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. Indeed 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 conjurors' tricks, dexterous sleights of hands, 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 between 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; I 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

* 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 inexplicable, 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 exstatic 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 Bücher Mose's und Egypten, pp. 97-103,) has much of interesting matter.

was but one form of his manifold opposition; and we seem to have an 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. 8*.) But whether then it was so, or not, so will it be certainly 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.

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 miracle. 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 this, also, which is most different, that they are abrupt, isolated, parts of no organic whole e; not the highest harmonies, 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 ‡.

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 them proclaims; and God's word expressly declares

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 of these will be at his beck. + They have the veritas formæ, but not the veritas finis. + See AUGUSTINE, De Trin., 1. 3, c. 7—9.

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 must 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 scepticism, 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 itself to be.

It may be objected, indeed, If this be so, if there be this inward witness 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 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 heart, has awoke deep echoes in the innermost soul of man, he who brings it may thus

Gregory the Great (Hom. 4 in Evang.): Unde et adjuncta sunt prædi, cationibus sanctis miracula; ut fidem verbis daret virtus ostensa, et nova facerent, qui nova prædicarent.

show that he stands yet nearer to God than others, that he is to be heard not merely as one that 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 connexion 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 which cannot be weighed or measured by it.

To ask such a sign from any one who comes professing to be the utterer 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, "Shew 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 conscience witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a right to demand submission to the word which they seal*. On the contrary, the great act

As Gregory the Great says well-the Church does not so much deny,

of faith is to believe, in the face, and in despite, 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 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 connexion 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†.

But in these things, if they are so, there might seem a twofold danger to which the simple and unlearned Christian would be exposed-the danger first of not receiving that

as despise the miracles of heretics (Moral. 1. 20, c. 7): Sancta Ecclesia, etiam si qua fiunt hæreticorum miracula, despicit; quia hæc sanctitatis specimen non esse cognoscit.

*

Augustine (De Civ. Dei, l. 10, c. 16): Si tantùm hi [angeli] mirabilibus factis humanas permoverent mentes, qui sacrificia sibi expetunt: illi autem qui hoc prohibent, et uni tantùm Deo sacrificari jubent, nequaquam ista visibilia miracula facere dignarentur, profectò non sensu corporis, sed ratione mentis præponenda eorem esset auctoritas. So to the Manichæans he says (Con. Faust., 1. 13, c. 5): Miracula non facitis; quæ si faceretis, etiam ipsa in vobis caveremus, præstruente nos Domino, et dicente, Exsurgent multi pseudo-christi et psuedo-prophetæ, et facient signa et prodigia multa.

† Thus Irenæus (Adv. Hær., 1. 2, c. 31, § 3,) calls such deceitful workers, 'precursors of the great Dragon," and speaks exactly this warning, saying, Quos similiter atque illum devitare oportet, et quantò majore phantasmate operari dicuntur, tantò magis observare eos, quasi majorem nequitiæ spiritum perceperint. And Tertullian, refuting Gnostics, who argued that there was no need that Christ should have been prophesied 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 hanc illi speciem ad testimonium competisse, quam et Ipse postmodum exauctoravit. Siquidem edicens multos venturos, et signa facturos, et virtutes magnas edituros, aversionem [eversionem?] etiam electorum; nec ideò tamen admittendos, temerariam signorum et virtutum fidem ostendit, ut etiam apud pseudochristos facillimarum.