phenomena fundamentally distinct have become mixed together in hopeless confusion. A similar result has followed from the habitual use of the term "law," to denote both the invariable sequences and the forces that energize in the material Universe. Can any one wonder at the confusion of thought which has arisen in consequence? The importance of this subject will render it necessary that I should consider it more fully in a supplement to this Lecture.

This confusion of thought, in which the whole question of miracles has become involved, is a sufficient justification for placing what I have designated the moral miracles of Christianity in the forefront of our evidential position. But this change seems to me to be also imperatively called for by the following reasons, in order that we may adapt our evidential position to the requirements of modern thought.

All its requirements point to verification as the great test of truth. The entire history of discovery has proved that theories which are incapable of being submitted to this test have failed to conduct us to the realities of things. Hence has arisen a great difficulty in the way of accepting as actual occurrences such events as, being without counterparts in the modern world, require that their truth should be established by a long and intricate chain of reasoning, owing to the danger that exists, that among its numerous links there may be flaws which have escaped our observation. The habits of reasoning which lie at the foundation of modern science have all tended to confirm the opinion that facts which can receive no kind of verification either in the realities of the present or in the palpable historical events of the past can only be accepted as true on an amount of evidence which is practically demonstrative. Whether this position be right or wrong, it is unquestionable that such is the tendency of modern thought. This has introduced a difficulty into the proof of miracles, which was little felt in former times, as from the nature of the case they cannot be subjected to any species of verification. Very different, however, will it be with those manifestations of a super

human power energizing in the moral and spiritual worlds, which I shall claim for Christianity. I shall prove that they can be clearly traced in the history of the past and in the facts of the present, in connection with the person of Jesus Christ, and the Church which He has founded. The facts are plain and simple, requiring no long or intricate historical proof to establish their truth, but admit of an easy verification. As their reality is indisputable, the only question that can arise is, Are they manifestations of a superhuman power, or can they be accounted for as the results of the known forces energizing in man? On this point I shall appeal to your judgment in the following Lectures. Their verifiable character alone forms a sufficient reason for placing them in the forefront of the Christian argument.

2. As miracles, in the sense in which that term is employed in evidential treatises, do not take place in the present day, the only mode of proving their occurrence in former times is by a chain of historical reasoning which involves the necessity of carefully weighing and balancing a large number of intricate probabilities which constitute our historical argument, a process which requires a special training for its due appreciation. In one point of view it must be conceded that modern thought has increased the value of miracles as evidential to a divine commission, if we could either witness them ourselves, or their occurrence could be proved by demonstrative evidence. In the present day our belief in the invariability of the forces of the material Universe, and in the continuity of nature, is of the strongest kind. We are firmly persuaded that this continuity is only capable of being interrupted by the Creator, or by one delegated by Him. To us, therefore, if an indubitable miracle could be performed before our eyes, it would have the highest evidential value, as affording indisputable proof of the intervention of a Being distinct from, and superior to, the forces of the material universe, i.e., God. But very different were the ideas entertained on this subject

in former ages. The belief was then all but universal, that other beings were able to interfere with and modify its forces at their pleasure. Consequently, to persons who held such opinions, a miracle only offered evidence of the presence of a superhuman, and not of a divine, power; and its evidential value was diminished in proportion to the prevalence of this belief. As in Our Lord's days the belief was wide-spread that demons were capable of exercising this power, He habitually appealed to the moral aspect of His miracles in proof that they were wrought by the finger of God. But while the course of modern thought thus assigns a higher evidential value to miracles, on the supposition that their proof is rigid and exact, this advantage is far more than counterbalanced by the rigid exactitude of the proof which it requires. Nothing sets this difficulty in a stronger light than the prevailing tendency in modern times summarily to reject any account of the occurrence of a miracle without even deigning to inquire into the evidence on which it rests; and this feeling is far from being confined to unbelievers. The Church of Rome professes to possess a continuous miraculous attestation; but whenever we hear of a Romish miracle we set it aside at once without troubling ourselves to inquire into its evidence. This tendency is in some degree increased by the unquestionable fact that this Church has encouraged the belief in miracles which are notoriously false, and therefore stands before us in the character of a convicted impostor. Still we entertain much the same feelings with respect to all similar accounts, be they reported by whom they may.

Men would now accept the reality of a miracle only on the very strongest evidence that it was not the result of delusion or imposture. From these difficulties moral miracles are exempt.

The difficulty which was felt in resting the proof of the divine origin of Christianity on miracles alone is shown by the line of reasoning for the most part adopted by the early

apologists, who lived in daily contact with the heathen, when they endeavoured to recommend Christianity to their acceptance. It is evident that with them miracles occupied a very different place in the controversy from that which has been assigned to them by modern writers. One feels a difficulty in believing that if Paley's argument had been placed before a Father of the second or third century, it would have commended itself to him as an efficient mode of persuading an unbeliever to embrace the Christian faith. With them the moral aspects of Christianity preponderate over the miraculous, as the chief means of winning the assent of the heathen to the Gospel.

For

3. The usual proof which is adduced for miracles in our common evidential treatises consists in marshalling a very complicated mass of historical evidence, requiring a course of special training for its due appreciation. This alone forms a sufficient reason why it should not occupy the van of the Christian position, while other evidences, capable of a more direct appreciation, are equally available. It is evident that the number of those who have either the ability, the time, or the means of sifting a body of evidence of this description, is comparatively small, and consequently all that others can do, is to take it at second-hand. example: one of the necessary media of proof for this purpose is to establish the authenticity and genuineness of the Gospels by quotations from the Fathers. A mass of evidence of this description involves the careful balancing of a large number of probabilities, and in the case before us their complication is considerable; and of the effect of the whole the ordinary reader feels himself to be a very imperfect judge. But the whole current of modern thought is steadily moving in an opposite direction. It justly refuses to rest its religious convictions on the authority of others, and demands, on a subject of such profound importance, evidence the value of which each individual can estimate for himself.

I merely adduce this as one out of many difficulties, in

which the historical argument, as it is usually set forth, is involved; and which render it highly dangerous to rest upon it the chief weight of the defence of Christianity. The entire field of evidence, as we know, extends over a large body of literature, and fully to estimate its value requires the exercise of a practised judgment. This alone constitutes a decisive reason why, if we can adduce proof of the operation of a superhuman power in Christianity, capable of easy verification in the history of the past and in the facts of the present, we should assign to it the place which the argument from miracles now holds in our ordinary evidential treatises.*

4. The evidential value of miracles operates less strongly on a large number of minds at the present day, because we have not only to prove that those who have reported them honestly believed that they witnessed them, but that they

It has not been sufficiently observed that evidence which may at some former period have been perfectly satisfactory as proving a divine commission to those to whom it was vouchsafed, may have lost much of its force by lapse of time. It is one thing to witness a miracle, and from it to infer the presence of a divine power, and quite another thing to believe, as the result of carefully balancing a long and complicated mass of historical testimony, that a miracle has been performed at some distant period of time. Besides, as many of the witnesses die without leaving any record of their testimony, the evidence is less powerful to us than it must have been to contemporaries, who had the entire evidence before them. It follows, therefore, even if it could be proved that miracles formed the chief attestation of Christianity in the Apostolic age, that it is by no means a necessary result of this that they should form its sole and all-commanding attestation eighteen centuries after they have ceased to be performed. Christianity, however, possesses this most remarkable characteristic. Precisely in proportion as its miracles have diminished in evidential value through lapse of time and the complicated methods thereby rendered necessary to prove their occurrence, the evidence derived from what I have designated its moral miracles becomes stronger and stronger, being testified to alike by the history of the past, and the facts of the present. Christianity is in fact the only religion in the world, the moral evidence of which increases by lapse of time. Contrast with this Mahometanism, the moral evidence of which, if it ever had any, is steadily diminishing.