here the believing Christian should be determined not to yield an inch. To him there is nothing so firmly established as the miraculous; because, in the first place, faith itself is a miracle. What Hamann says is true: "Miracles cannot even be believed without a miracle." And so, to one who has experienced in his own heart through the power of Christ and His Spirit the miracle of regeneration, this miraculous power is the most certain of all things. Here, then, for more than two hundred years the contest has been hottest, against this foundation the universal assault has been directed, and from it all defence proceeds. Therefore this question deserves an especially careful consideration.

Such of you, my respected hearers, as still adhere to the biblical faith have now and then been somewhat perplexed at hearing everywhere, in the street and in the daily papers, attacks upon the miracles related in Holy Scripture. Against you stood the close phalanx of your adversaries: on the one side, the authority of the Scriptures, and a certain premonition that with the surrender of this article of our faith all would be lost; and on the other, so many distinguished scientific names ! If, then, the judgment of many a one began to tremble, and still trembles in the balance, I would seek according to my ability to help him to attain a firm conviction, and will first afford him the consolation that, though the adversaries are many, there are not a few scientific defenders of the miraculous. If many rationalists, philosophers, critics, and naturalists are on the other side, there are on ours-to say nothing of the Prophets and Apostles--great philosophers and theosophists, from Jacob Böhme and Leibnitz down to Schelling in his later period; great naturalists, from Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler, to von Haller, Schubert, Cuvier, Marrel de Serres, Rougemont, Hugh Miller, Rudolphus and Andrew Wagner, etc.; and besides these, the great majority of the representatives of our present scientific German Theology, among whom the contest is considered as essentially decided in favour of the faith, not only on dogmatical, but also on exegetical, historical, and speculative grounds.

We divide the questions which meet us here as follows: (1) After an exposition of the true nature of miracles, we shall consider the origin of their negation, and the presuppositions

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on which this negation is founded, so that we may be able to oppose to it a closer examination and proof of the possibility of the miraculous. Thence we proceed (2) to the positive counter-evidence for the necessity of miracles. To this end we must exhibit their internal aim, their indispensableness in the plan of redemption and the education of man, their historical manifestation and laws, the possibility of discerning their genuineness, and their foundation on fact. (3) In conclusion, we must briefly discuss the question of the continuance of miracles in our own times, in order to meet those objectors who ask why miracles are no longer performed.

I. THE NATURE AND POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES.

(a) Nature of Miracles. In the use of the word miracle, as in that of revelation, we must discriminate between a wider and a narrower sense. In the wider sense, we often use it of all that is incomprehensible and extraordinary in nature and history, of which the origin is still concealed from us, or the existence of which excites our astonishment. So it occurs in the Holy Scriptures, where mention is made of God's miracles (or wonders) upon the sea, in the creation and guidance of man, and where man himself is called a wonder (Ps. cxxxix. 14). But in the narrower sense, miracles are (with the exception of the demoniacal miracles occasionally mentioned in Scripture) unique and extraordinary manifestations of divine power, which influence nature in a manner incomprehensible to our empirical

1

'On this dark question, mostly disregarded by the apologists of the day, we will only remark, that the opinion held by many, that these are only to be considered as lying, or delusively imitated, but not as real miracles, is scarcely con formable to the sense of the passages, 2 Thess. ii. 9, Matt. xxiv. 24, Rev. xiii. 13. To be sure, St. Paul speaks of them as "lying wonders;" but if this were to be understood only in the sense of jugglery, could they in other passages properly be called "great signs and wonders"? They are lying, because they serve a lie, they proceed from a lie, and a lie is their goal, since their object is to obliterate the impression of the witnesses for the truth (Ex. vii. 12-22, viii. 7; 2 Tim. iii. 8);-"because they appear to attest the so-called gods as true gods; because the powers which their originators use are only stolen and abused; because they are the means of promoting error, falsehood, and destruction; because they pretend to be something else than they are, and to work good, while they further and promote evil" (Kurtz). It cannot be denied that heathenism, besides much iraud and superstition, has also exhibited facts which can only be explained as

knowledge, but always in accordance with some moral or spiritual end. Or, more exactly, they are creative acts of God, i.e. supernatural exertions of power upon certain points of Nature's domain, through which, by virtue of His own might already working in the course of nature, God, for the furtherance of His kingdom, brings forth some new thing which natural substances or causalities could not have produced by themselves, but which,-and this must not be overlooked,-as soon as they have taken place, range themselves in the natural course of things, without any disturbance arising on their

account.

The essential points in the conception of miracles, strictly so called, are these:

1. They are effects of God's power in the domain of Nature. Miracles, in every case, are only performed through divine might: "Who alone doeth great wonders" (Ps. cxxxvi. 4). Man only performs them through God, and in unison with Him, i.e. he is permittted by divine authority, in the name of God (cf. the miracles of Moses) or of Christ (Acts iii. 6, iv. 10), to summon God's power, which pervades the creation, to a concentrated and intensified action at some definite point, and thus to bring forth extraordinary effects for definite holy ends. Christ, on account of His unique oneness with the Father, possessed this divine power in an extraordinary degree, not merely transiently like the prophets and apostles, but continually. Hence, although, on the one hand, He can "do nothing of Himself," but only the works "which the Father hath given Him" (John v. 19, 20, 36, x. 25, xi. 41), yet, on the result of demoniacal influences. Hence the severity of the Mosaic enactments against all heathen magic, which cannot well be explained on the supposition that the whole was only an illusion. Demoniacal miracles are indeed servile imitations of the divine working, and thence they receive their seductive appearance and influence. But their full power to captivate the judge ment lies in the fact that they are really superhuman, although their working is not above the power of the creature. But at the same time we maintain that even these miracles, and especially those still impending as the culminating point of Satanic working in the last decisive struggle between light and darkness (according to the previous passages), are, like all the powers of darkness, under God's direction and control. They are regulated and restricted by the divine government of the world, they appertain to the revelation of divine wrath, are not immediately decreed, but permitted and judicially inflicted in punishment for human frivolity and unbelie1, 2 Thess. ii. 10-12; Matt. xxiv. 24. C. below, remarks on the discernibility of miracles.

the other, He reveals therein not only God's glory, but at the same time His own (John ii. 11 comp. with xi. 40), because His oneness with the Father extends to His power also (John v. 21, x. 28, 29). Not as if during His earthly course He were to be considered as "walking Omnipotence;" on the contrary, He was to unfold and work out the divine life dwelling within Him in growing communion with the Father, and therefore He regarded His miraculous acts as something done in virtue of a command received from the Father (John xi. 41, 42). But through the personal union of the world-creating Word with His human nature, through the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily (Col. ii. 9), as well as through His perfect sinlessness, His dynamic relation to nature was entirely different to that of other men, so that He possessed an indwelling causality of working miracles, which needed only to be evoked from above. For this reason also He manifested His own glory in His miracles (comp. John ix. 33, x. 37). This is our stand-point in opposition not only to those who consider Him as pure Omnipotence, but also to those who would place Him on the same footing with other human workers of miracles. As operations of divine power, miracles are

2. Supernatural phenomena, the effective causes of which cannot be found in the usual course of nature, nor in the spirit of man, but only in the immediate interposition of higher divine powers. Here, therefore, all analogical conception ceases; we cannot connect the miracle with our natural experience, but we can only say, "This is the finger of God” (Ex. viii. 19). So far the conception of miracles belongs to the critique of our knowledge. We call that a miracle for which. we can find no analogy whatever in that which has previously existed, ie. in the established system of our empirical knowledge. For the miracle is

2:

Hence it has been truly said, "The word miracle is a critical designation, and a sign of the critically active spirit which measures that which now hap pens by that which has already happened."-MEHRING, Religionsphilosophie, S. 197 ff.

2 By this I mean the totality of knowledge attainable by us as creatures. I do not refer merely to a lower degree of knowledge, according to which many things might seem to be miracles which on closer examination would prove to be natural events, for this would render the nature of miracles merely relative and subjective.

3. Always a beginning of something new (Ex. xxxiv. 10; Num. xvi. 30; Isa. lxv. 17; Jer. xxxi. 32), a creative act; partly an absolute calling into existence of new substances (as at the creation), partly a supernatural transformation, intensification, or increase of an already existing material. Miracles in the narrower sense belong, with the exception of the miracle of creation,

4. To the preservation and government of the world. They have become necessary because corruption has entered the world; they not only attest God's creative, but especially His redeeming power.

5. For this reason, finally, the aim and object of miracles is one of moral holiness in mercy and judgment—a redemptive object. They tend to the furtherance of the divine kingdom, to the salvation and consummation of the world. In the present material creation, they are isolated manifestations of a higher order of things, effected by a special power from above.

The different expressions-" wonders, signs, mighty deeds" (or " powers")-which are used in the Old and New Testaments already indicate this. The miracle or wonder (répas, Oaûμa), in the first place, is meant to astonish; it is intended, as something striking and extraordinary, to work upon the moral consciousness, and to draw attention to itself. Further, it is intended to make us reflect; we are to perceive in it something of what God is doing, and is about to do. Thus it becomes a "sign" (onμeîov) to direct us in the knowledge of the ways of God, and a pledge of His truth and faithfulness-an earnest of the future consummation of His kingdom. Through such reflections we finally arrive at the recognition of the higher supernatural "powers" (dvváμeis), and of the " mighty deeds" of God, which are revealed in miracles; or if men work them, we recognise their divine mission. For miracles must everywhere reveal something of the omnipotent, just, and holy God, but especially of the merciful God, and of His work of redemption upon earth. Hence, although the miracle cannot be comprehended, because it is God's most especial act, yet it should be apprehended in its divine intention, as a sign for our faith.

The "spiritual miracles,” i.e. the mighty workings of God and of His Spirit in the depths of the human soul, occupy, as it