the invocation, and causing an infusion in the cup to resemble blood by introducing, as Hippolytus says, some kind of drug. When Xerxes was meditating the invasion of Lacedzemon, Valerius Maximus, i. 6, relates that the wine in his. cup was three times turned into blood. In consequence of this, the magi- cians advised him to relinquish the design. Wishing to dissuade him, they had, no doubt, themselves produced the omen which they afterwards inter- preted. That the magicians should have been able to bring up frogs on a limited scale is quite within the ability of clever conjuring. When it came to the third plague they gave up in despair, and exclaimed, ‘“ This is the finger of God,’’ or gods, as we may render the plural form Elohim, in the mouth of idolaters, by which they seem to have confessed the mere human character of their preceding acts, perhaps without intending to make such a confession.—See Hengstenberg’s Die Biicher Moses und gypten on this subject of the magicians in Egypt. The artifices of the divining cup are now well known. LECT. vi.|] Ancient Views on Miracles. 167 works of Christ have their fruit, not in deceit but in the saving of souls. For who should say with reason that the improvement of life and daily diminution of wickedness was the fruit of deceit ? Again, is it to be supposed that mighty works are done by jugglers with the aid of wicked demons, and yet none proceeding from Divine power? The very fact that the worse affects to be the better im- plies the existence of the better also. From the fact of the performances of sorcery, there must needs be also miracles wrought by the power of God. One who should admit the one, but deny the other, would act as if he con- fessed that there are sophistical arguments making a plausible show of reason, but should deny that there are any arguments at all possessed of logical validity. If we once admit that, from the practice of these juggling acts, carried on by the aid of evil demons, enticed by curious incantations, and assisting men in their jugglery, it is a reasonable conclusion that there are also miracles wrought by Divine power, then why do we not judge those who profess to work miracles by their life and manners, and the results of their performances, whether for the injury of men or for the correction of manners; noting who it is that is served by demons, and by what incantations and ma- gical rites he performs his works, and who it is that having appeared in a state of purity and sanctity, as regards his own mind and spirit, and having, as we believe, re- ceived both his body and a Divine spirit from God, did his works for the benefit of men and their conversion to belief in the true God? If it is once for all right, before one is carried away by the miracles, to inquire who per- forms them with a better and who with a worse end in view, that we should not either condemn nor approve them 168 Ancient Views on Miracles. | LECT. VI. all, is it not clear from what took place in the case of Moses and of Jesus, that they did their works by Divine power ? No wickedness and magic ever established a whole commu- nity, passing beyond all kinds of idolatry and all sorts of imposture, and rising to the uncreated first principle of God over all ?* In this remarkable argument we observe that Origen does not hesitate to admit the reality of demoniacal agency in the performances of sorcery; over and above mere juggling tricks he acknowledges a power of super- natural operation. The miracles of falsehood partly implied that miracles had been wrought by Divine power also,t and partly made these needful as a set-off against the others. Hach kind must be judged by the character of those who professed to work miracles, by the nature of the principles they inculcated, and by the results which followed.in either case, whether ending in depravity and debasing superstition, or leading to righteousness of life, and an elevating and worthy conception of God. Far simpler would his course have been if his own views had enabled him to reject the magical performances as the * Orig. adv. Celswm, ii. 88-91. t Middleton adopts this notion :—‘‘ How could we account for a practice so universal, of forging miracles for the support of false religions, if on some occasions they had not been actually wrought for the confirmation of a true one? Or how is it possible that so many spurious copies should pass upon the world, without some genuine original from which they were drawn; whose known existence and tried success might give an appearance of probability to the counterfeit?’’ See Letter from Rome, Prefatory Discourse, pp. 1xxxvi.-vii., 5th ed. I cannot say that this notion is very well founded; the pagan miracles were not generally wrought for the support of any religious belief, though some- times intended to draw worshippers to particular spots, or to give credit to some oracle; besides, there is in the human breast a natural love of the marvellous, which was gratified by various kinds of thaumaturgy. LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 169 mere work of human imposture, and boldly to assert that the miracles of the Gospel were in their own nature, apart from every other consideration, such as could be wrought by no power but that of God alone.* The moral charac- ter of the Christian teaching, and its beneficial results in the reformation of men’s conduct, would then have fallen in with the Divine authorship of the miracles, each lend- ing strength to the other. And the miracles would have had greater force as proofs of those parts of the Christian revelation which could only be established by the testi- mony of miracles acknowledged to be possible to the power of God alone. Such are the doctrines of the supernatural birth of Christ, His Divinity as distinguished from the mere assistance that might have been rendered to Him by God, and the value of His death, as an atonement for sin. And it might evidently be alleged by an opponent, whether justly or not, as it is alleged at the present time, that the beneficial effects were due to the moral teaching of our Lord, and His holy life, apart from and even in spite of these special doctrines of the Gospel; or that even a mistaken notion might have a purifying effect * The signs and wonders to be displayed by false Christs and false prophets, and “the power and signs and wonders of falsehood,” or false miracles, of the Man of Sin do not require to be understood as real miracles, but such as while mere human contrivances might be likely to deceive the very elect. The form répact pevdous may be correctly construed false miracles, like “the deceit of unrighteousness,’’ presently after, meaning unrighteous deceit. The true meaning is obscured by the unintelligible <¢ deceivableness of unrighteousness ’’ of the English Version. It is a per- fectly gratuitous assumption that in these cases anything more than the pretension of miraculous powers, based on skilful artifice, is intended. Lucian in his account of Alexander of Abonotichus describes the artifices of that pretender to miraculous powers. And he says he learned his arts from a Tyanean impostor, or juggler, one of those who had been acquainted or familiar with Apollonius of Tyana, and knew the whole of his tragedy, 170 Ancient Views on Miracles. [vecr. vt. on those that believe it. And this may be exemplified by the undeniably purifying and softening influence of the notion so widely entertained, but which we are, I am by which Lucian does not mean a tragic end, but the pompous pro- ceedings of that person. Apollonius had travelled in the East, and in India and Egypt had doubtless learned the curious arts still practised in those countries. He enjoyed a better reputation than Alexander seems to have deserved, and on the strength of that, and his repute for thaumaturgy, was afterwards made a set-off against our Lord and His miracles. But the only detailed and specific account of his alleged miracles is in his Life by Philostratus, written a century after his death from vague sources of information which have not survived. Many wonderful things are told of him in this Life, but it plainly betrays an imitation of the Gospel history. The greatest of his marvels is the recalling to life a maiden whose funeral he met with inRome. The story is a manifest imitation of the raising of the widow of Nain’s son, and like all imitations is enlarged in its statement of par- ticulars. Moreover, Philostratus has by his own words thrown doubt on the reality of the maiden’s death. She seemed, as he says, to be dead, but there may have been a spark of life remaining. Apollonius told the mourners he would cause their tears to cease. They thought he was going to deliver a consolatory address, and this shows that he afforded himself an oppor- tunity of falling back on that, if there was no spark of life remaining. I may here refer to a very interesting account of A pollonius in the Encyelo- pedia Metropolitana, by no less a personage than the present Cardinal New- man, who in that discourse maintains that there is no ground for believing that he wrought any real miracles, or for bringing in the agency of the evil principle, as some have done to explain his alleged performances. Known as Apollonius was to Lucian, and famous as he was in his day asa philosopher, it seems to me impossible that if he had the repute of such miraculous powers as Philostratus assigns to him, Celsus in his True Word should never have referred to him, as he does not; though there were several occasions where it would have served his purpose, if he had known of any such marvellous performances as were subsequently ascribed to him by Philostratus. The cures ascribed to Vespasian and Hadrian, so far as the stories have any basis of fact, may be classed with those effected by touch- ing for the king’s evil. In Vespasian’s case the physicians had pronounced that the disorders were curable. The story of the man born blind, who was cured by touching Hadrian when sick of fever, from which he recovered at the same time, is told by Spartianus; but he adds that Marius Maximus alleged this was all effected per simulationem. To give courage to the Emperor in his sickness the blindness was no doubt simulated, and the cure of it pretended. This had its desired effect on the Emperor. LECT. vi.] Anceent Views on Miracles. 171 persuaded, justly convinced is erroneously entertained, of the all-prevailing efficacy of the Blessed Virgin’s interces- sion, as exalted to be the Queen of Heaven. I insist upon this in order to show the difficulty felt by the early propagators of the Gospel in urging the miracu- lous evidences of Christianity, and the necessary weak- ness of their arguments derived therefrom, owing to the general belief in demoniacal miracles, and their acquies- cence in that belief. One great practical use of this fact in the present day is this:—Those who hear the validity of miracles as a proof of revelation disputed, on the ground taken by the modern assailants of Christianity, and who may be staggered if not convinced by their arguments, if they should suppose that Christianity was originally established in the world, as it came to be, exclusively or even mainly by the force of these alleged miracles, might be tempted wholly to abandon a belief which was founded on so apparently insecure a basis. It may tend to re- assure such persons to know that this was not at all the case. Just in proportion as prevalent notions caused a facility in accepting the miracles as facts, in the same proportion did they weaken their force as evidence. And that took place not because this facility awakened a sus- picion that the testimony to the miracles as facts was insufficient. There was a notoriety about them that precluded that suspicion in the common apprehension. But the general belief in miracles wrought by means of the assistance of evil spirits largely weakened their value as evidences of the truth of the Gospel. Yet in spite of this weakness the Christian religion spread itself with incredible rapidity over the then civilized world. Men embraced it in the face of every danger that at- tye Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT. VI. tended its profession, and of all the persecutions that it was in the power of rulers or of private persons to inflict. The Galilean conquered the Empire of the world. The miracles had a share no doubt, I believe a considerable share, in producing this result, so manifestly did they differ in their whole character and circumstances from the lying wonders of sorcery. But still it is of moment to perceive that they were not the sole, nor even the main, cause of the extension of the Christian Church. Christi- anity came to men’s ears as glad tidings of great joy; it was welcomed as a blessed relief from innumerable ills; it forced itself on men’s convictions by its own weight, and f doubt not through the awakening of men’s minds by that Holy Spirit which was promised to attend on the Apostles, and to bless the word of life with success.* But whether we go along with the unbelieving historian in attributing that success to mere human causes, or see in the efficacy of these human causes a proof of the innate force of the truth itself, which alone could have made the human causes, such as they were, in this case purely moral, effectual, the historical fact is in either case of moment. Christianity did not in fact owe its success * Thus Eusebius, Dem. Evang. iii. 1, referring to Is. lii. 7, remarks, ““very justly did he say that the feet of those that published the blessings of the Gospel would be beautiful. For how should they not be beautiful that in a brief period should overrun the habitable world and fill every place with the godly teaching of the Saviour of the world? But that they should not have used mere human words for the persuasion of their hearers, but had the power of God working with them in their evangelical procla- mation, another prophet declares, the Lord shall give the word to them that preach with great power’? :—8r: 5 wh phuacw dvOpwalvors exexpnyTo eis Ted TY akpowuevwyv, Oe0d BE Sivauis Fv F Cuvepyovoa avtois évy TH EvayyeALKG Knpbywart, BAAos TdAw mpophrns avapwrer “ kipwos déce piua Tots edayyediCouevors Suvduer TOAAH.” In this latter quotation the reference is to the lxx. Version of Ps. Ixviii. 11. LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 19 entirely or even mainly to the supernatural evidences alleged in its support. For myself, I attach far greater weight to them as proofs of Divine revelation, than they seem to have had, in fact, at the first spread of the Gospel in the world, or than they could have had under the then existing circumstances and prevalent habits of thinking. I spoke of the notoriety of the Christian miracles hav- ing precluded suspicion that they were believed merely in consequence of the facility with which such wonders were accepted as facts in those days. It is to be remembered that the Apostolical miracles were wrought frequently amongst crowds of unbelievers, in pagan cities, with all the circumstances that could give publicity to the facts, and hinder suspicion as to any probability of artifice. The well-known acknowledgment of our Lord’s miracles as facts by the Jewish nation, so hostile to His teaching, and their reports diffused through the wide dispersion of that people, must have also tended to produce this notori- ety. And it is to be remembered that our Lord’s miracles were done not only in view of the superstitious Pharisees and their adherents amongst the populace, but also before the sceptical Sadducees. And though these were well content to listen in silence to our Lord’s attacks on the superstitions and failings of their adversaries, the Phari- sees, during His own lifetime, yet after His departure, the assertion of His resurrection caused the Sadducees to be- come the most active and virulent opponents of the Gospel amongst the Jews. And neither the miracles of our Lord nor of the Apostles afterwards could have been regarded by the Sadducees as due to the demoniacal influence sup- posed by the Pharisees. For they believed neither angel nor spirit. 174 Ancient Views on Miracles. [ LECT. v1. There was one circumstance connected with our Lord’s miracles that distinguished them in a remarkable manner from the generality of the pagan miracles, and must have had great weight in men’s minds, even though the force of the consideration was scarcely recognized in a distinct form. ‘The miracles of our Lord and His Apostles were expressly intended as an attestation of Divine mission and proof of the doctrines to be taught. This signality of the Scriptural miracles, as it has been well named, was not a general characteristic of the pretended pagan miracles. Some of these were performed, no doubt, to give credit to some oracle, to attract worshippers to some temple, or to aid the introduction of some foreign cult. But this was only occasional, and was not meant to disparage any exist- ing belief, or introduce any new system of doctrine. By far the greater number of these marvels were the work of professional thaumaturgists, whose curious arts were re- duced to system, and were the subject of an extensive literature, as exemplified by the value of the books of this kind burned at Ephesus in consequence of St. Paul’s teaching. They were practised to gratify men’s love of the marvellous, to satisfy their curiosity, or to aid them in carrying out some wicked project; and they were done for gain. Hven if these were supposed to be really due to supernatural agency, works like the miracles of the Gospel, done in attestation of a new religion, though under such circumstances not regarded as a decisive evidence, would naturally arrest men’s attention and dispose them to inquiry, and lead to a more willing consideration of the doctrines thus promulgated, and the other reasons that might commend those doctrines to men’s minds, And this would be a great set-off against the manifest weak- LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 175 ness of the argument from miracles, so long as it was believed on all hands that supernatural effects might be produced by the agency of evil spirits, whether demons or Satan himself. All the early Apologists and advocates of the Christian religion appear to have shared in this opinion, to say nothing of later Fathers. As a rule they held the belief, so weakening to the evidential value of the Gospel mira- © cles, that evil spirits were the agents of supernatural effects produced by the pagan and heretical thaumatur- gists. Justin Martyr is full of it. Tatian appears to limit their operation to producing illusions and causing bodily illness, but thinks they make themselves at times visible to men.* Irenzeus thinks the heretic Marcus, who pre- tended to work miracles, had the aid of a familiar spirit, ** by whom he appears to prophesy,” as he tells us.f And in the verses of the old Presbyter whom he so frequently quotes without naming him—probably his predecessor Pothinus—the wonder-working of Marcus is ascribed to the power of Satan through the agency of his angel Azazel.t Huippolytus also tells us that Marcus was skilled in magic, and deceived many by the instrumentality of demons. In this he is merely copying Irenseus, but he elsewhere describes the artifices by which the magicians performed their juggling tricks which passed for miracles.§ In Tertullian there was a dark vein of demonology. Clement of Alexandria reproaches the magicians for their impiety in boasting that they had demons for their at- * Tatian, Orat. ad Grec.xx.xxill.xxvul. tlren.adv. Her.i.9. {Lbid.12. § Philosophumena, vi., p. 200. Ed. Miller, and iv., p. 62, segg. In this the writer quotes largely the exposure of these practices, which is given by the sceptical philosopher Sextus Empiricus. 176 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT. vi. tendants, whom they compelled by their incantations to do their bidding. He leaves it doubtful whether he thought the boast a vain one.* But he seems to have shared the general belief on this subject. Minucius Felix makes his Octavius ascribe the answers of the oracles to demons, as also the performances of the magicians, though he suggests, with regard to the former, that it was to be expected that, amidst a multitude of lies, chance should sometimes imitate design, and that the performances of the latter were rather illusions and semblances than reali- ties.t I shall only further mention the Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius. In reference to the oracles and the marvels by which their authority was maintained, he says that another person might show that the whole was a system of mere human imposture. And he gives at great length the grounds on which this might be maintained, * Mayo. St H5n aoeBelas THs copay adbrav brnpéras Saluovas adxodory, éikéras avTovs EavTols KaTaypaWayTes, To’s KaTnvayKacmevous SobAovus Tals érydais memornkdtes.—Clem. Alex. ddm. ad Gentes, p. 39. Ed. Sylburg, 1641. ft Nonnunquam tamen veritatem vel auspicia vel oracula tetigere. Quan- quam inter multa mendacia videri possit industriam casus imitatus, ag- grediar tamen fontem ipsius erroris et pravitatis, unde omnis caligo ista manavit, et altius eruere et aperire manifestius. Spiritus sunt insinceri vagi, etc. Magi quoque, non tantum sciunt demonas, sed etiam quicquid mira- culi ludunt, per demonas faciunt. Llis aspirantibus et infundentibus, edunt vel que non sunt videri, vel que sunt non videri. ‘‘ Sometimes, however, the auspices or oracles have touched the truth. Although amidst many lies chance may sometimes seem to have imitated design, I shall attempt, however, more deeply to discover and more clearly to open the fountain itself of this error and pravity whence all that darkness has flowed. There are insincere and erring spirits, ete. The magicians also not only know the demons, but likewise whatever of miracle they play they do by means of the demons. These breathing on and infusing, they cause either things which are not to appear, or things which are, not to appear.’’ Minucius Felix, Octavius xxvi. Ed. Davis. I have removed the comma which follows edunt in this edition, so as to precede it. LECT. vi.| Ancient Views on Miracles. 177 including the confession of the performers themselves, extorted from them by the Roman tribunals. But after presenting this argument at length, he then assumes the reality of demoniacal assistance, arguing at much length on this supposition that the triumph of the Gospel was so much the more remarkable, and using the same supposi- tion with great force, but I think with much dangerous concession, as an argument ad hominem against Porphyry and. others. But he seems to have fully adopted the opinion himself, grounding it on the Greek version of the Psalmist’s words, “All the gods of the heathen are but idols,” the last word being incorrectly rendered demons— and on 8. Paul’s words, when he says that the heathen sacrifices were offered to demons and not to God: though it is plain that this only of necessity denotes their inten- tion, and at any rate attributes to them no supernatural powers. It is plain, therefore, that he adopted this view himself, though he also gives copious extracts from Cino- maus, a pagan writer otherwise unknown, who treats the whole system of the oracles and magical works of wonder as mere human imposture.* While speaking of this work of Eusebius, I cannot forbear remarking that, though there is much in it which will not bear the criticism of the present day, it must have greatly and deservedly helped the cause of Christianity; and it helps it still in a way perhaps not thought of by the author himself. The bearing of much in this work on important questions of the present is remarkable in many ways. From the ex- tensive survey which it presents of the opinions of ancient philosophy in its bearing on religion, a discerning reader cannot fail to observe that there is scarcely a notion in the * Eusebius, Prep. Evang. y. 19, seqq., vi. 7. N 178 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT. VI. wide range of modern speculation that has not had its counterpart in the produce of ancient thought. And there is scarcely a speculative objection to religion in the present day that was not relied on by ancient scepticism. Still more remarkable is the exhibition it makes of the dying efforts of pagan philosophy to rehabilitate itself in the face of the ever-growing prevalence of Christianity by reviving those parts of ancient philosophy, and especially the phi- losophy of Pythagoras and of Plato, which in a marvellous way coincided with or very nearly approached to Christian ideas, and by importing into their own philosophical sys- tems Christian ideas in a philosophical dress. I cannot but think that a great service would be done to religion in the present day by a full exhibition of this. And as re- gards the views of the earlier philosophers, I also think Eusebius would have served his cause as well, perhaps better, if he had represented them as the original feeling after God of great thinkers unenlightened by revelation, instead of maintaining, like Clement of Alexandria and Origen, that they had borrowed them from the Old Testament writings, with which, or with their doctrines, they had become acquainted by their travels in Egypt and the East.* At any rate, I am sure that Neoplato- nism and kindred systems of philosophy, intended to turn the flank of Christianity, greatly aided the cause they were designed to counteract. The views respecting the supernatural powers of evil spirits which prevailed in the primitive Church have conti- * There can be little doubt, however, that many Semitic notions, and amongst these Hebraic conceptions, must have found their way into Greece through Phoenician channels. After the time of Alexander the Great, the knowledge and influence of Jewish ideas was largely increased. LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 179 nued in the common belief of Christendom, not only through the dark ages, but down to our own times. In the gross form of a belief in witchcraft it held its ground in this country to times not long gone by. Its fraudulent im- posture, the employment of it for the purposes of crime, by working on the fears of the superstitious or the greed of the avaricious, and above all, its essentially idolatrous character, were sufficient grounds for the severe condem- nation of it in Holy Scripture. When it ceased to be formally idolatrous, the demons of the old mythology were transformed into angels of darkness, and a pretended compact with Satan took the place of idolatrous worship. This was wicked enough in the intention of those engaged in its practice, though the unreality of the whole system has been proved by its dying out when it was punished, not by judicial murder, but by simple neglect. In the form of a supposed occasional performance of miraculous effects by Satanic power, the same views linger still as a belief amongst many, not only of the common people, but even divines. The Deists of the last age were not slow to avail themselves of this to discredit the miracles of the Bible. And those who answered their attacks, while sharing in this belief, were obliged to rely on the moral tendencies of Christianity, on the superior nature of the Scriptural miracles, and on the presumption that God would not allow the laws of Nature to be interfered with for the introduction of a false religion, though He might, as was supposed, for the trial of our faith and obedience.* There were, however, some who from time to time rose above * Their greatest difficulty was with the realistic interpretation of the ser- pent in the narrative of the Fall. If Satan either possessed a real serpent and employed its organs, or enabled a real serpent to speak, this was an N2 180 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT. VI. this common belief, and with more or less decision rejected the notion in part or entirely—some quite absolutely—as time went on; and a respectable number of authorities may now be cited on this side of the question. But that they did not carry along with them the mind of the Church in general may be perceived not only by a little conversation with those we meet, but by the recent revival of this mode of attack on the evidence from miracles on the part of the adversaries of the Christian faith. That has been done just now, in the work entitled Supernatural Religion. The anonymous author says that, “As it is admitted that other supernatural beings exist as well as a supposed Personal God, by whose agency miracles are performed, it is impossible to argue with reason that any phenomena are at any time specially due to the interven- enormous miracle permitted for the deception of the as yet innocent but in- experienced human pair, whichit seems to me impossible that God should permit, and wholly unnecessary to suppose. As far as the words of the narrative go, there is no other agent mentioned but a natural serpent. To attribute human speech to this would seem of itself to indicate the symboli- cal character of the representation. The serpent was naturally fitted to symbolize the tempter and the insidious wiles of temptation. The preva- lence of serpent worship and of representations of an idolatrous nature, in © which the serpent and tree are figured, would be a good reason for giving a moral significance to such representations, and connecting the serpent in the minds of the Hebrews with the introduction of sin and the downfall of the human race. Satan would afterwards be identified with the serpent, as in speaking men commonly identify the symbol and that which it repre- sents. When S. Paul in 2 Cor. xi. 3 says that ‘‘ the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty,’’ he simply follows the words of Gen. iii., and says nothing of Satan. In Rev. xii. 9, ‘‘The great dragon, that old serpent, called devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world,” the dragon is plainly only a symbol of the tempter. As the allusion to Gen. iii. is mani- fest, it would follow that the serpent there is symbolical also. I have dwelt fully on this in my work Genesis and its Authorship. To the many testi- monies from ancient and modern sources I cited in that for the symbolical acceptation of the account of Paradise and the Fall, I may add that of LECT. vi.] Axcient Views on Miracles. 181 tion of Deity.”* He cites the names of eminent divines of the present time, some living, who admit the supposition on which the objection is grounded; and he argues that it is impossible to solve the difficulty by an appeal to con- science and reason, as this would be to surrender miracles altogether as a proof, and to make reason the final arbiter, since it is reason, not the miracle, that finally decides whether the doctrine is from God. Thus, while Hume argued against the credibility by exaggerating the evidence in favour of the alleged pagan and other non-Scriptural miracles, this objection goes to the very root of the ques- tion, and aims at overthrowing entirely the use of miracles as an evidence of revelation, even supposing them to be credible and well attested. The writer of an article on this work in an eminent Church Journalt admits the difficulty. His endeavour to evade its force is lengthened, but very vague and unsatisfactory, and ends with the weak remark, that if the author had been trained in Catholic theology, he could have had no difficulty at all; Clement of Alexandria, who gives an allegorical interpretation of Paradise, the tree of life, the taking the forbidden fruit, and the serpent. I shall only give the needful references—Protrept., p. 69, Strom. iv., p. 476, and v., pp. 582, 3. Ed. Sylburg. He constantly speaks of the serpent as a symbol ; never, that I can find, as a reality, in the account of the Fall. * Supernatural Religion, vol. 1., p. 13. Again, in p. 15, the author says: ‘It is perfectly clear that miracles, being thus acknowledged to be common both to God and to other spirits, they cannot be considered a distinctive attestation of Divine interference ;’’ in p. 19, ‘‘ It is obvious that the mu- tual dependence which is thus established between miracles and the doctrines in connection with which they are wrought destroys the evidential force of miracles, and that the first and final appeal is made to reason. The doctrine in fact proves the miracle, instead of the miracle attesting the doctrine ;”’ and in p. 20, ‘‘ The result of the appeal to reason respecting the morality and credibility of the doctrine determines the evidential status of the miracle, which, without it, is necessarily an object of doubt and suspicion.’’ t Church Quarterly Review for April, 1876. 182 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT 4a, as if Catholic, or any other theology but natural, is not based on the very miracles the validity of which as evi- dence in its favour is called in question, and weakened, if not destroyed, by this supposition. If this difficulty is founded on a supposition that is based on truth, I can only say we are not worse off, in respect to it, than was the early Church, which encountered it in its full force, and triumphed in spite of it. But as I feel persuaded it is founded on a great mistake, it does seem to me hard that we should now have heaped upon us not only the difficulties proper to our own time, but also that which belonged to a distant age, and was proper to habits of thinking far different from the prevailing cur- rent of thought in the present day. Sufficient to each time are its own proper difficulties and trials. It seems also hard that when we ask our doubting brethren to admit that miracles may be wrought by God, and may, be reason- ably believed to have proceeded from Him, we should lay upon them the additional burden of acknowledging that miracles may be, and have been, wrought by the devil and his angels also; and should ask them to discern be- tween the two kinds, by a purely subjective criterion. I am convinced that, at least with those who do not feel bound to accept every notion in any way connected with religion, that was entertained by the primitive Christians, this difficulty, as regards the Old Testament, has arisen from misconception of some narratives, into which people have read ideas not contained in the words themselves, and from mistranslation of particular phrases.* As re- * | have already noticed several places as I went along. Deut. viii. 1-3 has been relied on as opposed to the view I have been enforcing. The very conditional form of the warning, “ If the sign or the wonder come to pass,” LecT. vi.] Anceent Views on Miracles. 183 gards the New Testament, it arises partly from like mis- conceptions,* and partly from the seeming: acquiescence of our Lord and the Apostles in current ways of thinking, which the Jews had apparently borrowed from surrounding nations, and their adoption of modes of speaking in ac- cordance therewith. This apparent acquiescence, if only apparent, is not attended with greater difficulty than the indicates the casualness of its fulfilment. When it is said that the Lord proved the people thereby, this might as well be by not interposing to frustrate the fulfilment which might happen in the ordinary course of Providence, as by any special action of God, or permission of Satanic power to deceive them by supernatural means. The same may be said of the words to Ezekiel, “I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet.’’ It is to be observed likewise that omens and dreams and predictions have often a natural ten- dency to produce their own fulfilment by their influence on the minds of people that believe in them, animating some with unwonted courage, dis- couraging others from needful exertion, and suggesting courses of action calculated to bring about what is predicted. And people who have a ten- dency to believe in such: things would need a warning not to be misled by them if the pretension of supernatural power was false, just as much as if it were true. I need not advert to such a supposition as was once very prevalent, that the sons of God who took wives of the daughters of men were spiritual beings who had the power of clothing themselves in human bodies. But few adopt this interpretation now, though it has been revived by some who desired to disparage the Book of Genesis. I have discussed the passage in my own work already named. The lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets in 1 Kings, xxii. 22, plainly belongs to a figurative representation of the same character as the scene in the Court of Heaven, where Satan received permission to afflict Job. The figurative nature of the latter case would seem to indicate that his agency in the afflictions themselves was of like character. The earlier afflictions might have been such as we ascribe to the instigation of the devil. His sickness may be compared with what our Lord said of the woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen years. The connection, direct or indirect, of sickness with sin would explain this manner of speaking; that is, if the word Satan was there used as a proper name, and not in its common signifi- cation in the language of the Jews as an adversary, the sickness being thus personified according to a not unfrequent usage. * The narrative of our Lord’s temptation is an instance of this. It is nowhere said that Satan appeared to our Lord in any visible form, the as- 184 Ancient Views on Miracles. (LECT irae seeming acquiescence with other things now felt to be wrong, as slavery, for instance, which institution is cer- tainly not condemned in the New Testament. Both might alike have been left to the silent working of right principles, and the gradual falling off of erroneous con- ceptions, which could not be readily extirpated at once. In the case of slavery no immediate opposition was made to an institution the immediate abolition of which would have involved the disruption of the whole existing order of society, and it is only in our own days that it has been entirely rooted out amongst ourselves. Similarly our Lord might in His wisdom have thought it better to allow His miracles to assert themselves as they did in fact, in spite of an erroneous belief, than to encumber them with the difficulties that would have arisen from a direct attack suming of which would itself be a miracle, while the words ascribed to him might have been the words in which a temptation is often conceived in our own minds. And it is nothing unusual for one to say that the devil bid him commit some sin. An objective and realistic interpretation of the taking of our Lord to the summit of the high mountain, and the placing Him on the pinnacle of the temple, would be as consistent with our Lord’s consenting to go to these places by His own action, as with the supposition of His being carried there by Satanic power. Of the former, Origen re- marks that such a mountain would require an elevation from which no bodily eye could discern the glory of all the kingdoms of the earth. —See Philocal. i., pp. 12-13. Ed. Spencer. Indeed we may affirm that no such mountain exists on earth, even if discernment by sight was possible in such acase. A subjective temptation of our Lord, like that to which we are our- selves subject, would be much more significant to us, who are often tempted to avoid troubles, or escape difficulties, by unrighteous compliances, and so doing the bidding of the devil. And then we are expressly told that our Lord was tempted in all points like unto US, KaTd mdyTa Kad’ duoidrnTa, and this would seem to include the manner as well as the matter of the temptation. At any rate, as our Lord was led of the Spirit into the wilder- ness to be tempted of the devil, the whole transaction was one of Divine ordering, and there is no reason for supposing that there was in it any exercise of miraculous power, but that of God himself. LECT. vi.] Anceent Views on Miracles. 185 on a deeply-rooted and wide-spread superstition that did not otherwise injuriously affect the teaching of the Gospel. But our Lord, I think, has left us no reason to doubt what His own mind was respecting this question, and has spoken in such a manner as should have led us after due reflection to abandon an opinion which, with all reverence for the high names committed to it, I venture to call a survival of an old superstition not originally derived from the Holy Scriptures, and as I think contrary to their spirit, though not to the letter. J refer to our Lord’s unhesitat- ing appeal to His miracles, and His miracles apart from any reference to the moral and sanctifying tendency of His teaching, as the witness borne to Him by His Father, and the sufficing proof of His Divine mission. On only one occasion did He make any direct reference in con- nection with His miracles to the character of His teaching. I refer to His argument of Satan casting out Satan, who by such a proceeding would have been overthrowing his own kingdom. But it must be remembered that He was then reasoning with His adversaries on their own prin- ciples, and retorting their own suggestion upon them- selves. And it is remarkable that, in the two parables of the strong man armed and the lapsed demoniac, which immediately followed this argument, He plainly gave a moral significance to demoniacal possession. But my present contention does not require that we should form any opinion in regard to the nature of demoniacal pos- session. Whatever was its nature in the subjective sphere, its sensible effects seem identical with epilepsy, mania, and kindred disorders. ‘These were regarded as effects of possession before the time of Christ, and outside Palestine, from whence the Jews seem to have derived the notion. 186 Ancient Views on Miracles. PLECT iy For there is nothing in the Old Testament to give rise to it; the case of Saul being supposed to be an instance only on account of mistranslation, probably fallen into from feelings of reverence. For it is said that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from with the Lord came upon him. This is then described constantly aiterwards, no less than five times, as an evil spirit of God or of Jehovah, not from, as in the translations; by which a direct penal agency of God afflicting the mind of Saul is implied.* As this notion existed out of Palestine and before our Lord’s time, so is it still the common opinion in all parts of the Hast to the present day; mad people are supposed to be possessed. If this be the real cause of such diseases in all or in any cases, the effects are natural disorders, and the whole operation may be regarded as falling within the natural order. The miracle was not in the possession but in the cure. Simulated forms of a ner- vous kind, simulated unconsciously, as in hysterical dis- orders, would yield in accordance with the well-ascertained operation of prepossession and expectancy, to senseless in- cantations, such as a barbarous and mispronounced repe- tition of the names of the Patriarchs, as mentioned by Origen ; or in later times, to the use of the name of our Lord in imitation of the Apostolic practice. The real disease was cured by our Lord miraculously. The multi- plicity and manner of our Saviour’s cures would sufficiently distinguish them as miracles. I see no reason to suppose that it was in any case in the discretion of the unclean spirits, whatever they were, to possess anyone. The going out in certain cases only by prayer and fasting would seem to indicate that the affliction was in such instances * 1 Sam. xvi., 14-16. LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 187 the result of vicious excess, and only ordinarily to be remedied by moral and religious discipline. And in the history of the herd of swine it is plainly shown that no arbitrary power of possession existed, as the result was due to our Lord’s special permission. However this may be, on no other occasion but that of the answer to the charge that our Lord cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, did He, in appealing, as He so often did to His miracles as a sufficient proof of His Divine mission, make any reference to the moral and sanctifying nature of His doctrines. And in that one case He only made this reference by implication. * There was a widely-spread notion in old times, now, I believe, shared by none, that the order of Nature or the course of history, or both, were carried on by the agency of spiritual beings.t If anyone in the present day should choose to adopt this opinion, it would be plain from the facts that their operation on such a supposition must be not by arbitrary power, but according to fixed rules * See Note appended to this Lecture. + See Origen, Con. Cels. Lib. viii., p. 397, segg. Ed. Spencer. Celsus, in reference to the objection of Christians to take part in the sacrificial feasts of the pagans, had maintained that we have communion with demons in partaking of our common food, and even in breathing the air that sup- ports life, as all things in Nature are administered by demons. Origen, in reply to this, admits that all the ordinary course of Nature is administered by spiritual beings, but maintains the beneficial operations of Nature are carried on by good angels, while demons or evil spirits are sometimes per- mitted to produce ill effects, as executioners of God’s displeasure against sinners, or for men’s moral discipline, or even for promoting the profitable exercise of men’s reasoning faculties. The account in the Book of Daniel of the prince of the kingdom of Persia and the prince of the kingdom of Grecia contending with Michael, the prince of the holy people, might have seemed to countenance this notion. But that is all so manifestly symbolical that nothing can be made of it, whatever evil spirits may have to do with the wickedness of mankind, or however holy angels may guard God's Church and people. 188 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LECT. v1. and modes of action, constituting the laws of Nature. The notion is in fact only a theory in explanation of natural forces. All those effects in Nature which seemed, or still seem, to be capricious, are falling gradually, as observation is extended, into the ranks of natural law. Even the most seemingly capricious, the occurrences of disease, and the phenomena classed under the name of meteorology, bid fair to be reduced to law; and we can have no doubt that they are subject to it, like all other natural appearances. If Satan or other evil spirits have power inherent in themselves to affect the course of things in this world, it is held in check by the Ruler of the world. Natural order is not capriciously interrupted, and the events of history take place by the operation of human motives and human will. If such inherent power exists in evil spirits, ordinarily kept in check, the relaxa- tion of the check must be due to God, and the effect would virtually be God’s act. What we regard as the temptation of the devil is not in opposition to anything I have said. It is entirely carried on in a sphere different from that of physical operation, so far as the tempter is concerned. It takes place in effect through our natural desires and propensions, and its effects are undistinguishable by any sure criterion from temptations arising from the world and the flesh, by re- sisting which we can alone resist the devil. The practical use of our belief in that source of temptation, in which there is nothing of a supernatural order, but plainly a part of our natural probation, is not in regard to any particular kinds of temptation, as if we were to resist these in some different way from others. But it makes a great difference to believe that our warfare is not merely against flesh and LECT. vi.] Anceent Views on Miracles. 189 blood. The temptations of the world and the flesh pro- ceed from those we would like to please, and from desires we like to gratify. We have no inclination to gratify the wishes of a malignant enemy, who we know cannot mean us any good. The mere thought that it is not those about us or ourselves only that we have to contend with, but with a malignant personal enemy, is calculated to stir up in us a more vigorous opposition, to excite that spirit of manfulness, what the Greeks of old regarded as a grand virtue under the name of avépefa, and to awaken a feeling of anger, or Ouudc, such as Aristotle* speaks of, and so to promote that resistance which we are promised, and indeed find, when properly exerted, will be effectual— “ Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I shall only offer one other remark in reference to this question. If we were asked what we should say in case we saw an incontestable miracle, wrought as it only could be, on the supposition I have maintained, by the power of God, but seemingly produced in attestation of what con- science or reason would prohibit us from receiving, I should say that, on the supposition, this is not to be imagined possible.t If any case should seem to be an instance, we should rather doubt the connection of the miracle with the doctrine seemingly proposed for our acceptance; or if that should be impossible under the circumstances, we should assume that we did not rightly understand the meaning of the words or the intent of the speaker, and * Nic. Eth. iii. 11, pp. 71, 2. Ed. Bp. of Killaloe. +t The alternative of illusion or imposture is here purposely excluded from the supposition. Of course this is not to be overlooked in the consideration of any particular instance. But I here speak of an admitted miracle, which, as I have argued, cannot be ascribed to an evil spirit, and must therefore be the effect of Divine operation. 190 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LEct. vt. endeavour to put on them some more reasonable construc- tion, instead of accepting the words in a bald literalness that would do violence to our reason or give a shock to our conscience.* And I think common sense has taught us all to do something of this kind in regard to many sayings of Holy Scripture, untenable in the letter that killeth, but highly significant and instructive according to the spirit that giveth life; as in the case of God harden- ing the heart of Pharaoh, and many such like instances. And I further think that we may reasonably adopt this course in respect to anything in Holy Scripture that might seem adverse to what I have been urging in respect to miracles supposed to have been wrought by evil spirits, rather than suppose that our faith should have been de- signedly built on miracles, and yet their validity as proofs of Divine revelation be rendered ineffectual by the sup- position that any true Satanic miracle could be permitted by God, the only end of which would be to deceive, whe- ther by the direct inculcation of falsehood or not. For even without any teaching, the performance of such mira- cles would have this effect, by invalidating the evidence * This is recognized by Plato when speaking of the evils attributed by the poets to the gods. He says that a poet who has to describe such things as the calamities of the house of Pelops, and suchlike, must either not be per- mitted to say that these were the acts of a god, or if of a god, must find for them some such explanation as Plato himself was seeking, and must say that God did what was just and good, but that they were punished for their benefit: "Edy tis moh ev ofs tadta Td iauPeta eon, Td Tis NidBns rdOn, }) 7a TleAomdav, 7) TA Tpwikd, % Tt AAO Tov ToLotTwy’ 4) 0d Cod epya éaréov abTa A€yewv, 7), ei Oeod, ekevperéov adrois oyeddy dy vor qmets Adyov (nTtoduev' Kal AexTéov ws 6 uty Beds Slead Te Kad ayada eipydero, of5t avivayro KoAaduevor. De Repud. ii., p. 380. And Eusebius applies this remark to the Scriptures, exemplifying it by quotations which will occur to the reader without more special reference.—See Prep. Evang. xiii. Siar: LECT. vi.] Ancrent Views on Miracles. 191 of miracles in support of Divine truth, and furthering the ends of wickedness in the world. *,* In the foregoing Lecture I said that the supposition that the New Testament gave any countenance to the notion that miraculous effects might be produced by evil spirits was partly founded on the seeming acquiescence of our Lord and the Apostles in current ways of thinking or speaking, which the Jews had borrowed from surrounding nations. This is confined to two particulars—the practices of sorcery, and demoniacal possession. A few additional remarks on each of these may seem to be desirable. Sorcery and those who practised it are spoken of in accordance with the common usage of the times. But there is nothing that conveys any acknowledgment that there was any reality in the pretensions of the sor- cerers. Nothing of the kind is implied in the account of Simon Magus. Elymas is called the ‘‘child of the devil,’’ but that would be appropriate to any wickedness as well as to sorcery, the ample grounds for condemning which, apart from all consideration of Satanic or demoniacal agency, I have already noticed. The instance that seems to afford the greatest countenance to the supposition in question is the story of the damsel possessed of a spirit of Python in Acts xvi. In the notes of Kuinoel on this passage the reader will find numerous authorities cited to prove that this was in those times the common way of describing ventriloquists. The art of ventriloquism, unknown to the generality as a mere human artifice, caused the impression of supernatural power. I have already noticed that it was practised by the wizzards and witches of the Old Testament, and we may justly conclude — that this was the artifice by which the damsel mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles brought much gain to her masters. Whether the words she spoke in reference to the Apostles were uttered in a mocking and ironical tone, or S. Paul would not allow the cause of Christ to be disparaged even by a serious testimony from such a source, we cannot tell. But at any rate, in checking the annoyance he fell in with the common way of speaking, and bid the supposed spirit to come out of the damsel; and the writer of the Acts adds that ‘‘ he came out the same hour.’’ The fe is supplied by the translators. There was at least in this an acquiescence in the vulgar notion. I do not think we are obliged to suppose that there was more. It may have 192 Ancient Views on Miracles. [LEcr. v1. been identified in the Apostle’s mind with the ordinary instances of demo- niacal possession, the manner of speaking being similar to that used by our Lord in curing the demoniacs, as was also his unwillingness to receive any testimony from such a source to our Lord’s refusal to receive testimony from the demoniacs, whatever opinion may be entertained re- specting the source of that affliction. It might have seemed better to S. Paul to put down the imposture by words in accordance with the com- mon belief. The word spirit is frequently used in both Testaments to denote a mental state, whether good or evil; and the readers of the New Testament are aware that it is often difficult to decide whether in the case of Christians the word is used to signify the state of the Christian’s mind, or the Divine Spirit, to whose influence it might be due. Such phrases as the spirit of bondage, and the spirit of adoption, the spirit of meekness, and the spirit of jealousy may be instanced. In these phrases there is a sort of personification. And in the case now under consideration a like manner of speaking might have been adopted, without obliging us to sup- pose that the Apostle meant any really personal spirit, or more than a purely physical condition. The imagery in Rey. xvi. 18, 14, is derived no doubt from the popular notions of evil spirits, but adds nothing to the question on either side. That it is in the highest degree symbolical imagery is plain. Three un- clean spirits are seen to proceed from the mouths of the dragon, and the beast, and the false prophet, like frogs. They go forth to gather the kings of the earth to the battle of Armageddon, ‘“ working miracles,’’ as it is rendered in the English version. But the word is signs, a word used no doubt to express “ the signality ’’ of the Scripture miracles, but not by itself, vt termini, expressing the reality or falsity of the alleged miracles thus described. For the real character of these signs, we must have recourse to the less figurative account already noticed of the coming of the Man of Sin, ‘after the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and wonders of falsehood, and with all deceit of unrighteousness,’’ in 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10. I have not thought it necessary to form any opinion respecting the true nature of the demoniacal possession so often mentioned in the New Testa- ment. ‘That our Lord treated it according to the current notions is plain enough. That He regarded it as in any way supernatural there is not the slightest evidence. Neither did He acknowledge anything supernatural in the practices of the Jewish exorcists. He did claim for Himself the exer- cise of Divine power in the case of those who were thus afflicted. It was in that, not in the possession, that the miracle consisted. And His unhesi- tating appeal to His own works, as clear proof of His Divine mission, is a LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 193 sufficient evidence that in His miracles there was the only real exercise of miraculous power, the power of God alone, employed by Himself, and communicated by Him to His Apostles for the same use and purpose as His own miracles were intended to serve. When our Lord was accused of casting out demons by the prince of the demons His question, ‘‘ By whom do your sons cast them out 2”? certainly implies no acknowledgment of any supernatural performance on their part. So far from that, it is clear that He meant to set His own works as done by the Spirit and the finger of God as real miracles in opposition to their pre- tensions, and as evidence that the Kingdom of God was come upon them. His question could not have had reference merely to the orthodox invoca- tion of the God of the patriarchs, which we learn from Origen was in use, and had even been adopted by the pagans.. It is plain that he charges them with the use of idolatrous invocations, and of superstitious charms and incantations, such as are mentioned by J osephus. That they were ready to resort to anything that they thought might have influence with their patients or others is plain from the case of Elymas, who had obtained influence with the Roman Deputy, and from the account of the “ vagabond Jews, exorcists,’? who invoked the name of Jesus over the possessed, as mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. And before that, when our Lord’s fame had begun to spread, those who would not follow the Lord did not hesitate to use His name in expelling demons, as we learn from the Gos- pels. The reason assigned by our Lord for not prohibiting this is intel- ligible enough, whether their use of the Sacred name was successful or not. Such persons could not lightly join in condemning one whose name they employed in this manner. The now generally recognized effect of pre- possession and expectancy, as shown by Dr. Carpenter, would account, as I have already said, for the occasional success of such invocations of any kind in cases where the affection was of a nervous or hysterical nature. That it was not successful in all cases is plain enough, as in the instance recorded in the Acts of the Apostles just mentioned. That our Lord meant to retort upon the Jewish exorcists the practices which they charged Him with is evident. The Pharisees that accused Him might be judged, as He says, by the proceedings of their own followers. And the absence of any sort of invocation, or of the use of any formula that might be thought to have potency by the superstitious, together with the success fof His word in the cure of those whom no others could cure, or even restrain, gives an entirely different character to His performances. If the notion of demo- niacal possession was a mere popular superstition, by which common mad- ness was accounted for, there is no reason for supposing that our Lord’s O 194 Ancient Views on Miracles. |LECT. VI. disciples should have risen above the prevalent belief in this matter. If our Lord Himself did not share this opinion, I have already indicated reasons why in His wisdom it may have seemed better to make no direct attack on the popular view. He did not come as a teacher of correct scientific notions, or as a reformer of popular errors in matters that did not immediately affect the great doctrines He came to establish. In other respects, He practically fell in with the prevalent conceptions of the time. In the cure of the demoniacs He set His own power in direct opposition to the pretensions of the professed exorcists, as in His other miracles He presented a striking contrast to the performances of the magical thauma- turgists of those times. That the works of magic, as within the range of physical operation, were lying wonders, and, as supposed miracles, pure imposture, is sufficiently attested by His appeal to His own miracles, apart from any consideration of His moral and spiritual teaching—an appeal that would have been invalidated if like works, or anything approaching to like works, could be wrought by antagonistic powers. ‘*No man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him,” was the spontaneous testimony of Nicodemus accepted by our Lord. “ Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind: if this man were not of God he could do nothing,” was the instinctive remark of the man whose eyes Jesus had opened. That within the order of Nature it is possible to do much that might simulate true miracles need not be denied. That lying wonders thus performed might be such as if it were possible to deceive the very elect is only a part of our probation, like all other deception that we have to be on our guard against. The control of the operations of Nature, beyond our own natural powers—nay, the operations of Nature themselves are in the hands alone of the Author of Nature; and that no deviation from its ordinary course can take place by any but Divine interference seems to me essential to any use of miracle as an attestation of Divine revelation. The appeal to miracles having been made in so frequent and absolute a manner by our Lord justifies us in thinking that the opposite notion is sufficiently contra- dicted, notwithstanding any seeming acquiescence in popular modes of speaking, for whatever wise reasons a more direct and explicit contradiction had been withheld. In all our Lord’s teaching our own common sense and intelligence are taken for granted. Much has been left to the exercise of these, under the gradual and ever-growing influence of those principles which He inculeated by word and example. As it was in the case of moral duty and practical conduct, so is it also in regard to the subject I have been now discussing. LECT. vi.] Ancient Views on Miracles. 195 _ While it was left to time and the operation of right principles, in combi- nation with advancing knowledge, to correct many false notions and erro- neous conceptions on this as on other suhjects, there were certain advantages derived from the absence of any very explicit declaration of the futility of the works of wonder amongst the pagans. The miracles of Christ and the Apostles were thus made to stand on their own merits in competition, face to face, with the pagan wonders, and to prevail against them. At the same time, the all but universal credulity regarding the false miracles obviated the danger at the outset of the true ones being met with any serious objec- tion on the ground of incredibility, like that which has had such influence in these later times. Hence we find Clement of Alexandria asking the narrators of pagan wonders were these true or false. They could not stultify themselves by saying they were false. ‘‘ If they confess them to be true, how does it appear that the wonders displayed by Moses and the other prophets are incredible?”’ ’AAn07 Seivou e& avdynns buorAyhoaer* Kal was er. &miora Katapalverar TX Sid Mwoéws kal TOY MAAwY TpopynTay Tepac- tlws émidederynéva.—sStrom. vi., p. 629. Sylburg. So general was the belief in the false miracles that even the sceptical Celsus does not profess to deny them. He ventures to put them in competition with the miracles of our Lord. They could not stand the comparison. For though he asserts (Origen con. Cels. iii., p. 124. Spencer) that “ 7Msculapius had often been seen, and still continued to be seen, not as a mere phantasm, but tending and relieving’ the sick, and foretelling future events,’’* yet Eusebius (Prep. Evang. v. 1) quotes the admission of Porphyry that, ‘‘ though sickness had prevailed for so many years, there was no longer any visit of /Asculapius or any other gods. For since Jesus was held in honour, none of the gods cared for any public benefit.’’t+ It is plain that the false miracles could not bear the comparison with those of the Christians and, like the Oracles, waned in their presence. That sufficed for the time that then was. But we should shake ourselves free from allowing to the pretended miracles that *’Emay pev wep) tov “AckAnmiod A€yntat, BTt ToOAY ayvOpdTwY TATOOS ‘EAAHvay Te kal BapBdpwy duodroyel ToAAdKs Lely, Kal eT. dpav, ov ddoua avTd TOUTO, GAAG OepamevovTa Kal evepyeTotyTa Kal TA WEAAOYTA TPOAeyorTA morteve uas 6 KéAgos aéiot. This is Origen’s account of what Celsus had written. ¢ Nouv) 5€ Oavud(ovow ef TocotTwy éeTay KaTelAnhe Thy TéAW 7H véda0s, "AckAnmLOd mev emidnulas Kal Tay %AAwY Oedv wnkét ovons. "Inood yap Tiuwmevou ovdEMLaS Tis Be@y Synuodias wheArclas HodeTo. 196 Ancient Views on Miracles. |LECT. VI. qualified recognition which the first Christians, and after them later followers of the early tradition, have been too ready to afford them. If we are in the present day to maintain the Gospel miracles as evidences of Divine reve- lation, we may avail ourselves of the fact that they formerly produced con- viction, in opposition to the belief in the false and lying wonders of sorcery; but we must, in opposition to modern scepticism, take our stand on the firm persuasion that no supernatural power save that of God Himself is able, or can be permitted by God, so to interfere with the ordinary working of the fixed laws of Nature, as to produce what we properly understand by a miracle. THE END. %y : ba T77 sll DATE DUE HIGHSMITH #45115 Princeton The iii 1 1012