illustration borrowed from our own church-system of feasts and fasts may make this clearer. It is the rule here, that if the festival of the Nativity fall on a day which was designated in the ordinary calendar for a fast, the former shall displace the latter, and the day shall be observed as a festival. Shall we therefore say that the Church has awkwardly contrived two systems which at this point 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 sense that holy joy is a loftier thing even than holy sorrow, and shall at last swallow it up altogether? 1

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

1 Thus Aquinas, whose greatness and depth upon the subject of miracles I well remember hearing Coleridge exalt, and painfully contrast with the modern theology on the same subject (Sum. Theol. pars i. qu. 105, art. 6): A quâlibet causâ derivatur aliquis ordo in suos effectus, cum quælibet causa habeat rationem principii. Et ideo secundum multiplicationem causarum multiplicantur et ordines, quorum unus continetur sub altero, sicut et causa continetur sub causâ. Unde causa superior non continetur sub ordine causæ inferioris, sed e converso. Cujus exemplum apparet in rebus humanis. Nam ex patrefamiliâs dependet ordo domûs, qui continetur sub ordine civitatis, qui procedit a civitatis rectore: cum et hic contineatur sub ordine regis, a quo totum regnum ordinatur. Si ergo ordo rerum consideretur prout dependet a primâ causâ, sic contra rerum ordinem Deus facere non potest. Si enim sic faceret, faceret contra suam præscientiam aut voluntatem aut bonitatem. Si vero consideretur rerum ordo, prout dependet a quâlibet secundarum causarum, sic Deus potest facere præter ordinem rerum; quia ordini secundarum causarum ipse non est subjectus; sed talis ordo ei subjicitur, quasi ab eo procedens, non per necessitatem naturæ, sed per arbitrium voluntatis; potuisset enim et alium ordinem rerum instituere. And after a long discussion in his work Con. Gentiles, he thus defines the miracles (ii. 102): Illa igitur proprie miracula dicenda sunt, quæ divinitus fiunt præter ordinem communiter observatum in rebus.

unnatural; yet no power now working upon our bodies could bring it about; it must be wrought by some power not yet displayed, which God has kept in reserve. So, too, the mighty transformation which is in store for the outward world, out of which it shall come forth a new heaven and a new earth, 'the regeneration' of Matt. xix. 18, 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 honouring of these, in the witness which they render to the source from which these also originally proceed. For Christ, healing For Christ, healing a sick man with his word, is in fact claiming in this to be the lord and author of all the healing 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

1 Bernard Connor's Evangelium Medici, seu Medicina Mystica, London, 1697, awakened some attention at the time of its publication, and drew down many suspicions of infidelity on its author (see the Biographie Universelle under his name). I have not mastered the book, as it seemed hardly worth while; 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.

you shall learn this, which you are evermore unthankfully forgetting, by witnessing for once or for twice, or, if not actually witnessing, yet having it rehearsed in your ears for 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 exprest in the vat, but simply at my bidding, changes into wine. The children of this world sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense to their drag,' but it is I who, giving you in a moment the draught of fishes which you had yourselves long laboured 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 labours with a rich and unexpected harvest of the sea.'-Even the single miracle which wears an aspect of severity, that of the withered fig-tree, speaks the same language, for in that the same gracious Lord is declaring, These scourges of mine, wherewith 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 orderly workings of nature reveal the glory of God (Ps. xix. 1-6), in another they may hide that glory from our eyes; if they ought to make us continually to remember Him, 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 behold

1 Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. cx. 4): [Deus] reservans opportune inusitata prodigia, quæ infirmitas hominis novitati intenta meminerit, cum sint ejus miracula quotidiana majora. Tot per universam terram arbores creat, et nemo miratur; arefecit verbo unam, et stupefacta sunt corda mortalium. . . . Hoc enim miraculum maxime adtentis cordibus inhærebit, quod assiduitas non vilefecerit.

Him, but a thick impenetrable curtain, concealing Him wholly from our sight. There is in every miracle,' says Donne, 'a silent chiding of the world, and a tacit reprehension of them who require, or who need, miracles.' Did they serve no other purpose than this, namely to testify the liberty of God, and to affirm his will, which, however it habitually 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.1

1 J. Müller (De Mirac. J. C. Nat. et Necess. par. i. p. 43): Etiamsi nullus alius miraculorum esset usus, nisi ut absolutam illam divinæ voluntatis libertatem demonstrent, humanamque arrogantiam, immodica legis naturalis admirationi junctam, compescant, miracula haud temere essent edita.

Is

CHAPTER III.

THE AUTHORITY OF MIRACLES.

S 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 further 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, the counterworkings 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 instead of the true, or, being discovered to be false, shall bring the true into like discredit with itself. For that Scripture attributes real wonders to him, though miracles wrought in a sphere rigidly defined and shut in by the power of God, there seems to me no manner of doubt. His wonders are lying' (2 Thess. ii. 9), not because in themselves mere illusions and jugglery, but because they are wrought to support the kingdom of lies.'

1 Gerhard (Loc. Theoll. loc. xxiii. 11, 274): Antichristi miracula dicuntur mendacia, . . . . non tam ratione forme, quasi omnia futura sint falsa et adparentia duntaxat, quam ratione finis, quia scilicet ad confirmationem mendacii erunt directa. Chrysostom, who explains the passage in the other way, that they are 'lying' quoad formam (ovdiv λntés, dλλà πρós áñárηy тà ñávтa), yet suggests the correcter explanation, dievevoμévois, ǹ eis vevdos á yovor. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19) does not absolutely determine for either: Solet ambigi, utrum propterea dicta sint signa et prodigia mendacii, quoniam mortales sensus per