108 CHAPTER VI. OTHER GENERAL ENDS OF MIRACLES, AS I. WHA HAT we have seen in the preceding chapter must show beyond all doubt to those who receive the Scriptures as the Word of God, that to procure belief with mankind, when He is pleased to reveal to them His will, and to excite in their minds and hearts those holy sentiments of faith, confidence, love, gratitude, and obedience, are ends truly worthy of the divine interposition by miracles, and are so judged by God Himself. But as this is a most important subject, I must pursue it a little further, and show from the same sacred records a few more of the general ends which God has been pleased to procure by the same means, and which directly or indirectly conduced to the happiness and perfection either of whole nations or of individuals. II. The miraculous manner in which Almighty God was pleased to reveal and establish His religion, was fully sufficient to convince all then present, and also all who in after-ages should believe upon the tradition and testimony by which it was to be handed down to them. Still the divine wisdom, well knowing the corruption of the heart of man, its impatience of restraint, its readiness to shake off the yoke on the least pretence, foresaw how apt men would be in after-ages to reject the belief of this first miraculous establishment of religion, if not supported by convincing proofs. We find, therefore, that Almighty God, in all succeeding ages, when His religion was in danger of being corrupted or destroyed, was always ready to defend it by the same means by which He had at first established it. He judged its preservation, when in danger, no less worthy His divine interposition than its first establishment among His people. III. After the death of Joshua and his contemporaries, who had been eyewitnesses of all the glorious things which Almighty God had done for that nation, the memory of those wonders began to wax weak among them: "The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that He did for Israel. And Joshua died, and also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers; and there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel," Judges, ii. In consequence of this, for a great number of years—that is, during the whole period that Israel was governed by judges they from time to time "did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Balaam; and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, Who brought them out of the land of Egypt," sometimes the whole nation, sometimes a considerable part of it, "and followed other gods, and provoked the Lord to anger," ibid. In this juncture Almighty God did not fail to defend His own cause; nay, we may justly say, that He wrought one continued miracle, by literally and daily fulfilling those prophecies which, long before, had been made by Moses. This great man, foreseeing the future infidelity of the people, foretold to them the consequences both of their obedience to the Lord their God, and of their apostasy from His service. He assured them, that if they adhered to Him and to His holy law, every temporal blessing would be their portion. "If you walk in My statutes," says Almighty God to them by the mouth of this holy prophet, "and keep My commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase. And I will give peace in the land, and you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. . . . And I will walk among you, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people." See the whole passage, Levit. xxvi. ; see also Deut. xxviii. And, on the contrary, if they should forsake the Lord their God, abandon His service and prove disobedient to Him, He assured them that all temporal evils would be. sent upon them as the just punishment of their ingratitude; "But if you will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these My commandments, I also will do this unto you, I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, and I will set My face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies, and they that hate you shall reign over you," &c., ibid. Now, what is the whole history of the Judges but a literal verification of these prophecies? See the second. chapter of that book, which in this respect is an abridgment of the whole. And as the accomplishment of prophecies, which had been uttered long before, is an undoubted proof that God is their author, nothing could more powerfully contribute to convince that people that the religion which they had received from their fathers was from God, than their daily experience of the immediate consequences which exactly followed, according to prediction, as they either adhered to their religion and their God, or became disobedient to Him. IV. Neither were there wanting several particular miracles during this period, wrought either indirectly or directly for the same end,—as the victory over Siserah, and the manner of his death, foretold by Deborah; also Gideon's fleece, and the deliverance of the people from the captivity of the Midianites, by the miraculous victory which he obtained over them; the circumstances attending the birth of Sampson, his amazing strength, with that most extraordinary miracle of his obtaining water to quench his thirst from the dry jaw-bone of an ass; and Samuel's procuring thunder and lightning in an instant on a clear harvest-day,—from which we see how attentive Almighty God was to defend the purity and truth of His religion by miracles, from the dangers to which it was exposed during this period of the Judges. These instances now mentioned we shall have occasion to notice afterwards in a more particular manner. But there is also another celebrated passage connected with this period which deserves a little more attention here. Under the government of the high priest Eli, in punishment of the sins of His people, God permitted the ark of His covenant, which was the glory of their nation, to be taken from them, and carried away by the Philis-. tines. This was a subject of triumph and exultation to these heathens, but of the utmost affliction and humiliation to the Israelites. But though Almighty God was pleased thus to punish and humble His people for their sins, He did not fail to vindicate the honour of His religion, and to defend the ark, which was the most sacred testimony of His covenant with them, from the insults of His enemies by repeated miracles. By these the infidels were forced to acknowledge His power and authority both over them and all their gods, and at last to restore the ark with honour to the people. When it fell into their hands they placed it in the temple of Dagon their god; but next day that idol was found lying flat upon the ground, as it were in an act of adoration before the ark of the Most High God. When raised up by its votaries and put into its place, the day after it was found not only fallen as before, but even broken into pieces upon the threshold; Almighty God disdaining to have an idol standing beside His ark, or placed upon an equal footing with it. He smote all the people of every city and its neighbourhood whither they carried the ark, with sore boils and shameful diseases, which swept them off in numbers, so that the people of that city cried out, "The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us, for His hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god." At last when, forced by these chastisements, they resolved to send it home again to the Israelites, they tried the test of a miracle to know whether what had happened to them was from God, on account of the ark, or was only an ordinary accident of life; and God was pleased to grant the very sign which they demanded, to convince them that what had happened to them was from Him in defence of His religion, and of the sanctity of that sacred deposit which, for His own just and wise ends, He had permitted to fall into their hands. V. During the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, no attempt was made against religion, and accordingly in these reigns we find no miracles wrought directly in its defence. But after Solomon's death, when Jeroboam became king of the ten tribes, and endeavoured through his false and worldly policy to carry off his people from the service of God, and lead them to idolatry, immediately we find Almighty God rising up in defence of His religion, and asserting its truth by miracles. |