Oi^ No,.. NOTES ON THE MIEACLES. NOTES ON THE MIRACLES or OUE LORD BY RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, M. A., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, KING'S COLI,EGE, LONDON; AUTHOR OF "NOTES ON THE PARABLES OF OCTR LORD," ETC., ETC. REPRINTED ENTIRE FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION. NEW-YORK : D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY PHILADELPHIA : GEO. S. APPLETON, 164 CHESNUT-STREET. 1850. CONTENTS. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. CHAP. PAGE I. On the Names of the Miracles ..... 9 II. The Miracles and Nature ..... 16 III. The Authority of the Miracle . . . .25 IV. The Evangelical compared with other Cycles of Miracles . 34 V. The Assaults on the Miracles . . .53 VI. The Apologetic Worth of the Miracles .... 75 MIRACLES. 1. The Water made Wine ...... 83 2. The Healing of the Nobleman's Son ..... 97 3. The First Miraculous Draught of Fishes ..... 106 4. The Stilling of the Tempest . . 119 5. The Demoniacs in the Country of the Gadarenes . . . - . 125 6. The Raising of Jairus's Daughter ..... 147 7. The Woman with an Issue of Blood . . . 154 8. The Opening the Eyes of Two Blind in the House . 160 9. The Healing of the Paralytic . . .163 10. The Cleansing of the Leper . . . . 173 11. The Healing of the Centurion's Servant 183 12. The Demoniac in the Synagogue of Capernaum . 189 13. The Healing of Simon's Wife's Mother . . .192 14. The Raising of the Widow's Son .... 196 15. The Healing of the Impotent Man at Bethesda .199 16. The Miraculous Feeding of Five Thousand . 213 17. The.Walkingon the Sea ....... 223 18. The Opening the Eyes of one Born Blind .... 233 VIM CONTENTS. PAGE 19. The Rrtconng of the Man with a Withered Hand 250 20. The Woman with the Spirit of Infirmity . . . • 259 21. The Healing of the Man with a Dropny ..... 2G3 22. Tlie Cleanaing of the Ten Lepers ..... 266 23. The Healing of the Daughter of the Syrophenician Woman 272 24. The Htaling of one Deaf and Dumb ..... 280 25. The .Miraculoufl Feeding of Four Thousand .... 285 26. The Opening the Eyes of one Blind at Bethsaida 288 27. The Healing of the Lunatic Child .291 28. The Stater in tlie Fish's Mouth ..... 299 29. The Raising of Lazarus ...... 312 30. The Oj)ening the Kyea of two Blind Men near Jericho . 341 31. The Withering of Uie Fruitless Fig-Tree . . .347 32. The Healing of Malchus's Ear ..... 356 .'<3. The Second Miraemlous Draught of Fishes 361 PRELIMINAEY ESSAY. CHAPTER I. ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. Every discussion about a thing will best proceed from an investigation of the name or names which it bears ; for the name ever seizes and presents the most distinctive features of the thing, embodying them for us in a word. In the name we have the true declaration of the inner- most nature of the thing j we have a witness to that which the universal sense of men, finding its utterance in language, has ever felt thus to lie at its heart ; and if we would learn to know the thing, we must start with seeking accurately to know the name which it bears. In the discussion upon which now we are entering, the names are manifold : for it is a consequence of this, that, where we have to do with any thing which in many ways is significant, that will have inevitably many names, since no one will exhaust its meaning. Each of these will embody a portion of its essential qualities, will present it upon a single side ; and not from the exclusive contemplation of any one, but only of these altogether, will any adequate apprehension of that which we desire to know be obtained. Thus what we commonly call miracles, are in the Sacred Scriptures termed sometimes " wonders," sometimes "signs," sometimes "powers," sometimes, simply, "works." These titles they have in addition to some others of rarer occurrence, and which easily range themselves under one or other of these ; — on each of which I would fain say a few words, before attempting to make any further advance in the subject. 2 10 ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. 1. To take tlien first the name ^^ wonder,^'* in which the eflcct of astonishment which the work produces upon the bchoKIer is transferred to the work itself, an effeet often graphically portrayed by the Evangel- ists, when relating our Lord's miracles, (Mark ii. Ti; iv. 41 ; vi. 51 ; viiL 37 ; Acts iii. 10, 11,) it will at once be felt that this does but touclr the matter on the outside. The ethical meaning of the miracle would be wholly lost, were blank astonishment or gaping wonder all which they aroused ; since the same efiect might be produced by a thousand meaner causes. Indeed, it is not a little remarkable, rather is it singu- larly characteristic of the miracles of the New Testament, that this name " wonders " is never applied to them but in connection with other names. They are continually "signs and wonders," or "signs" or " powers " alone, but never " wonders " alone. f Not that the miracle, considered simply as a wonder, as an astonishing event which the be- holders can reduce to no law with wliich they are acquainted, is even as such without its meaning and its purpose ; that purpose being that it should forcibly startle from the mere dream of a sense-bound exist- ence, and, however it may not be itself an appeal to the spiritual in man, should yet be a summons to him that he should open his eves to the spiritual appeal which is about to be addressed to him. 2. But the miracle, besides being a "wonder," is also a " sign,"X • Ttpas- The term Oavfia, near akin to ripas, and one of the commonest in the Greek Fathers to designate the miracles, never occurs in the Holy Scripture ; OavfjJitrtov only once ; (Matt. xxvi. 15;) but the Oav fii(t iv \s o(wn brought out as a consequence. (Mall. viii. 27 ; ix. 8, 33; xv. 31, &.c.) Uapaio^ov, which in like manner brings out the unexpectedness of the wonder, and so implies, though it does not express, the astonisluneiit wiiich it causes — a word of frequent usage in eccle- xiasiical Greek, — is found only Luke v. 2G. t It is not eatisfactury that a word, which is thus only the subordinate one in the Greek, should be the chief one in onr language to designate these divine facts, — that the two woixls almost exclusively in use among us, nomely wonders and miracles, should bring out only the occidental accompaniment, ihe astonishment which the work createti, and should go so little into the deeper meaning of the work itself. The Latin miraculum (which properly is not a substantive, but the neuter of miraculus,) and the German Wunder lie exactly under the same defect. t ^rjnt'iuy- Our version is not entirely satisfactory from its lack of consistency in rendering this word. There in no reason why m)^t7aoy should not always hove l)een rendered "sign ;" but in the Gosi)el of St. John, with whom the word is an especiol favoriie, for oftcncr than not, " sign" gives place to the vofjuer " miracle," ond this HometimeB not without it\jury to the entire clearness and force of the words. See for insunce, iii. 3; vii. 31 ; x. 41 ; and es|>ecially vi.2G, where the substitution of" mira- cles" for "signs" is greatly injurious to the meaning. Our version mokes Christ to way to the multitude, which, after he hod once fed them in llie wUderaess, gathered ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. 11 a token and indication of tiie near presence and working of God. In this word the ethical end and purpose of the miracle comes out the most prominently, as in " wonder " the least. They are signs and pledges of something more than and beyond themselves; (Isai. vii. 11 ; xxxviii. 7 ;)* they are valuable, not so much for what they are, as for what they indicate of the grace and power of the doer, or of the connection in which he stands with a higher world. Oftentimes they are thus seals of power set to the person who accomplishes them, (" the Lord con- firming the word by signs following," Mark xvi. 20 ; Acts xiv. '6 ; Heb. ii. 4 ;) legitimating acts, by which he claims to be attended to as a messenger from God.f We find the word continually used in senses such as these : Thus, " What sign showest thou ?" (John ii. 18,) was the question which the Jews asked, when they wanted the Lord to jus- tify the things which he was doing, by showing that he had especial authority to do them. Again they say, " We would see a sign from thee;" (Matt. xii. 38;) "Show us a sign from heaven." (Matt. xvi. round him again, " Ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles, &c." But rather should it be, " Ye seek me not because ye saw signs," (o-yjjueTa without the article,) " not because ye recognized in these works' of mine tokens and intimations of a higher presence, something which led you to conceive great thoughts of me : they are no glimpses of my higher nature, which you have caught, and which bring you here ; but you come that you may again be filled." The coming merely because they saw miracles, in the strictest sense of the word — works that had made them marvel — the coming with the expectation of seeing such again, would have been as much con- demned by our Lord as the coming only for the satisfying of their lowest earthly wants. (Matt. xii. 39 ; xvi. 1 — 4.) * Basil upon this passage : "Etxri (Xfi^etov Trpay/xa (pavepov, KeKpufifievov tivos kou, an another a o^/itrof, Ond the words most often refer not to diflerent claases of miracles, but to different qualities in the same miracles ; in the words of Lampc (Comm. in Joh., v. 1, p. 513:) Eadem enim miracula dici possunt signa, qualcnus aliquid seu occultum seu futuruin docent ; et jirodiifia, \jipaTa) tjua- ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. 13 for a man, under a strong conviction that the hand of God is leading him, to set such and such a contingent event as a sign to himself, the falling out of which in this way or in that he will accept as an intima- tion from God of what he would have him to do. Examples of this also are not uncommon in Scripture. (Gen. xxiv. 16 ; Judg. vi. 36 — 40; 1 Sam. xiv. 8—13.) 3. .Frequently, also, the miracles are styled ^^ ■powers" or ^^ mighty works" that is, of God.* As in the terni "wonder" or "miracle," the effect is transferred and gives a name to the caus6, so here the cause gives its name to the efFect.f The ",power" dwells originally in the divine Messenger, (Acts vi. 8; x. 38; Rom. xv. 9;) is one with which he is himself equipped of God. Christ is thus in the highest sense that which Simon blasphemously suffered himself to be named, "The great Power of God." (Acts viii. 10.) But then by an easy transition the word comes to signify the exertions and separate puttings forth of this power. These are " powers " in the plural, although the same word is now translated in our version, " wonderful works," (Matt, vii. 22,) and now, " mighty works," (Matt. xi. 20; Mark vi. 14; Luke X. 13,) and still more frequently, "miracles," (Acts ii. 22; xix. 11; 1 Cor. xii. 10, 28; Gal. iii. 5;) in this last case giving sometimes such tautologies as this, "miracles and wonders;" (Acts ii. 22; Heb. ii. 4;) and always causing to be lost something of the express foi'ce of the word, — how it points to new powers which have come into, and are working in, this world of ours. These three terms, of which we have hitherto sought to unfold the meaning, occur thrice together, (Acts ii. 22 ; 2 Cor. xii. 12 ; 2 Thess. ii. 9,) although each time in a different order. They are all, as has al- ready been noted in the case of two of them, rather descriptive of differ- ent sides of the same works, than themselves different classes of works. tenus aliquid extraoidinarium, quod stuporem excitat, sistunt. Hinc sequitur signorum notionem latius patere, qu&,m prodigiorum. Omnia prodigia sunt signa, quia in ilium usum h Deo dispensata, ut arcanum indicent. Sed omnia signa nou sunt prodigia, quia ad signandum res ccslestes aliquando etiam res communes adhibentur. Compare 2 Chron. xxxii. 25, 31 ; where at ver. 24 that is called a (T7]fj.f7ov, which at ver. 31 is a repas (LXX). t % * Avw^eis=virtutes. t With this i^ovaria is related, which yet only once occurs to designate a miracle. They are termed 6i/5o|a, (Luke xii. 17,) as being works in which the S(^|a of God came eminently out, (see John ii. 11 ; xi. 40,) and which in turn caused men to glorify him! (Mark ii. 12.) They are ^67aA€ra = magnalia, (Luke i. 49,) as out- commgs of the greatness of God's power. 14 ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. An example of one of our Lord's miracles may show how it may at oncf be all these. The hniliiiy of the paralytic, for example, (Mark ii. I — 12,) was a wonder, for tlif-y who beheld it "were all amazed;^' it was a potper, for the iniui at Christ's word "arose, took up his b<-d, and went out before them all ;" it was a sign, for it fjave token that one greater than men deemed was among them ; it stood in connecti(jn with a higher fact, of which it was the sign and seal, (cf 1 Kin. xiii. 3 ; 2 Kin. i. 10;) being wrought that they might "know that the S»'&^f it, rrTififla, ripara. Avyafits numcros ingulnri taineti ost vis iiiirnculnruni edi-ndoniiii ; arifula (iniitcmis coiiiprohuiulir iiiserviunl doctriiiu; sive inissioni divino; : r^para |>uri<-nta oiint, (|\iii- iKlinirntionem et Htuporoin r.xcitnnt. t The iiiirncli-N of ilic Old Ti-slnnicnt nre cnlled fpya, Hcb. iii 9 ; Ps. xciv. 9, LXX t AupuHtiiH' I III Lr. Jufi., Trad. 17): Mirum non esse d«brt h Dto fnrium ini- mculuni .Mn^JH KniidiTe ct ndiiiirnri dcbt-inus quia Doniinus noeicr et Salvator Jems ChrixtuH homo fnctim est, (\ut\iu quod divina inter homines Deua fecit. ^ I oin nwnre that tliis inti-rpretntion of (pya, os used by St John, has sometimes been rnlird in i|iie8tion, ond that l)y this word hns been understood the suui totnl of his ocis and hiH unchin>{«, hi.-* words and his works, as they come under the eyes ol men ; not in(b-e«l excluding the mirncles, l)Ut iiuiudinu also very much liesiiles ; yet I cnnnol doubt tbnt our Ieyond nil doidil ; i)ut tlint in the |iluml (lie word means his mimele^, the fullowing pnH4ages, v. .3f> ; x. 2.'», ."*■,', .'l-^ xiv II, to which oihers mi|;h( l>e added, seem (o me decisively to prove. II With regard to the verbs connected wiih tin-. ii"uii--. we may oliserve in the ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. 15 three first Evangelists, o-rj/iteTo 5iS6vai, (Matt. xii. 39 ; xxiv. 24 ; Mark viii. 12,) and still more frequently Swdfitis noielu. (Matt. vii. 22 ; xiii. 58 ; Mark ix. 39, &,c.) Neither of these phrases occurs in St. John, but aijufla iroiuv continually, (ii. 11 ; iii. 2 ; iv. 54, &c.,) yvhich is altogether wanting in the earlier Evangelists ; occurring, Ijpwever, in the Acts, (vii. 3G ; xv. 22,) and in Revelations (xiii. 13 ; xix. 20). Once St. John has ffrj fieia SeiKvveii' (ii. 18). CHAPTER II. THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. Wherein, it may be asked, does the miracle dilFer from any Step in the ordinary course of nature ? For that too is wonderful ; the fact that it is a marvel of continual recurrence may rob it, subjectively, of our ad- miration ; we may be content to look at it with a dull incurious eye, and to think we find in its constant repetition the explanation of its law, even as we often find in this a reason for excusing ourselves altogether from wonder and reverent admiration ;* yet it docs not remain the less a mar- vel still. To this question it has been replied by some, that since all is thus marvellous, since the grass growing, the seed springing, the sun rising, are as much the result of powers which we cannot trace or measure, as the water made wine, or the sick healed, or the blind restored to vision, there is therefore no such thing as a miracle eminently so called. We have no right, they say, in the mighty and complex miracle of nature which en- circles us on every side, to separate off in this arbitrary manner some certain facts, and to say that this and that are wonders, and all the rest ordinary processes of nature; but that rather we must confine ourselves to one language or the other, and entitle all or nothing miracle. But this, however at first sight it may seem very deep and true, is indeed most shallow and fallacious. There is quite enough in itself and in its purposes to distinguish that which we name by this name from all with which it is thus attempted to be confounded, and in which to be lost. The distinction indeed which is sometimes made, that in the miracle God is immediately working, and in other events is leaving it to the laws which he has established, to work, cannot at all be admitted : for it has its root in a dead mechanical view of the universe which lies altogether • Rrc Augnstinc, De Gen. ml Lit.. 1 12, r. 18 ; nnd Grcj;or>- tlic (ircnt {Horn. 26 in Eranff.) ; Quotidiana Dri iiiirnculn ex owiduitair viluerunt. THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. 17 remote from the truth. The clock-maker makes his clock and leaves it ; the ship-builder builds and launches his ship, and others navigate it ; but the world is no curious piece of mechanism which its Maker makes and then dismisses from his hands, only from time to time reviewing and re- pairing it ; but as our Lord says, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" (John v. 17 ;) he " upholdeth all things by the word of his power."* (Heb. i. 3.) And to speak of "laws of God," " laws of na- ture," may become to us a language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes. Lmcs of God exist only for us. It is a will of God for himself. That will indeed, being the will of highest wisdom and love, excludes all wilfulness — is a will upon which we can securely count ; from the past expressions of it we can presume its fu- ture, and so we rightfully call it a law. But still from moment to mo- ment it is a will ; each law, as we term it, of nature is only that which we have learned concerning this will in that particular region of its ac- tivity. To say then that there is more of the will of God in a miracle than in any other work of his, is insufficient. Such an affirmation grows out of that lifeless scheme of the world, of which we should ever be seek- ing to rid ourselves, but which such a theory will only help to confirm and to uphold. .For while we deny the conclusion, that since all is wonder, therefore the miracle commonly so called is in no other way than the ordinary processes of nature, the manifestation of the presence and power of God, we must not with this deny the truth which lies in this statement. All is wonder ; to make a man is at least as great a marvel as to raise a man from the dead. The seed that multiplies in the furrow is as mar- vellous as the bread that multiplied in Christ's hands. The miracle is not a greater manifestation of God's power than those ordinary and ever- repeated processes ; but it is a different\ manifestation. By those other * Augustine : Sunt qui arbitrantur tantunimodo mundum ipsum factum &. Deo ; cetera jam fieri ab ipso mundo, sicut ille ordinavit et jussit, Deum autem ipsum nihil operari. Contra quos profertur ilia sententia Domini, Pater meus usque adhuc operatur, et ego operor. . . . Neque enim, sicut h structura sedium, ci^m labricaverit quis, abscedit ; atque illo cessante et absente stat opus ejus ; ita mundus vel ictu oculi stare poterit, si ei Deus regimen suum subtraxerit. So Melancthon {In he. de Creatione) : Infi.rmitas humana etiamsi cogitat Deum esse conditorem, tamen postea imaginatur, ut faber discedit h. navi exstructa, et relinquit earn nautis ; ita Deum discedere &. sue opere, et relinqui crea- turas tantiW propriae gubernationi ; haec imaginatio "magnam caliginem offundit animis et parit dubitationes. t Augustine {Serin. 242, c. 1) : In homini carnali tota regula intelligendi est con- suetudo cernendi. Quod solent videre credunt : quod non solent, non crednnt Majora quldem miracula sunt, tot quotidie homines nasci qui non erant, quam paucos resurrexisse qui erant : et tamen ista miracula non consideratione comprehensa sunt, sed assiduitate viluerunt. 18 THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. God is sppaking at all times and to all the world ; they are a vast ruve- lation of him. "The invisible things of him are clearly seen, beinij un- derstood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- head." (Rom. i. 20.) Yet from the very circumstance that nature is thus speaking unto all, that this speaking is ditTuscd over all time, ad- dressed unto all men, from the very vastness and universality of this language, it may miss its aim. It cannot be said to stand in nearer re- lation to one man than to another, to confirm one man's word more than that of others, to address one man's conscience more tiian that of every other man. However it may sometimes have, it must often lack, a pe- culiar and personal significance. But in the miracle wrought in the sight of some certain men, and claiming their special attention, there is a speaking to them in particular. There is then a voice in nature which addresses itself directly to them, a singling of them out from the crowd. It is plain that God has now a peculiar word which they are to give heed to, a message to which he is bidding them to listen.* An extraordinary divine causality belongs, then, to the essence of the miracle ; more than that ordinary, which we acknowledge in every thing ; powers of God other than those which have always been work- ing ; such, indeed, as most seldom or never have been working until now. The unresting activity of God, which at other times hides and conceals itself behind the veil of what we term natural laws, does in the miracle unveil itself; it steps out from its concealment, and the hand which works is laid bare. Beside and beyondf tJie ordinary operations of nature, higher powers, (higher, not as coming from a higher source, but as bearing upon higher ends,) intrude and make themselves felt oven at the very springs and sources of her power. Yet when we say that it is of the very essence of the miracle that it should be thus " a new thing," it is not with this denied that the natural itself may become miraculous io tis by the way in which it is timed, by • All this is hrout^hl nut in a very instructive discussion on the miracle, which finds place in Augustin.'*9 great dogmatic work, De Trinit., 1. 3, c. 5, and extends to the chapters upon either side, being the largest statement of his views upon tho subject which any where finds place in his works : Quia attmhit hurnorem per radicein vitis ad botnim «-t vinum facit, nisi Deus qui et homine planinntc et rii,'niitc incrnneniuin dnt? Sed ciixn ad nntiiin Domini aqua in vinuin iniisjiata ci-lfrilnte conversa est.etinm stultis fatentibuj). vis divina drdarala est. Quia arbiistn fi-ondc et flore vestit Rolt-inniter, nisi Deus? VVriitu cum floniit virga sacerdotis Aaron, collocuta est qumlam modn cum dubitante huninnitate divinitas Cum fiunt ilia continuato quasi quodam fluvio lalientium mannniinmquc nruin, et ex occulto in prnmptum, aique ex prompto in oc- culium, usiiato iiincre tninseuntium, naturalia dicuniur: ciimyenit admonendis homini- bus inu!^itat& niultabilitatc ingeruntur, mngnalia nominantur. t Not, as we shall see the greatest theologians have always earnestly contended, contra naturam, but prom the ungodly, as of old from the magi- cians of Egypt.'^the unwilling confession, " This is the finger of God," (Exod. viii. 19;) but in the case of these this will be well nigh impos- sible ; since there is always the natural solution in which they may take refuge, beyond which they will refuse, and beyond which it will be impossible to compel them, to proceed. But while the miracle is not thus nature, so. neither is it against nature. That language, however commonly in use, is yet wholly un- satisfactory, which speaks of the.se wonderful works of God as violations of a natural law. Beyond nature, beyond and above the nature which we know, they are, but not contrary to it. Nor let it be said that this distinction is an idle one ; so far from being so, Spinoza's whole assault upon the miracles, (not his objections, for they lie much deeper, but his assault,*) turns upon the advantage which he has known how to take of this faulty statement of the truth, and, that being stated rightly, it be- comes at once bcsi.le the mark. The miracle is not thus unnatural, nor can it be ; since the unnatural, the contrary to order, is of itself the ungodly, and can in no way therefore be affirmed of a divine work such as that with which we have to do. The very idea of the world, as more than one name which it bears testifies, is that of an order ; that which comes in then to enable it to realize this idea which it has lost, will .scarcely itself be a disorder. So far from this, the true miracle is a higlior and a, purer nature, coming down out of the world of un- troubled harmonies into this world of ours, which so many discords have jarred and disturbed, and bringing this back again, though it be but for for once or twice ; luit thnt sucli linppy chances should on every occasion recur, what is this for one who knows even hut n little of the theory of prohahiliiies I not the delivering the history of its marvellous element, but the exchanging one set of marvels for another. If it be said that this was not mere hazard, what manner of person then viuat we conclude him to be, whom nature was always thus at such pains to ser^'e and to seal ; » Tract. ThcoL Pol, c. G, De Jliraculis. THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. 21 one prophetic moment, into harmony with that higher.* The healing of the sick can in no way be termed against nature, seeing that the sickness which was healed was against the true nature of man— that it is sick- ness which is abnormal, and not health. The healing is the restoration of the primitive order. We should term the miracle not the infraction of a law, but behold in it the lower law neutralized, and for the time put out of working by a higher ; and of this abundant analogous ex- amples are evermore going forward before our eyes. Continually we behold in the world around us lower laws held in restraint by higher, mechanic by dynamic, chemical by vital, physical by moral ; yet we say not when the lower thus gives place in favor of the higher, that there was any violation of law,— that any thing contrary to nature came to pass ;t— rather we acknowledge the law of a greater freedom swal- lowing up the law of a lesser.:}: Thus, when I lift my arm, the law of gravitation is not, as far as my arm is concerned, denied or annihilated ; it exists as much as ever, but is held in suspense by the higher law of my will. The chemical laws which would bring about decay in animal substances still subsist, even when they are hemmed in and hindered by the salt which' keeps those substances from corruption. The law of * Augustine {Con. Faust., 1. 56, c. 3) : Contra naturam non incongrue dicimus aliquid Deum facere, quod facit contra id quod novimus in natura. Hanc enim etiam appellamus naturam, cognitum nobis cursum solitumque naturae, contra quem cum Deus aliquid facit, magnalia vel mirabilia nominantur. Contra illam vero summam naturee legem k notitia remotam sive impiorum sive adhuc infirmorum, tam Deus nullo modo facit quam contra seipsum non facit. Cf ibid., 1. 29, c. 2. The speculations of the great thinkers of the thirteenth century, on the subject of miracles, and especially on this part of the subject, are well brought together by Neander. {Kirch. Gesch., v. 5, pp. 910—925.) t See a very interesting discussion upon this subject in Augustine. {De Gen. ad Liu., 1. 6, c. 14—18.) X When Spinoza affirmed that nothing can happen in nature which opposes its universal laws, he acutely saw that even then he had not excluded the miracle, and therefore to clench the exclusion, added,— aut quod ex iisdem [legibus] non sequitur. But all which experience can teach us is, that these powers which are working in our world will not reach to these effects. Whence dare we to conclude, that because none which we know will bring them about, so none exist which will do so 1 They exceed the laws of our nature, but it does not therefore follow that they exceed the laws of all nature. If the animals were capable of a reflective act, man would appear a miracle to them, as the angels do to us, and as the animals would themselves appear to a lower circle of organic life. The comet is a miracle as regards our solar system ; that is, it does not own the laws of our system, neither do those laws explain it. Yet is there a higher and wider law of the heavens, whether fully discovered or not, in which its motions are included as surely as those of the planets which stand in immediate rela- tion to our sun. 22 THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. sin in a regenerate man is held in continual check by the law of the spirit of life ; yet is it in his members still, not indeed working, for a mightier law has stepped in and now holds it in check, but still there, and ready to work, did tiiat higher law cease from its more effectual operation. What in each of these cases is wrought mav be agauist one particular law, that law being contemplated in its isolation, and rent away from the complex of laws, whereof it forms only a part. But no law does stand thus alone, and it is not against, but rather in entire harmony with, the system of laws ; for the law of those laws is, that where powers come into conflict, the weaker shall give place to the stronger, the lower to the higher. In the miracle, this world of ours is drawn into and within a higher order of things ; laws are jhen at work in the world, which are not the laws of its fallen condition, for they are laws of mightier range and higher perfection ; and as such they claim to make themselves felt, and to have the pre-eminence which is riglitly their own.* To make this clearer I might take a familiar illustration, borrowed from our own church-system of feasts and fasts. It is the rule here that if the festival of the Nativity fall on a day which was designated in the ordmary calendar for a fast, the former shall displace the latter, and the day siiall be observed as a festival. Shall we therefore say that the Church has awkwardly contrived two systems which here may, and sometimes do, come into collision with one another ? and not rather admire her more complex law, and note how in the very concurrence of the two, with the displacement of the poorer by the richer, she brings out her idea that holy joy is a higher thing even than holy sorrow, and shall at last swallow it up altogether ?f * In remnrkahle words the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon (xix. 6) describee how at the passage of the Red Sea all nature was in its kind moulded and fasliioncd again from ahove (t) Krlats iraKtv iit'oiflt;' BttTwrovro) that it might serve God's purposes for the deliverance of liis people, and punishment of his enemies. t Thus Aquinas, whose greatness and depth upon the suhject of miracles I well rememlier once hearing Coleridge e.\alt, and painfully contrast with the modem theology on the same subject (Sum Theol., pars 1, qu. 10r>, art. G:; A qu&libet causA derivatur aUquis ordo in suos elTectus, ciim qutelibet causa Irabeat rationcm principii. Et ideo secundilm multiplicationem causaruin mnltiplicantur et ordines, quorum unus con- tinetur sub aliero, sicut et causa continetur mib causft. Unde causa superior non con- tinetur sub ordine causa; inferioris, sed 6 convcrso. Cojus e.xempluni apparet in rebus humanis. Nam e.x patrefaniiliits dependet ordo doniits, qui continetur sub ordine civitatis. (jui procedii i\ civitatis rectorc : ciim et hie contineatur sub ordine regis, & quo lotum retinum ordinatur. Si ergo ordo rerum consideretur prout dependet k primi causA, sic c(»riirn rerum ordmeni iJeua facorc non potest. Si cnim eic facerct, fuceret contra miam pru-fvientiam ant voluntatem aut l>onitntem. Si ver6 consideretur renim ordo, prout dependet t qualibct Bccuudarum causarum, eic Deus potest facere prtrter THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. 23 It is with these wonders which have been, exactly as it will be with those wonders which we look for in regard of our own mortal bodies, and this physical universe. We do not speak of these changes which are in store for this and those as violations of law. We should not speak of the resurrection of the body as something contrary to nature, as un- natural ; yet no power now working in the world could bring it about ; it must be wrought by some power not yet displayed, which God has kept in reserve. So, too, the great change which is in store for the out- ward world, and out of which it shall issue as a new heaven and a new earth, far exceeds any energies now working in the world, to bring it to pass, (however there may be predispositions for it now, starting points from which it will proceed ;) yet it so belongs to the true idea of the world, now so imperfectly realized, that when it does take place, it will be felt to be the truest nature, which only then at length shall have come perfectly to the birth. The miracles, then, not being against nature, however they may be beside and beyond it, are in no respect slights cast upon its ordinary and every-day workings ; but rather, when contemplated aright, are an honoring of these, in the witness which they render to the source from which these also originally proceed. For Christ, healing a sick man with his word, is in fact claiming in this to be the lord and author of all the healino- powers which have ever exerted their beneficent influence on the bodies of men, and saying, " I will prove this fact, which you are ever losing sight of, that in me the fontal power which goes forth in a thousand gradual cures resides, by this time only speaking a word, and bringing back a man unto perfect health ;"— not thus cutting off those other and more gradual healings from his person, but truly linking them to it.* So again when he multiplies the bread, when he changes the water into wine, what does he but say,- " It is I and no other who, by the sunshine and the shower, by the seed-time and the harvest, give food for the use of man ; and you shall learn this, which you are always in danger of unthankfuUy forgetting, by witnessing for once or for twice, or if not actually witnessing, yet having it rehearsed in your ears for ordinem rerum ; quia ordini secundarum causarum ipse non est subjectus ; sed talis ordo ei subjicitur, quasi ab eo procedens, non per necessitatem naturae sed per arbi- trium voluntatis ; potuisset enim et alium ordinem rerum instituere. * Bernard Connei-'s Evangelium Medici, sett Medicina Mijsiica, London, 1697, . awakened some attention at the time of its publication, and drew down many sus- picions of infidelity on its author (see the Biosraphie Univ. under his name.) I have not mastered the book, as it seems hardly worth wliile ; but on a slight acquaintance, my impression is that these charges against the author are without any ground. The book bears on this present part of our subject. 24 THE MIRACLES AND NATURE. ever, how the essences of things are mine, how the bread grows in my hands, how the water, not drawn up into the vine, nor slowly transmuted into the juices of the grape, nor from thence expressed in the vat, but sim- ply at my bidding, changes into wine. You burn incense to your drag, but it is I who, giving you in a moment the draught of fishes which you" had yourselves long labored for in vain, will remind you who guides them through the ocean paths, and suffers you either to toil long and to take nothing, or crowns your labors with a rich and unexpected harvest of the sea." — Even the single miracle which wears an aspect of seve- rity, that of the cursed fig-tree, speaks the same language, for in that the same gracious Lord is declaring, " These scourges of mine, where- with I punish your sins, and summon you to repentance, continually miss their purpose altogether, or need to be repeated again and again, and this mainly because you see in them only the evil accidents of a blind nature ; but I will show you that it is I and no other who smite the earth with a curse, who both can and do send these strokes for the punishing of the sins of men." And we can quite perceive how all this should have been necessary.* For if in one sense the oixlerly workings of nature reveal the glory of God, (Ps. xix. 1 — 6,) in another they hide that glory from our eyes ; if they ought to make us continually to rememberhim, yet there is danger that they lead us to forget him, until this world around us shall prove — not a translucent medium, through which we look to him, but a thick impenetrable veil, concealing him wholly from our sight. Were there no other purpose in the miracles than this, namely to testify the liberty of God, and to alBrm the will of God, which, however it habitu- ally shows itself in nature, is yet more than and above nature, were it only to break a link in that chain of cause and effect, which else we should come to regard as itself God, as the iron chain of an inexorable necessity, binding heaven no less than earth, they would serve a great purpose, they would not have been wrought in vain. But there are other purposes than these, and purposes yet more nearly bearing on the salvation of men, to which they serve, and to the consideration of these we have now arrived. f * Augustine {Enarr. in Ps. ex. 4) : [Deus] reservana opportune inusitata prodigia, quae infirinitas hominisnovitati intenta meminerit, cilm sint ejus miracula quotidiana majora. Tot ])er universain terram arbores creat et nemo niiratur ; arefecit verbo unam.et stupefacta sunt corda niorlalium. . . . Hoc enim miraculum maxim6 adtentis cordibus inliaerebit, quod assiduitas non vilefecerit. t J. M filler {De Mirac. J. C. Nnt. et Necess., par. 1, p. 43) : Etiamsi nullus alius miraculorum esset usus, nisi ut absolutam illam divina) voluntatis libertatem dcnion- Btrent, humanamque arrogantiam.imniodicae legis naluralis adniirationi junctam, com- pescant, miracula baud temere essent edita. CHAPTER III. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MIRACLE. Is the miracle to command absolutely and without further question the obedience of those in whose sight it is done, or to whom it comes as an adequately attested fact, so that the doer and the doctrine, without any more debate, shall be accepted as from God ? It cannot be so, for side by side with the miracles which serve for the furthering of the kingdom of God, runs another line of wonders, counterworks of him, who is ever the ape of the Most High, who has still his caricatures of the holiest _; and who knows that in no way can he so realize his character of Satan, or the Hinderer, as by offering that which shall either be accepted in- stead of the true, or, being discovered false, shall bring the true into like discredit with itself. For that it is meant in Scripture to attribute real wonders to him there is to me no manner of doubt. They are " lying wonders," (2 Thes. ii. 9,) not because in themselves frauds and illusions, but because they are wrought to support the kingdom of lies.* Thus I cannot doubt that, according to the intention of Scripture we are meant to understand of the Egyptian magicians, that they stood in relation with a spiritual kingdom as truly as did Moses and Aaron. In- * Gerhard {Loc. Theoll., loc. 23, c. 11, § 274) : Antichristi miracula dicuntur men- dacia, . . . non tarn ratione foniKe, quasi omnia fbtura sint falsa et adparentia dun- taxat, quam ratione finis, quia scilicet ad confirmationem mendacii erunt directa. Chrysostom, who at first explains the passage in the other way, that they are "lying" quoad formam, {ov6lv (iXrjdcg dWa rpdj ajrariji' tu ndvTa,) yet afterwards suggests the cor- recter explanation, 5) &u\pev(!\dvoii, n di \ptUoi ayovat. Augustine {De Civ. Dei, 1. 20, c. 19,") does not absolutely determine for either, observing that the event must decide. According to Aquinas they will only be relative wonders {Summ. Theol., p. 1*, qu. 114, art. 4) : Daeraones possunt facere miracula, quee scilicet homines mirantur, in quantum eorum facultatem et cognitionem excedunt. Nam et unus homo in quantum facit ali- quid quod est supra facultatem et cognitionem alterius, ducit alium in admirationem sui operis, et quodammodo miraculum videatur operari. 3 26 THE AUTHORITY OF THE MIRACLE. deed only so does the conflict between those and these come out in its true significance. It loses the chiefest part of this significance if we think of their wonders as mere conjurers' tricks, dexterous sleights of hand, with which they imposed upon Pharaoh and his servants ; making believe, and no more, that their rods turned into serpents, that they also changed water into blood. Rather was this a conflict not merely be- tween the might of Egypt's king and the power of God ; but the gods of Egypt, the spiritual powers of wickedness which underlay, and were the soul of, that dark and evil kingdom, were in conflict with the God of Israel. In this conflict, it is true, their nothingness very soon was apparent ; but yet most truly the two unseen kingdoms of light and darkness did then in presence of Pharaoh do open battle, each seeking to win the king for itself, and to draw him into its own element.* Else, unless it had been such a conflict as this, what meaning would such passages have as that in Moses' Song, " Who is like unto thee, O. Lord, among the gods?" (Exod. xv. 11;) or that earlier, " Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment ; 1 am the Lord ?" (Exod. xii. 12 ; cf Numb, xxxiii. 4.) As it was then, so probably was it again at the Incarnation, for Satan's open encounter of our Lord in the wilderness was but one form of his manifold opposition ; and we seem to have a hint of a resistance similar to that of the Egyptian magicians in the withstanding of Paul which is attributed to Elymas. (Acts xiii. 8; cf. 2 Tim, iii. S.f) But whether then it was so, or not, so will it be cer- tainly at the end of the world. (Matt. xxiv. 24 ; 2 Thess. ii. 9 ; Rev. xiii. 13.) Thus it seems that at each great crisis and epoch of the kingdom, the struggle between the light and the darkness, which has ever been going forward, comes out into visible manifestation. * The principal argument against this, is the fact that extraordinary feats of exactly like kinds are done by the modern Egyptian charmers ; some, which are perfectly in- explicable, are recounted in the great French work upon Egypt, and attested by keen and sharp-sighted observers. But taking into consideration all which we know about these magicians, that they do, and apparently have always, constituted an hereditary guild, that the charmer throws himself into an ecstatic state; the question remains, how far there may not be here a wreck and surviving fragment of a. mightier system, how far the charmers do not even now, consciously or unconsciously, bring themselves into relation with those evil powers, which more or less remotely do at the last underlie every form of heathen superstition. On this matter Hengstenberg {Die BUcher Mose's und ^gypten, pp. 97 — 103,) has much of interesting matter. t Gregory the Great {Moral., 1. 34, c. 3) has a curious and interesting passage on the miracles of Antichrist. According to him, one of the great trials of the elect will be, the far more glorious miracles which he shall show, than any which in those last days the Church shall be allowed to accomplish. From the Church signs and wonders will be well nigh or altogether withdrawn, while the greatest and most startling oi these will be at his beck. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MIRACLE. 27 Yet while the works of Antichrist and his organs are not mere tricks and juggleries, neither are they miracles in the very highest sense of the word ; they only partake, in part, of the essential elements of the mira- cle. This they have, indeed, in common with it, that they are real works of a power which is suffered to extend thus far, and not merely dexterous sleights of hand ; but tiiis, also, which is most different, that they are abrupt, isolated, parts of no organic whole ; not the highest har- monies, but the deepest discords, of the universe ;* not the omnipotence of God wielding his own world to ends of grace, and wisdom, and love, but evil permitted to intrude into the hidden springs of things just so far as may suffice for its own deeper confusion in the end, and, in the mean while, for the needful trial and perfecting of God's saints and servants. f This fact, however, that the kingdom of lies has its wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, would be alone sufficient to convince us that miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and simply, in proof of the doctrine which the worker of ihem proclaims; and God's word expressly declares the same. (Deut. xiii. 1 — 5.) A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine, or the divine mission of him that brings it to pass. That which alone it claims for him at the first is a right to be listened to ; it puts him in the alternative of being from heaven or from hell. The doctrine nmst first commend itself to the conscience as being good, and only then can the miracle seal it as divine. But the first appeal is from the doctrine to the conscience, to the moral nature in man. For all revelation presupposes in man a power of recognizing the truth when it is shown him, — that it will find an answer in him, — that he will trace in it the lineaments of a friend, though of a friend from whom he has been long estranged, and whom he has well nigh forgotten. It is the finding of a treasure, but of a treasure which he himself and no other had lost. The denial of this, that there is in man any organ by which truth may be recognized, opens the door to the most boundless skepticism, is indeed the denial of all that is godlike in man. But " he that is of God, heareth God's word," and knows it for that which it proclaims it- self to be. It may be objected, indeed. If this be so, if there be this inward wit- ness of the truth, what need then of the miracle ? to what does it serve, when the truth has accredited itself already ? It has, indeed, accredited itself as good, as from God in the sense that all which is good and true is from him, as whatever was precious in the teaching even of heathen sage or poet was from him ; — but not as yet as a new word directly from * They have the Veritas /ormte, but not the wentas finis. t See Augustine, De Trin., 1. 3, c. 7 — 9. 2S THE AUTHORITY OF THE MIRACLE. him — a new speaking on his part to man. The miracles are to be the credentials for the bearer of that good word, signs that he has a special mission for the realization of the purposes of God in regard of humanity.* When the truth has found a receptive heai't, has awoke deep echoes in the innermost soul of man, he who brings it may thus show tliat he stands yet nearer to God than others, that he is to be heard not merely as one tliat is true, but as himself the Truth, (see Matt. xi. 4, 5 ; John V. 36 ;) or if not this, as an immediate messenger standing in direct con- nection with him who is the Truth, (1 Kin. xiii. 3 ;) claiming unreserved submission, and the reception, upon his authority, of other statements which transcend the mind of man, — mysteries, which though, of course, not against that measure and standard of truth which God has given unto every man, yet wliich cannot be weighed or measured by it. To ask such a sign from any one who comes professing to be the uttcrer of a new revelation, the bringer of a direct message from God, to demand this, even when the word already commends itself as in itself good, is no mark of unbelief, but on the contrary is a duty upon his part ' to whom the message is brought. Else might he lightly be persuaded to receive that as from God, which, indeed, was only the word of man. Thus it was no impiety on the part of Pharaoh to say to Moses and Aaron, " Show a miracle for you," (Exod. vii. 9, 10,) on the contrary, it was altogether right for him to require this. They came saying they had a message for him from God: it. was his duty to put them to the proof. On the other hand, it was a mark of unbelief in Ahaz, (Isai. vii. 10 — 13,) however he might disguise it, that he would not ask a sign from God in confirmation of the prophet's word. Had that word been more precious to him, he would not have been satisfied till the seal was set to it ; and that he did not care for the seal was a sure evidence that he did not truly care for the promise which with that was to be sealed. But the purpose of the miracle being, as we have seen, to confirm that which is good, so, upon the other hand, where the mind and con- science witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a right to demand submission to the word which they seal.f On the contrary, the great act of faith is to believe, in the face, and in de- spite, of them all, in what God has revealed to, and implanted in, the soul, of the holy and the true ; not to believe another Gospel, though an * Gregory the Great {Horn. 4 in Evang.) : Unde et aiijuncta sunt prnedicationibus Sanctis miracula ; ut fidem verbis daret virtus ostensa, et nova facerent, qui nova prce- dicarent. t As Gregory the Great says well — the Church does not so much deny, as despise the miracles of heretics (Moral. 1. 20, c. 7) : Sancta Ecclesia, etiam si qua fiunt hareti- corum miracula, despicit ; quia hffic sanclitatis specimen non esse cognoscit. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MIRACLE. 29 angel from heaven, or one transformed into such, should bring it ; (Deut. xiii. 3 ; Gal. i. 8 ;*) and instead of compelling assent, miracles are then rather warnings to us that we keep aloof, for they tell us that not merely lies are here, for to that the conscience bore witness already, but that he who utters them is more than a common deceiver, is eminently " a liar and an antichrist," a false prophet, — standing in more immediate con- nection than other deceived and evil men to the kingdom of darkness, so that Satan has given him his power, (Rev. xiii. 2,) is using him to be an especial organ of his, and to do a signal work for him.f But in these things, if they are so, there might seem" a twofold dan- ger to which the simple and unlearned Christian would be exposed — the danger first of not receiving that which indeed comes from God, or sec- ondly, of receiving that which comes from an evil source. But indeed these dangers do not beset the unlearned and the simple more than they beset and are part of the trial and temptation of every man — the safe- guard from either of these fatal errors lying altogether in men's moral and spiritual, and not at all in their intellectual,* condition. They only find the witness which the truth bears to itself to be no witness, they only believe the lying wonders, in whom the moral sense is already per- verted ; they have not before received the love of the truth that they might be saved from believing a lie. Thus, then, their believing this lie and rejecting that truth is, in fact, but the final judgment upon them that have had pleasure in unrighteousness. With this view exactly agree the memorable words of St. Paul, (2 Thess. ii. 9 — 12,) wherein he declares that it is the anterior state of every man which shall decide * Augustine {De Civ. Dei, I. 10, c. 16): Si tantum hi [angell] mirabilibus factia humanas permoverent mentes, qui sacrificia sibi expetunt: ilii autem qui hoc piohibent, et uni tantum Deo sacrificari jubent, nequaquam ista visibilia miracula facere dignaren- tur, profecto non sensu corporis, sed ratione mentis prEeponenda eorem esset auctoritas. So to the Manichaeans he says {Con. Faust, 1. 13, c. 5) : Miracula non facitis; quaj si faceretis, etiam ipsa in vobis caveremus, praestruente nos Domino, et dicente, Exsurgent muhi pseudo-christi et pseudo-prophetse, et facient signa et prodigia multa. t Thus Irenaeus (Adv. ifcr., 1. 2, c. 31, § 3) calls such deceitful workers, "pre- cursors of the great Dragon," and speaks exactly this warning, saying, Quos similiter atque ilium devitare oportet, et quanto majore phantasmate operari dicuntur, tanto ma- gis observare eos, quasi majorem nequitiae spiritum perceperint. And TertuUian, re- futing Gnostics, who argued that there was no need that Christ should have been pro- phesied of beforehand, since he could at once prove his mission by his miracles, [per documenta virtutum,] replies (Adv. Marc, 1. 3, c. 3) : At ego negabo solam banc illi speeiem ad testimonium competisse, quam et Ipse postmodum exauctoravit. Siquidem edicens multos ventures, et signa facturos, et virtutes magnas edituros, aversionem [eversionem ?J etiam electorum ; nee ideo tamen admittendos, temerariam signorum et virtutum fidem ostendit, ut etiam apud pseudo-christos facillimarum. 30 THE AUTHORITY OF THE MIRACLE. whether he shall receive the lying wonders of Antichrist or reject them. (Cf. John V. 43.) For while they come " with all deceivableness of un- righteousness" to those whose previous condition has fitted them to em- brace them, who have been ripening themselves for this extreme judg- ment, there is ever something in these wonders, something false, or im- moral, or ostentatious, or something merely idle, which detects and lays thenn bare to a sin^iple faith, and for that at once broadly differences them from those which belong to the kingdom of the truth.* These differences have been often brought out. They are immoral ;f or if not so, yet futile, without consequences, leading to and ending in nothing. For as the miracle, standing as it does in connection with highest moral ends, must not be itself an immoral act, so may it not be in itself an act merely futile, issuing in vanity and nothingness. This is the argument which Origen continually uses, when he is plied with the alleged miracles of heathen saints and sages. He counts, and rightly, that he has sufficiently shown their emptiness, when he has asked, and obtained no answer to,' this question, " What came of these? In what did they issue ? Where is the society which has been founded by their help ? What is there in the world's history which they have helped for- ward, to show that they lay deep in the mind and counsel of God ? The miracles of Moses issued in a Jewish polity ; those of the Lord in a Christian Church ; whole nations were knit together through their help.ij: What have your boasted Apollonius or Esculapius to show as the fruit of theirs ? What traces have they left behind them ?"§ And not * " You complain," says Dr. Arnold, in a letter to Dr. Hawkins, {Life, v. 2, p. 226,) " of those persons who judge of a revelation not by its evidence, but by its substance^ It has always seemed to me that its substance is a most essential part of its evidence ; and that miracles wrought in favor of what was foolish or wicked, would only prove Manicheism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen world, that the character of any supernatural power can only be judged by the moral character of the statements which it sanctions. Thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from God or from the Devil." t Thus Arnobius {Adv. Gen.,\. 1,-c. 43) of the heathen wonder-workers: Quia enim hos nesciat aut imminentia studere praenoscere, quae necessario (velint nolint) suis ordinationibus veniunt? aut mortiferam immittere quibus libuerit tabem,aut familiarium dirunipere caritates : aut sine clavibus reserare, quae clausa sunt ; aut ora silentio vin- cire, aut in curriculis equos debilitare, incitare, tardare ; aut nxoribus et liberis alienis (sive illi mares sint, sive fojminei generis) inconcessi amoris flammas et furiales immit- tere cupiditafes? Cf. Iren-isus, Adv. Hccr., 1. 2, c. 31, § 2, 3. X Con. Cels., 1. 2, c. 51 : 'Efli/wj/ '6\ci>v avaTavTuiv fj.iTa.Ta. (Ti]i.if7a avrSiv- (j Con. Cels., 1. 1, c. 67: ^eiKvvTwffav 7\fjLiv "EWTjfes rCiiv KaTiiX^yjj.ivuiv rtvhs 0iu should expect them to be unlike, since the very idea of God's kingdom is that of progress, of a gradually fuller communication and larger re- velation of himself to men, so that he who in times past spake unto the fathers by the prophets, did at length speak unto us by his Son ; and it was only meet that this Son should be clothed with mightier powers than theirs, and powers which he held not from another, but such rather as were his own in fee.f And this, too, explains a difference in the character of the miracles of the two covenants, and how it comes to pass that those of the old wear oftentimes a far severer aspect than the new. They are miracles, in- deed, of God's grace, but yet also miracles of the Law, of that Law which worketh wrath, which will teach, at all costs, the lesson of the awful holiness of God, his hatred of the sinner's sin, — a lesson which men had all need thoroughly to learn, lest they should mistake and abuse the new lesson which a Saviour taught, of God's love at the same time toward the sinner himself. Miracles of the Law, they preserve a character that accords with the Law ; being oftentimes fearful out- breaks of God's anger against the unrighteousness of men ; such for instance are the signs and wonders in Egypt, many of those in the desert, * Of. Ambrose, De Fide, 1. 3, c. 4. t Tcrtullian, (Adv. Marc, 1. 3, passim,) brings this out in a very interesting man- ner; and Kuscbius, (Dnn Evnng.,\. 3, c. -2,) traces in the same way the parallelisms between the life of Moses and of Christ. They supposed that in so doing they were, if any thing, confirming the truth of either, though now the assailants of Revelation will have it that these coincidences are only calculated to cast suspicion upon both. WITH OTHER CYCLES OF MIRACLES, 37 (Numb. xvi. 31 ; Lev. x. 2,) and some which the later prophets wrought ; (2 Khi. i. 10 — 12 ; ii. 23 — 25 ;) though of these aiso there are far more which wear a milder aspect; and are works, as a// our Lord's are, of evident grace and mercy. I say all of our Lord's, for that single one, which seems an exception, the cursing of the barren fig-tree, has no right really to be considered such. Indeed it is difficult to see how our blessed Lord could more strikingly have shown his purpose of preserv- ing throughout for his miracles their character of beneficence, or have witnessed for himself that he was come not to destroy men's lives but to save them, than in this circumstance, — tliat when he needed in this very love to declare, not in word only but in act, what would be the consequences of an obstinate unfruitfulness and resistance to his grace, and thus to make manifest the severe side of his ministry, he should have chosen for the showing out of this, not one among all the sinners who were about him, but should rather have displayed his power upon a tree, which, itself incapable of feeling, might yet effectually serve as a sign and warning to men. He will not allow even a single exception to the rule of grace and love.* When he blesses, it is men ; but when he smites, it is an unfeeling tree.f More upon this matter must be deferred till the time comes for treating that miracle in its order. * Compare Lord Bacon's excellent remarks, in his Meditt. Sac, where on the words. Bene omnia fecit, (Mark vii. 35,) in which he sees rightly an allusion to Gen. i. 31, he says : Veras plausus: Deus cum universa crearet, vidit quod singula et omnia erant bona nimis. Veus Verbum in miraculis quae edidit (omne autem miraculum est nova creatio, et non ex lege primae creationisj nil facere voluit, quod non gratiam el beneficentiam omnino spiraret. Moses edidit miracula, et profligavit ^-Eeyptios pestibus multis: Elias edidit, et occlusit coelum ne plueret super terram ; et rursus eduxit de ccelo ignem Dei super duces et cohortes: Elizaeus edidit, et evocavit ursas e deserto, quae laniarent impuberes ; Petrus Ananiam sacrilegum hypocritam morte, Paulus Elymam magum caecitate, percussit: sed nihil hujusmodi fecit Jesus. Descendit super eura Spiritus in forma columbae, de quo dixit, Nescitis cujus Spiritiis sitis. Spiritus Jesu, spiritus columbinus : fiierunt ilU servi Dei tanquam boves Dei triturantes granum, et conculcantes paleam ; sed Jesus agnus Dei sine ira et judiciis. Omnia ejus miracula circa corpus humanum, et doctrinaejus circa animam humanam. Indiget corpus homi- nis alimento, defensione ab externis, et cur&. lUe multitudinem piscium in retibus con- gregavit, ut uberiorem victum hominibus praeberet : ille alimentum aquae in dignius alimentum vini ad exhilirandum cor hominis convertit ; ille ficum quod officio suo ad quod destinatuni fuit, ad cibum hominis videlicet, non fungeretur, arefieri jussit: ille penuriam panum et piscium ad alendum exercitum populi dilatavit : ille ventos, quod navigantibus minarentur, corripuit. . , . Nullum miraculum judicii, omnia beneficen- tiae, et circa corpus humanum. t It is from this point of view that we should explain our Saviour's rebuke to the sons of Zeb'edee, when they wanted to call down fire from heaven on a village of the Samaritans, " as Elias did ;'' (Luke ix. 54 ;) to repeat, that is, an Old Testament 38 THE EVANGELICAL, COMPARED It is also noticeable that the region in which the miracles of the Old Testament chiefly move, is that of external nature ; they are the cleav- ing of the sea, (Exod, xiv. 21,) or of a river, (Josh. iii. 14,) yawnings of the earth, (Num. xvi. 31,) fire falling down from heaven, (2 Kin. i. 10, 12,) furnaces which have lost their power to consume, (Dan. iii.,) wild beasts which have laid aside their inborn fierceness, (Dan. vi.,) and such as these : not of course these exclusively, but this nature is the haunt and main region of the miracle in the Old Testament, as in the New it is mainly tlie sphere of man's life in which it is at home. And consistently with this, the earlier miracles, done as the greater number of them were, in the presence of the giant powers of heathendom, have oftentimes a colossal character: those powers of the world are strong, but the God of Israel will show himself to be stronger yet. Tiius is it with the miracles of Egypt, the miracles of Babylon : they are miracles eminently of strength ;* for under the influence of the great nature- worships of those lands, all religion had assumed a colossal grandeur. Compared with our Lord's works wrought in the days of his flesh, those were the whirlwind and the fire, and his as the still small voice which followed. In that oki lime God was teaching his people, he was teach- ing also the nations with whom his people were brought wonderfully into contact, that he who had entered into covenant with one among all the nations, was not one God among many, tlie God of the hills Of the God of the plains, (1 Kin. xx. 23,) but that the God of Israel was the Lord of the whole earth. But Israel at the time of the Incarnation had thoroughly learned that lesson, much else as it had left unlearned : and the whole civilized world had practically outgrown polytheism, however it may have lingered still as the popular superstition. And thus the works of our Lord, though miracle. Christ's answer, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of," is not, as it is often explained, " Ye are mistaking a spirit of bitter zeal for a spirit of love to me ;" — but the rebuke is gentler, " Ye are mistaking and confounding the different standing points of the Old and New Covenant, taking your stand upon the old, that of an avenging righteousness, when you should rejoice to take it upon the new, that of a forgiving love." * We find the false Christs who were so plentiful about the time of our Lord's coming, professing and promising to do exactly the same works as those wrought of yore, — to repeat even on a larger scale these Old Testament miracles. Thus " that Egyptian" whom the Roman tribune supposed that he saw in Paul, (Acts xxi. 38,) and of whom .Tosephus gives us a fuller account, (Antt., 1. 20, c. 8, § 6,) led a tumultuous crowd to the Mount of Olives, promising to show them from thence how, as a second and a greater Joshua, he would cause the walls, not of Jericho, but of Jerusalem, to Ihll to the ground at his bidding. (Sec Vitringa's interesting Essay, De Siguis ft, Messift, edendis, in his Obss. Sac, v. 1, p. 482.) WITH OTHER CYCLES OF MIRACLES. 39 they bear not on their front the imposing character which did those of old, yet contain higher and deeper truths. They are eminently miracles of the Incarnation — of the Son of God, who had taken our flesh, and taking, would heal it. They have predominantly a relation to man's body and his spirit. Miracles of nature take now altogether a subordi- nate place : they still survive, even as we could have ill afforded wholly to have lost them ; for this region of nature must still be claimed as part of Christ's dominion, though not its chiefest or its noblest province. Man, and not nature, is now the main subject of these mighty powers ; and thus it comes to pass that, with less of outward pomp, lessto startle and amaze, the new have a yet deeper inward significance than the old.* 2. The Miracles of the ApocfRYPHAL Gospels. The apocryphal gospels, abject productions as, whether contemplated in a literary or moral point of view, they must be allowed to be, are yet instructive in this respect, that they show us what manner of gospels were the result, when men drew from their own fancy, and devised Christs of their own, instead of resting upon the basis of historic fact, and delivering faithfully to the world true records of him who indeed had lived and died among them. Here, as ever, the glory of the true comes out into strongest light by comparison with the false. But in nothing, perhaps, are these apocryphal gospels more worthy of note, than in the difference between the main features of their miracles and those of the canonical Gospels. Thus in the canonical, the miracle is indeed essential, yet, at the same time, ever subordinated to the doctrine which it confirms, — a link in the great chain of God's manifestation of himself to men ; its ethical significance never falls into the background, but the act of grace and power has, in every case where this can find room, nearer or remoter reference to the moral condition of the person or per- sons in whose behalf it is wrought. The miracles ever lead us off from themselves to their Author ; they appear as emanations from the glory of the Son of God ; but it is in him we rest, and not in them, — they are but the halo round him ; having their worth from him, not contrariwise, he from them. They are held, too, together by his strong and central personality, which does not leave them a conglomerate of marvellous anecdotes accidentally heaped together, but parts of a great organic * Julian the Apostate had indeed so little an eye for the glory of such works as these, that in one place he says, (Cyrill.,^