4

cle on which we rely for evidence, and yet it was worked for quite a different end. It certainly would not have been absent had sufficient proof been previously given.

purpose; they were, in fact, the necessary the Resurrection. It is, after all, the miraconsequence of the new relation in which He stood to man. For, in the first place, they were in general a debt of charity which He paid to suffering humanity. Our Lord being man, and having within Him the power of God, became debtor to His fellow-men for the use of that power. Just in the same way we, being possessed of any talent, are debtors for the employment of that talent. That our Lord's miracles were, in one point of view, a debt of charity, will be evident if we run over some of them in thought. The change of water to wine; the feeding five thousand; the innumerable cures; the widow of Nain's son, Lazarus, &c. Is not this point of view expressly avowed by Him in the exquisitely touching narrative of the woman of Canaan, when He says, 'It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it unto dogs.' That evidence, as an end, was hardly at all considered is seen from the fact that many of the miracles were done in secret; and, in respect of many others, silence was enjoined. See thou tell no man,' is the very language of charity, in its care that the right hand should not know what the left doeth. But, in the second place, our Lord's miracles may be regarded in another point of view. They were intended to shadow forth, and to be the first-fruits of the work of Redemption. He came to restore us in soul and body, to banish from among men all sin and imperfection, all suffering and death; and to show forth this great work He raised the dead and dying, cast out devils, and cleansed the lepers. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and made the lame to walk. All His miracles had a bearing on the work of Redemption; they were not arbitrary acts of Divine power, but were limited by this idea, which was the end of His mission. And is not this point of view recognized by Him in His answer to the embassy of John the Baptist : Go and show John what things ye do hear and as much as to say, 'What ye hear and see is the work of Christ, therefore be in no doubt.' Again, in the third place, the crowning and most stupendous of Christ's miracles, those on which we must rely for evidence, were worked for quite a different end. They were the very work of Redemption itself. Such were the Mystery of the Incarnation, the Blessed Passion and Death, and the glorious Resurrection and Ascension. The absurdity of the position that evidence is the exclusive end of the miracle is seen fully in presence of the miracle of

see'

Here, then, is the cardinal error of the evidential theory - the connecting of the miracle exclusively with the end of evidence, or the maintaining that it has no other purpose or place in the Divine scheme except proof. But this involves a further error- a misconception of the way in which the miracle attains the end of evidence. Mr. Mozley has elaborated, with singular ability, the evidential theory in this respect. He includes the evidential function of the miracle under the general head of the Argument from Design. There is an interruption of natural order, and this event is in coincidence with a Divine announcement. The interruption, it is assumed, is the work of God, and it guarantees the truth of the message with which it is in coincidence. But how can we be sure that the interruption is due to God? The Jews had great difficulty in arriving at such a conclusion, owing to the possibility of diabolical agency. We in modern times would have at least equal difficulty. There would be to us the possibility of some power, not God, being known to and used by the worker. It is evident that miracles, taken by themselves, are not equal to the functions which this theory lays upon them. But besides this, the theory is untenable in face of fact. If we apply it to the miracles of our Blessed Lord, we must make some such supposition as this that He called around Him a sufficient number of witnesses; that in their presence He worked unmistakable miracles; that He then delivered a Divine Message, and appealed to the miracles as proof. But is not such a supposition at variance with our Lord's whole attitude? Does it not assume, what we have shown to be wrong, that the end of His mission was the deliverance of a message or revelation? The truth is, that our Lord appealed to miracles, but not at all in this view. He appealed to them, not as proof of a message, but as, in connection with other things, the appropriate manifestation of the Divine power in Him. He professed to be the Son of God; and not any miracle, or set of miracles, but His whole life and purpose, bore Him out in His profession. Men saw in His daily life the goodness, the wisdom, the knowledge, and the power of God. And when, finally, He laid down His life, and took it again, they saw in these actions the

redemption of the world which He professed | it, as Hume has done, by setting the world

ably from ordinary events; and it is of no consequence what term we use so long as this process of separation is performed. We may call them violations or suspensions of laws of nature, or events at variance with the course of nature or ordinary experience; and in each case the meaning is that, taking our stand on the world of experience, a miracle is an unusual, unaccountable, lawless, or isolated event; for if it could be accounted for, or reduced to any law exexisting in the world of experience, it would cease to be a miracle. We say, taking our stand on the world of experience; because divines, when hard pressed by the objections of science and philosophy, have taken refuge in the theory that, though lawless in reference to this world, a miracle is not lawless on the scale of the whole universe. But it is obvious science might decline to admit this higher point of view as equally beyond experience, and as in fact guaranteed only by the miracle. It might say, nay, it does say, I must not judge of the miracle in the light of what it proves; I must judge of it by that of which have experience; and judged in this light, it is a lawless, unaccountable, isolated

event.

pose is to show how they are self-made. Let us disconnect the miracle from its assigned end-the proof of a revelation; let us join it on to God's great purposes in connexion with man; and it immediately assumes an aspect and a standing under which all these difficulties vanish like unhealthy mists. Our theory of the supernatural loses its cramped and forced aspect. It becomes natural and imposing; and, instead of being attended with an à priori improbability, all facts and analogies of present experience point to and support it.

For when we have so disconnected the miracle, it loses its isolated character and becomes one of a class or system of facts. If we comprehend in one whole the contents of the Bible and the religious life of the Church, it is obvious that we have got a class of facts with special characteristics. They may be designated as that class of facts which arise out of the relation in which man stands to God. And this would mark them off from other classes of actions which have a place in the life of humanity: as for instance, the social, political, and physical, which arise out of the relations in which we stand to our fellowmen and physical nature. Now let us observe what is the distinguishing mark of those facts or phenomena which arise out of the Divine relation. It is that they are supernatural, or in other words miraculous. Why so? Because in religion the objects towards which we act and which react on us are supernatural. When we act towards our fellow-men socially or politically, those with whom we act belong to the same sphere of being, and the resultant acts are what we term natural. But in the simplest act of religion, the object with which we are set face to face is supernatural, and the act is consequently a supernatural act. The supernatural character of religious actions can only be denied by maintaining that in religion the action is all on our side and that there is no response from on high. If there is a response, if when we kneel down God's eye is turned to us, if He vouchsafes His blessing or His grace, or His providential care, or any other sign of His presence, then these acts are certainly supernatural. They are as much miracles as the dividing of the Red Sea, or the raining down of manna. Why should great miracles such as that of the Red Sea be disBut we care not to point out further the tinguished from an ordinary act of providifficulties and incredibilities by which this dential care, or the Resurrection of Christ theory of the supernatural is surrounded from an act of grace whereby a soul dead on every side. What is more to the pur-in sin is raised to a new life in Christ?

Let us see now what objections the miracle is liable to when propounded to the world in this character. It is placed under the ban both of science and philosophy. Science has shown that, as a matter of fact, a lawless and isolated event has no existence in nature. Philosophy goes further, and shows that it cannot have; that in fact the assertion of such an act or event is a contradiction in terms. For what is a purely lawless, or exceptional act? It is an act which is out of all relation to other things. But such an act is to us simply unknowable. We can only know things in so far as they are connected with other things, ie. in so far as they are instances of law or system. A purely lawless or exceptional act is simply unknowable. What then does the definition of the miracle as something exceptional or opposed to experience amount to? It simply annihilates itself. It amounts to this, that a miracle in so far as it is a miracle is an impossibility, a nonentity. In point of fact, too, it is wrong: for what we call miracles are not disconnected from nature. What makes them to be miracles is not want of connexion with nature, but connexion with something else.

What differential character can be assigned to them? We believe there is none. You may say that those great miracles were interferences with the course of nature. But were they so in any sense in which the latter are not? Is not the most ordinary providential act an interference with the course of nature? Is not the communication of Divine grace the same? Are not both the special work of God just as much as the former?

They are therefore admitted to a participation
of those blessings which form the subject of St.
The
Paul's prayer for his Ephesian converts.
Spirit of God, by whom they are regenerated,
dwells in them. They become His temple; and
so by Him are
their soul or "inner man."
strengthened with might" in
By the same
blessed Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad
in their hearts. Christ, therefore, dwells in their
hearts by faith; according to His own promise
to them that love Him, that "He will come unto
them, and make His abode with them." So

regenerate Christians at their entrance into the
Church of Christ, that it can be compared to noth-
dead unto sin, and born again unto righteous-
ing less than a resurrection. By it we become
ness. The "old Adam is buried in us, and the
new man is raised up in us." To ilustrate
more fully this great faith, the Church leads us
to consider the resurrection of the widow's son
in the Gospel for the day. In this, us in the
other miracles performed by Our Lord upon the bod
ies of men, we may see a type of those He now
works upon our souls. Christ, the resurection
and the life, who stood by the bier of the
young man to bid him "arise," is as really,
though invisibly, present with each one of His
regenerate members, when He bids them "rise
again from the death of sin unto the life of
righteousness." The influence of His Blessed
Spirit, which He then sheds upon their souls, is
to them as the breath of their spiritual life, by
which they live and move and have their being.
The same mighty power which raised the wid-
ow's son from the temporal death, also “quick-
ened us when we were dead in trespasses and
sins."" - The Christian taught by the Church's
Services, edited by Dr. Hook, l'art ii. p. 77.

Mr. Mozley has laboured hard to estab-great, then, is the change which passes upon all lish a distinction between the great miracles and what he terms the running miraculous. But we look in vain for any character assigned by him which would form a rational ground of distinction. The only thing which he seems to dwell upon is, that they were greater and more unmistakable, so to speak and that being so, the Jews and heathens recognised them to be miracles in a sense in which their own were not. And this is quite true. But greatness will not of itself give a differential character. There were great differences in this respect in the miracles of Christ. We could not, for instance, put His cures upon the same footing in respect of greatness as the raising of Lazarus, or His own resurrection. But there is a point which Mr. Mozley has overlooked. Is it not matter of faith that miracles, at least as great as those of Christ, are day by day being transacted? Every time we kneel at the altar, are we not bound to believe in a miracle second only to the Incarnation? and the same in respect of the other sacraments? How can we in any true sense believe in the work of the Spirit without believing in a law of continued miraculous agency ?

And so, when we shut up a book on evidences, and return to ordinary religious life, we instinctively throw aside the evidential theory, and take up a point of view such as we are advocating. The moment we have to do with practical religion, we find ourselves in an atmosphere of the supernatural. We regard our personal religious life, and the life of the Church, as parts of a great miraculous system-a system which began in the earliest times, which culminated in the miracles of Christ, and which, as a system, is going on still. In proof of this we select the following passage at random from a common religious

6

We would ask, is all this a reality, or is it just a way of speaking? If it is a reality, then the evidential theory is wrong; for there is a law of miracles going on now identical with that which gave rise to the miracles of Christ. And why should we not recognise this in forming a rationale of the supernatural? If we do so, we shall get as a definition of the miraculous, that class of facts or phenomena which arise out of the relation in which man stands to God.' This would be in substance identical with a definition which we gave in a former article; but better expressed. In defining the miracle to be an event with a supernatural cause,' we omitted to specify the human side of the miraculous. As a matter of fact, miracles are not due to supernatural power simply, but to supernatural power in relation with

man.

The advantages of this definition over the old theory are very great. It frees the whole sphere of the supernatural from the cramped shape into which it was thrown.

We no longer need to look at any acts of evidence but to edification. Divines have God as exceptional or rare. The sum of distinguished two classes of gifts in the His dealings with man forms one great Church, the ordinary and the extraordinary whole. If we suppose that a real relation subsists between man and God, then all that is recorded in the Bible, and in the religious life of the Church, is but the necessary result of that relation. Thus, looking at the period preceding the advent of Christ, we find the character of the divine relation to be in general what we may term providential. God, indeed, shed forth gifts which typified and foreshadowed the charismata of the Church: such, for instance, as the gifts to the prophets, or the charisma of powers possessed by Elijah. But these were fragmentary in their nature. The general character of the relation was providential, and the miraculous phenomena recorded for the most part come under the head of Providence. They were worked for providential not evidential ends. Thus, for instance, the miracles of the Red Sea and of Jordan were not ordered for attesting the missions of Moses and Joshua. They, no doubt, had this effect collaterally, as everything which manifested the reality of the providential relation would have: but their primary end was for the fulfilment of God's providential purposes in respect of His people. Under this point of view these great miracles no longer stand out as isolated marvels. They have their place in a class of facts of which we have experience; and are capable of explanation in accordance with a law of Providence now going on. For we defy any one to assign a character which they possess different from the most ordinary providential act.

the former directed to the perfecting of the individual, the latter to the perfecting of the body. But though the latter, comprising as it does gifts of healing, powers, tongues, prophecy, &c., has been more especially characterized as miraculous, the other class must be held to be equally so. Both are alike, dona supernaturalia; both are the work of the Holy Ghost; and St. Paul contemplates the latter equally with the former as the permanent heritage of the Church (1 Cor. xii.).

--

With the coming of Christ a new order of things began, of which the distinguishing mark was the personal presence of God in man. We have first the presence of the Second Person in Christ by means of the hypostatic union; and, secondly, the presence of the Third Person in His Bodythe Church. Thus a new relation was established between man and God, and this gave rise to a new class of miraculous facts. The miracles of Christ were the result of the hypostatic union; and their end, as we have pointed out, was not primarily eviden tial, but for the accomplishment of the work of redemption. In like manner the miracles of the Church resulted from the presence of the Holy Ghost, and they looked not to

It seems ludicrous to observe that the Red Sea was divided, that the Israelites might pass through. Yet it is from overlooking this very obvious view of

the matter, that all the difficulties with science and philosophy have originated.

If now we admit our definition of miracles, the advantage of it in a controversial point of view will be enormous. It simply reverses the respective positions of the Christian and the unbeliever. Whereas, under the old theory the probability in an à priori point of view was strongly against, it is now as strongly in favour of miracles. All nature leads up to man, - but in man we have a personal being capable of knowing and serving Goda being whose only possible relation to God is a personal one. But this personal relation, if it is real, must be miraculous must terminate in a class of facts of the same character as those recorded in the Bible. The special advantage of this is that, in arguing with the unbeliever, the field is narrowed and defined. In arguing against miracles, he must at once, and openly, take up (what is always implied in his argument) an Atheistic or Pantheistic position. He must deny a personal existence to man; and so bring himself into conflict with the common sense of mankind. Once admit the human personality, and the existence of God and of the miraculous follows as a matter of course.

Our definition, too, at once and for ever obviates the philosophical objections. Spinoza is the source whence these are drawn ; but we have taken the ground from under his feet. His whole strength consists in hammering on the fundamental axiomeverything which takes place must be in accordance with law.' But miracles are not lawless events; they are not shifts and expedients resorted to for a special purpose. On the contrary, there is a law of the miraculous, just as there is a law for every other class of facts in God's universe. There is, for instance, a class of facts which arises out of the mutual relations of molecules and masses of matter; and these, we say, are subject to the law of gravitation. But, just in the same way, there is a class

of facts which arises out of the relation in