der, calculated to make people stare, or to frighten them, and no more. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the case of Christ's miracles as recorded in the Gospels. "He went about doing good" (Acts x. 38), and not merely displaying wonders. There is hardly any of Christ's miracles which are narrated in the Gospels, at any length at all, the narrative of which does not convey some moral or spiritual lesson, and one too which it is clear that Christ intended, more or less, to be conveyed at the time. But the same remark applies to Old Testament miracles also. Take for instance one already referred to, Balaam's ass speaking. The least thoughtful consideration of the narrative in which it occurs is enough to show that St. Peter (2nd Ep. ii. 16) estimated it aright when he wrote that the "dumb ass, speaking with man's voice forbade the madness of the prophet"; i.e., when a prophet, endued with supernatural insight, debased himself by allowing avarice to blind his eyes, God gave the lower animal the human voice to rebuke him, as if she had taken that place in the human family, which he had shamefully abandoned. How full of instruction, not for Balaam only, but for all time, is this so often ridiculed miracle thus seen to be! -To take a very different kind of instance. The miracle recorded in 2 Kings vi. 5-7, of the iron axe being made to swim, may at first sight seem to have no meaning but as a wonder; but it at any rate serves, and certainly at that time also served, to show God's approval of concern for borrowed articles. We are not by any means saying that the moral objects are sufficient to account for the miracles; the sufficient reasons for their performance must be sought in what we have said above; but they illustrate what we are just now insisting on, that hardly a miracle will be found in the Bible which has not, besides its main purpose of displaying almighty power for some particular reason, also some side-purpose of moral instruction. In other words, Bible miracles are not displays merely of God's Power, but also of His moral

attributes, such as Righteousness, Truth, Mercy, Holiness, and of this, the instances just given are mere samples taken at random.

4. Lastly, the miracles of the Bible can never be properly understood without the comprehension of another characteristic feature of Bible history, which can only briefly be touched on here. It is, that this history exhibits a continual progress. Now, all history exhibits progress, in one direction or another; for human life cannot stand still. But the progress may be downwards as well as upwards; or it may be to the right or left hand, and not onwards. The history of the Hindu religion exhibits great progress; but it is just those who think most highly of its latest developments, who would most strenuously deny the progress altogether. Others would maintain that the progress had been as much downwards as upwards; some even that it had been altogether downwards.. But Bible history tells of clear, indisputable, unexceptionable progress: not indeed uninterrupted progress, for man's sin is continually retarding God's designs; but still progress without regress, and progress always upwards. This is the idea embodied in the favourite Old Testament name of God, Jehovah, i. e. “He that will be" (see Exodus iii. 14, Revised Version, margin). This is one essential difference between the view of human history as presented in the Bible, and in the literature of other religions. The latter represent it as a vast plain, out of which the mother earth may, indeed, here and there rise up into special elevations, or be depressed into special depths; but on the whole there is no progress, no advance. God is. represented as treating mankind in much the same way in one age as in another, and the relation between them continues much the same throughout. In the Bible, on the contrary, God is seen-thwarted, indeed, continually by man's perverseness, but yet always overcoming these obstacles, not by force but by patient wisdom-always advancing, leading man onwards and upwards, revealing Himself more and

more to him, and bringing him into ever closer fellowship with Himself. Now, it is just this view of history which not only leaves room for miracles, but seems to require them. If every thing corresponded to the melancholy Preacher's description (Eccl. i. 9), "That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun," then miracles would be, in this dull and dreary uniformity, utterly out of place. But if, on the contrary, human history, especially in so far as it is brought into contact with divine working, is an advance to ever higher stages, is it not reasonable to expect that the entrance on these higher stages shall be marked and illustrated by new displays of creative power? Indeed, human history does not end in the Bible. The Bible itself tells of an elevation of humanity yet to come, infinitely above all that has yet been accomplished, and even above our utmost conceptions in this present scene (Isaiah lxiv. 4). Then will the divine working in the world, which has only on rare occasions hitherto been displayed for the encouragement of those who patiently wait for God, become the rule and no longer the exception, or rather will everywhere and always be manifested. And then it will be seen that every miracle throughout human history was only a foretaste of the feast yet to be spread by divine grace, a brief lifting of the vail preparatory to the unclouded view of the divine glory to be revealed at last to all those who with patience wait for it. (Rom. viii. 25).

III. And now, after all this, does it not seem a kind of bathos to ask what objections men of narrow views and sordid minds, whose eyes, like those of cattle, are ever directed downwards to the present state of things, and like the frog in the well cannot even imagine anything beyond it, make to the supernatural element in the Bible? After all that has been said or can be said by them, all their objections simply amount to this syllogism:-whatever is contrary to experience is incredible; miracles are contrary to experi

ence; therefore miracles are incredible! But if a syllogism, as such, is a proof, then the most contradictory propositions might equally be proved true. The most incredible thing is that people of otherwise sane minds can be brought, or bring themselves, to receive such a glaring sophism as proof! Formally, it is a perfect Aristotelian syllogism: but with both its premisses false, what can be expected of its conclusion? The fallacy lies in the double use of the word " experience." Whose experience is that referred to? That of individual men, or of the race? If the former, the

fallacy is too manifest to deceive any one. We are all continually believing things beyond the range of our own individual experience, on the ground of that of others so that the major premiss is false. If the latter, the minor premiss is just what has to be proved. The only thing requiring proof in the whole subject is just this, whether men in any age or country have experienced events which, in the circumstances, must have been miracles. And it is manifest that every alleged miracle requires a separate proof of this experience; and for this reason we have not, in this paper, attempted this part of the subject. All we have endeavoured to do is to show, in general, how reasonable it is to suppose supernatural agency to have accompanied such a revelation of God to man as the Bible professes to contain the history of, and to have accompanied it in such a way as the Bible says it did. For, while each miracle still needs independent proof of the credibility of its witnesses, yet the mind is greatly prepared to acknowledge their credibility, when it has already owned to a presupposition in their favour. But to think to settle the matter at one stroke by the proposition, that "miracles are contrary to experience," is like an attempt, on the part of a judge, to rule a large number of respectable witnesses out of court, simply by declaring that they must be liars.

To sum up the whole matter. Let any one, believing in God as his Maker, Judge, and Father, read

the Bible through without prejudice, and he will certainly be proof against these transparent sophisms and will accept the supernatural element in the Bible as only reasonable and right.

VII, INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.

We buy a copy of the Bible and begin to read it carefully; and soon find that it was written by men of like passions with ourselves. This is seen on every page of it. Moses, David, Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Matthew, Luke, Peter, Paul and John were not only men, but men differing very greatly from one another, with mental capacities ranging from those of very ordinary men to those of men of great genius. They were also men greatly differing in education or culture, ranging from comparative illiterateness to that of the greatest learning of their time and the highest development of the human faculties of that or any other time. All this is seen by any attentive consecutive reader of the Scriptures.

The varied character, style, and scope of the writings very unmistakably display the varied individualities, characters and attainments, as well as the varied purposes and circumstances of the authors. When it is therefore affirmed that the Bible is inspired, it is not by any means denied that it has been written by men; or that it is human. For it is most thoroughly human. The Scriptures themselves frequently assert this, and Christians have never tried to deny or to explain away the fact.

It is never said, for example, as it is said of the Vedas, that the Christian Scriptures came out of the mouth of God at the creation or before it, or at any subsequent time; or that they are the breath of God; or that they are eternal and one with God. Nor are they said, as it is said of the Koran, to have been written in heaven and brought to earth by human