or of humanity, they re-establish the life of the world which has already been deranged, and initiate the higher order of things for which the universe was created. "Thus the natural and spiritual miracles of the sacred narrative are only the notes of a higher harmony which resound throughout the discords of earthly history. To our dull sense, indeed, they may seem disconnected; but the more we listen the more we perceive a connected law of higher euphony now presaging, and finally bringing about, the solution of all dissonance into an eternal harmony. Surely, then, a believer may look down with pity upon the spirit of the age, and its declaration that the harmony of the Kosmos is destroyed by the miracles of the Bible" (Beyschlag), as well as on its blind belief in the immutability of natural laws. The old truth remains: "Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts!"

Even a free-thinker like Rousseau says: Seriously to raise this question (whether God can perform miracles) would be impious, if it were not absurd; and we should be doing the man who answered it in the negative too much honour by punishing him for it; it would be sufficient to keep him in. custody" (Lettres de la Montagne, iii.). And Richard Rothe, a no less acute than liberal thinker of our times, remarks: "I will frankly confess that up to this hour I have never been able to discover any stumbling-block for my intellect in the conception of a miracle."

He who denies the miraculous, denies God and His revelation since revelation is miraculous. All that we before adduced in proof of the possibility and necessity of a supernatural revelation, and of the existence of a personal God (vide Lects. II. and III.), thus turns into a justification of miracles. We have already demanded of those who deny the existence of a God (p. 144), and we now demand of those who reject the miraculous, that they should explain to us from natural causes all phenomena in nature and history. If they cannot do this, they have no right to contest the possibility and the historical nature of the miraculous. And we shall show more fully in the following lectures that in numberless cases unbelief has yet to find a satisfactory explanation for the most important

facts in history. The more thoroughly it investigates, the less it can conceal this. It meets with phenomena in the sacred history for which even a Baur can find no sufficient ground of explanation (e.g. the belief in the resurrection of Christ, the conversion of Paul, etc.). And what is then the last resort for the deniers of the miraculous? When the connecting links in nature no longer suffice, they are fain to recur to chance, and (e.g. in the restorative miracles of Christ) to speak of "good luck," as Rationalism often does. But to take refuge in chance, is the death of all scientific investigation. Here again we see that the boasted scientific method very often results in an unscientific abandonment of the attempt to solve the riddle. As in the case of Pantheism (p. 181), so in that of the miraculous, we finally see ourselves placed before the dilemma of believing either in miracles or in chance.

But we must not close without considering one other very obvious objection frequently raised against miracles: Why are miraculous manifestations no longer vouchsafed at the present day and this question we would now proceed briefly to discuss.

III.- -ARE MIRACULOUS MANIFESTATIONS STILL VOUCHSAFED ?

If miracles are directed, as we have seen, not against the world's order, but against its disorder, why do we not find them happening in every place where misery and death still prevail? Sin and evil exist to this day; misery and disorder still abound in the world; why should not God continue miraculously to interfere for the removal of all these, and for the re-establishment of the original order?

To this we answer, first of all: Are miracles (strictly so called) the only means through which God counteracts sin and evil? Does He not first employ the internal influences of His Word and Spirit? And this has not ceased as yet. Sin, it is true, still exists; but so does Christ, the great Physician for the maladies of the whole world, and His influence is ever becoming more powerful and more extended. Are new miracles then required, while the old ones are still in active

operation? Let us beware of an idle longing after the miraculous. Luther's remarks on this subject are no less humble than true: "The world continually gapes after prodigies; it many a time mistakes chalk for cheese, and gladly believes in apparitions; believers keep to the Word, and follow it. I have very often prayed my God that I might not see any vision or miracle, nor be informed in dreams, since I have enough to learn in His Word."

We have seen that the great mass of those who are averse to the miraculous usually argue thus: Miracles do not happen now-a-days; therefore, they never happened at all. This is in the first place a flagrant transgression of the logical rule, that one cannot argue from the majority to the whole. But we, on our part, cannot even admit the assumption that no miracles are now performed, without further consideration, and must therefore proceed to investigate the question, whether miraculous manifestations are still vouchsafed.

First of all, we must admit that miracles in these days have fallen into the background, having either almost or else entirely ceased. We do not live in a miraculous period such as that of Moses or of our Lord. But can we find no reasons for this? We have already recognised that miracles belong to the divine education of the human race. Now it is selfevident that a means of education must be differently applied at different times. The schoolmaster's ferule is as little adapted to every age as the miraculous rod in the hand of Moses. But we can by no means argue that because a certain means of education is not required at a definite period, it can never be needed. We have already seen from the history of the miraculous, that according to the Holy Scriptures miracles are more prominent in some periods and less so in others, and that the former periods are always crises in which the eyes of men are to be opened to the fact that the kingdom of God is on the eve of a momentous advance. If, then, our modern times are comparatively inferior in this respect to many of the earlier ages; if they have more of an intermediate character, as preparatory for great events which may be expected in the divine kingdom, it is simply in accordance with the laws hitherto recognised, that few or no miracles should occur in them.

The apostolic age required miracles, because it was the

cpoch in which the Church was first founded; the present period, during which the Church is only maintained, no longer requires them to the same extent. If that period had miracles as the means of supporting its faith, ours has the testimony of history: we have before us the effects of the words and acts of Christ in the history of the world and its renewal; we see the Christian Church overcome the world and survive it, and thereby fulfil a great part of the predictions of Christ and the prophets. All this, together with the constant inner working of the Word and the Spirit of Christ, is a sufficient external support for our faith. In the last epoch of the consummation of the Church, however, she will again require for her final decisive struggle with the powers of darkness, the miraculous interference of her risen Lord, and hence the Scriptures lead us to expect miracles once more for this period.

Our age, however, is still characterized by the establishment of new churches. The work of missions is, outwardly at least, more extended than it ever was before. In this region, therefore, according to our former rule, miracles should not be entirely wanting. Nor are they. We cannot, therefore, fully admit the proposition that no more miracles are performed in our day. In the history of modern missions we find many wonderful occurrences which unmistakeably remind us of the apostolic age. In both periods there are similar hindrances to be overcome in the heathen world, and similar palpable confirmations of the Word are needed to convince the dull sense of men. We may, therefore, expect miracles in this case. And now read, e.g., the history of Hans Egede, the first evangelical missionary in Greenland. He had given the Esquimaux a pictorial representation of the miracles of Christ before he had mastered their language. His hearers, who, like many in the time of Christ, had a perception only for bodily relief, urge him to prove the power of this Redeemer of the world upon their sick people. With many sighs and prayers he ventures to lay his hands upon several, prays over them, and, lo, he makes them whole in the name of Jesus Christ! The Lord could not reveal Himself plainly enough to this mentally blunted and degraded race by merely spiritual means, and therefore bodily signs were needed. In such cases, and in dealing with such men, miracles may not have been entirely

wanting in the work of evangelization amongst other nations and in other ages, and we should not, therefore, absolutely reject all that is miraculous in the old legends as mere fables, though their statements must be received with great caution.

Let me mention another incident from the life of the Moravian missionaries Spangenberg and Zeisberger. On their way to the Indian tribes in the endless forests and wilds of North America, tormented with hunger, weary and exhausted, they came to a brook. Here Spangenberg begged his companion to bring out the fishing tackle. He did so without hope, since the water was clear and shallow, and at that time of the year the fish were known to remain in the deep water. But, encouraged by Spangenberg's faith, he obediently cast the net, and in a few moments Peter's miraculous draught of fishes was repeated.

The history of Missions at the present time affords many similar instances. At a Rhenish mission station in South Africa in 1858, an earnest native Christian saw an old friend who had become lame in both legs. Impressed with a peculiar sense of believing confidence, he went into the bushes to pray, and then came straight up to the cripple, and said, "The same Jesus who made the lame to walk can do so still; I say to thee, in the name of Jesus, Rise up and walk!" The lame. man, with kindred faith, raised himself on his staff and walked, to the astonishment of all who knew him (vide the Memoir of Kleinschmidt, Barmen 1866, p. 58 ff.).

In view of the temperate and conscientious character of such messengers of the gospel, we have no right to doubt these reports of theirs, to which many similar ones could be added. But those who nevertheless persist in doubting them, we would point to the people of Israel as a perennial living historical miracle. The continued existence of this nation up to the present day, the preservation of its national peculiarities throughout thousands of years in spite of all dispersion and oppression, remains so unparalleled a phenomenon, that without the special providential preparation of God, and His constant interference and protection, it would be impossible for us to explain it. For where else is there a people over whom such. judgments have passed, and yet not ended in destruction?

But even in modern times parallels are not entirely wanting