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miracle, then, from the pretended insignificance of such ends, can never be admitted by a Christian without impeaching the divine wisdom in all the above examples, and in many others recorded in the sacred Scriptures. It is no less manifest how unworthy of a rational philosopher all such objections are, as they proceed only from a real or pretended ignorance of very obvious truths, which totally invalidate every objection that can be brought against them.

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I.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE INSTRUMENTS USED IN PERFORMING

A

MIRACLES.

T first sight this subject may not seem to require any special treatment; but under it we shall find several particulars, which will serve to illustrate the nature of miracles, and to show the proper meaning of certain expressions in the Holy Scripture. Besides, as the enemies of religion urge the apparent weakness and insignificance of the instruments used in working miracles, as an argument against their existence, it is proper to examine this objection in order to test its true value. There is also another question which deserves particular attention, and on which the Christian world is much divided; which is, how far any respect or veneration is due, or may lawfully be paid, to instruments which the divine wisdom is pleased to employ in working miracles. Under this head, then, I propose to consider these three things in order: 1. What are the instruments which God uses for performing miracles, and how they 2. What weight against the existence of miracles the argument has which is drawn from the lowliness of the instruments. And 3. Whether any respect and veneration may lawfully be paid to them?

act.

II. That Almighty God may make use of creatures as

instruments for working miracles, or may perform them without any such instrument, if He thinks proper, cannot be called in question. But what He actually does use, or has used for this purpose, can be known only from experience, and principally from what He Himself has revealed to us in His Holy Scriptures. Now there we find that sometimes He makes use of His rational creatures, sometimes of irrational, and at other times of those that are inanimate; each of which we shall consider separately.

The rational creatures used by God as His instruments in working miracles, are either angels or men. When an angel is said to perform a miracle, this may be understood in two ways. If the act performed be not a miracle absolutely, but only such with relation to man, and consequently within the natural compass of an angel's power, then the expression means that the angel is the efficient cause, and performs it immediately by his own strength, according to the orders which he has received from God. But if it be an absolute miracle superior to all created power, and therefore proper to God alone, then the expression signifies that the angel acts merely as an instrument, fulfilling some condition which God appoints; and God Himself immediately performs the miracle.

Of the former kind we have an example in the deliverance of Daniel from the lions; for when the king came early in the morning to the den, to inquire if he was still alive, he answered, "O king, live for ever! My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." Here we see that the angel was sent by God to defend His servant, and restrain the fury of those raging animals that they should not hurt him; a thing which there is no reason to think exceeds the natural

powers of an angel. Other examples of this kind are frequent in Holy Writ.

Of the second kind it is not so easy to give examples ; because, not knowing exactly to what extent an angel's natural power can reach, we are unable to determine how far those miracles related in the Scripture as done by angels, were within their natural strength or not. We know not, for example, if an angel can himself raise a flame of fire in an instant from a rock. It would seem, indeed, more probable that he cannot-that this is a miracle proper to God alone; and if so, then we have an example of this second kind in Gideon's offering, when the angel appeared to commission him to deliver the people of Israel from the slavery of the Midianites. For when he brought out flesh, and bread, and broth, and laid them upon the rock before the angel, immediately upon the angel's touching it with the end of his staff, "there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes," Judg. vi. 21. Now, if this was the immediate work of God, then the angel's part, as God's instrument, was only to perform the outward condition appointed of touching the offerings with his staff, and the effect, the work of God Himself, immediately ensued.

We have, indeed, one pretty certain example of this in the pool of Bethsaida, of which the Scripture says, "that an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water; whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had," John, v. 4. The instantaneous cure of diseases is the work of God alone; and consequently all these cures performed at this pool were done by Him; the angel acting as God's instrument, at the appointed season went down and troubled the waters," which was

the part allotted by God to him as a condition prerequired to the performing these cures.

III. When a miracle is said to be performed by men, the expression ought always to be understood in the latter sense, that God performs the miracle by them as His visible instruments, upon their doing what He appoints. Thus we are told in the Scripture, that "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul," Acts, xix. 11; where we see that God wrought the miracles, and St Paul was only the means or instrument by which He did SO. It is in this sense, therefore, that we are to understand these other expressions of Scripture, where the working of the miracle is attributed immediately to man, as in the Acts, ii. 43, where it is said, " And many wonders and signs were done by the apostles;" for it cannot be said that the apostles did these things by their own natural strength as the efficient causes, but that Almighty God performed them by their means.

IV. The co-operation which Almighty God requires from man, when He uses him as His instrument in working miracles, is both internal and external. The internal consists in a strong faith and confidence in God, the disposition of soul that God always gives to those by whom He works miracles; it being the ground upon which the grace of miracles is founded. Thus our Saviour assures us that "all things are possible to him that believes ; and that a strong faith is "able to remove mountains,” because it powerfully moves and engages God to do what it so firmly expects from Him. Hence it is, that those whom God employs to work miracles, know themselves, from this interior confidence, that the miracle will be wrought, and generally foretell it, by which a double lustre is added to the miracle, and its authority enhanced.

The external co-operation of man takes place in many

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