that of a proposition in an exact science. There is no more the claim made of giving it that kind of certainty. But this, which may seem at first sight a loss, is indeed a gain; for the argument for all which as Christians we believe, is in very truth not logical and single, but moral and cumulative; and the attempt to substitute a formal proof, where the deepest necessities of the soul demand a moral, is one of the most grievous shocks which the moral sense can receive, as it is one, too, of the most fruitful sources of unbelief. Few in whose hands books of Evidences constructed on this scheme have been placed, but must painfully remember the shock which they suffered from their perusal,-how it took them, it may be, some time to recover the healthy tone of their minds, and how, only by falling back upon what they themselves had felt and known of the living power of Christ's words and doctrine in their own hearts, could they deliver themselves from the injurious influences, the seeds of doubt and of misgiving, which these books had now, for the first time perhaps, sown in their minds. They must remember how they asked themselves, in deep inner trouble of soul: "Are these indeed the grounds, and the only grounds, upon which the deep foundations of my spiritual life repose? is this all that I have to answer? are these, and no more, the reasons of the faith that is in me?' And then, if at any moment there arose a suspicion that some link in this chain of outward proof was wanting, or was too weak to bear all the weight which was laid upon it, and men will be continually tempted to try the strength of that to which they have trusted all,-there was nothing to fall back upon, with which to scatter and put to flight suspicions such as these. And that such should arise, at least in many minds, is inevitable; for how many points, as we have seen, are there at which a suspicion may intrude. Is a miracle possible? Is a miracle provable? Were the witnesses of these miracles competent? Did they not too lightly admit a supernatural cause, when there were adequate natural ones which they

failed to note? These works may have been good for the eye-witnesses, but what are they for me? And these doubts and questionings might be multiplied without number. Happy is the man, and he only is happy, who, if the outworks of his faith are at any time thus assailed, can betake himself to an impregnable inner citadel, from whence in due time to issue forth and repossess even those exterior defences, who can fall back on those inner grounds of belief, in which there can be no mistake, the testimony of the Spirit, which is above and better than all.'

And as it is thus with him, who entirely desiring to believe, is only unwillingly disturbed with doubts and suggestions, which he would give worlds to be rid of for ever, so not less the expectation that by arguments thrown into strict syllogistic forms there is any compelling to the faith one who does not wish to believe, is absurd, and an expectation which all experience contradicts. All that he is, and all that he is determined to be, has pledged him to an opposite conclusion. Rather than believe that a miracle has taken place, a miracle from the upper world, and connected with precepts of holiness, to which precepts he is resolved to yield no obedience, he will take refuge in any the most monstrous supposition of fraud, or ignorance, or folly, or collusion. If no such solution presents itself, he will wait for such, rather than accept the miracle, with the hated adjunct of the truth which it confirms. In what different ways the same miracle of Christ wrought upon different spectators! He raised a man from the dead; here was the same outward fact for all; but how diverse the effects!-some believed, and some went and told the Pharisees (John xi. 45, 46). Heavenly voices were heard, and some said it thundered, so dull and inarticulate were those sounds to them, while others knew that they were voices wherein was the witness of the Father to his own Son (John xii. 28-30).

1 See the admirable words of Calvin, Instit. i. 7, §§ 4, 5, on the Holy Scripture as ultimately αὐτόπιστος.

Are then, it may be asked, the miracles to occupy no place at all in the array of proofs for the certainty of the things which we have believed? On the contrary, a most important place. We should greatly miss them, if they did not appear in sacred history, if we could not point to them there; for they belong to the very idea of a Redeemer, which would remain most incomplete without them. We could not ourselves, without having that idea infinitely weakened and impoverished, conceive of Him as not doing such works; and those to whom we presented Him as a Lord and a Saviour might very well answer, 'Strange, that one should come to deliver men from the bondage of nature which was crushing them, and yet Himself have been subject to its heaviest laws, -Himself wonderful, and yet his appearance accompanied by no analogous wonders in nature,-claiming to be the Life, and yet Himself helpless in the encounter with death; however much He promised in word, never realizing any part of his promises in deed; giving nothing in hand, no first fruits of power, no pledges of greater things to come.' They would have a right to ask, 'Why did He give no signs that He came to connect the visible with the invisible world? why did He nothing to break the yoke of custom and experience, nothing to show men that the constitution which He pretended to reveal has a true foundation?' And who would not feel that they had reason in this, that a Saviour who so bore Himself during his earthly life, and his actual daily encounter with evil, would forfeit his right to this name? that He must needs show Himself, if He were to meet the wants of men, mighty not only in word but in work? When we object to the use often made of these works, it is only because they have been forcibly severed from the whole complex of Christ's life and doctrine, and presented to the contemplation of men apart from these; it is only because, when on his head are many crowns' (Rev. xix. 12), one only has been singled out

1 Maurice, The Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. p. 264.

in proof that He is King of kings and Lord of lords. The miracles have been spoken of as though they borrowed nothing from the truths which they confirmed, but those truths everything from the miracles by which they were confirmed; when, indeed, the true relation is one of mutual interdependence, the miracles proving the doctrines, and the doctrines approving the miracles,' and both held together for us in a blessed unity, in the person of Him who spake the words and did the works, and through the impress of highest holiness and of absolute truth and goodness, which that person leaves stamped on our souls;-so that it may be more truly said that we believe the miracles for Christ's sake, than Christ for the miracles' sake. Neither when we thus affirm that the miracles prove the doctrine, and the doctrine the miracles, are we arguing in a circle: rather we are receiving the sum total of the impression which this divine revelation is intended to make on us, instead of taking an impression only partial and one-sided.

2

1 See Pascal, Pensées, 27, Sur les Miracles.

2 Augustine was indeed affirming the same, when, against the Donatists, and their claims to be workers of wonders, he said (De Unit. Eccles. 19): Quæcunque talia in Catholicâ [Ecclesiâ] fiunt, ideo sunt approbanda, quia in Catholicâ fiunt; non ideo manifestatur Catholica, quia hæc in eâ fiunt.

THE MIRACLES.

1. THE WATER TURNED INTO WINE.

JOHN ii. 1-11.

THIS beginning of miracles' is as truly an introduction to all other miracles which Christ did, as the parable of the Sower to all other parables which He spoke (Mark iv. 13). No other miracle has so much of prophecy in it; no other, therefore, would have inaugurated so fitly the whole future work of the Son of God. For that work might be characterized throughout as an ennobling of the common, and a transmuting of the mean; a turning of the water of earth into the wine of heaven. But it will be better not to anticipate remarks, which will find their fitter place when the miracle itself shall have been considered.

And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee on the third day, no doubt, after that on which Philip and Nathanael, as is mentioned just before (i. 43), had attached themselves to Christ. He and his newly-won disciples, of whom one was a native of Cana (see xxi. 2), would have journeyed without difficulty from the banks of Jordan to Canal in two days, and might so have been present at the

1 Among the happiest of Robinson's slighter rectifications of the geography of Palestine (Biblical Researches, vol. iii. pp. 204-208), although one which is still by some called in doubt (see the Dict. of the Bible, 8. v. Cana), is his reinstatement of the true Cana in honours long usurped by another village. In the neighbourhood of Nazareth are two villages, one Kefr Kenna, about an hour and a half N.E. from Nazareth; the other, Kâna el-Jelil, about three hours' distance, and nearly due north.

H