even in a case where the doctrine is good, the sanction of miracles must be, properly speaking, divine. If our security against deceit is not power, but doctrine, yet how can we be assured that even a good doctrine comes to us absolutely on God's authority, and not merely on that of some inferior good being, whose sanction may not necessarily be an infallible sanction, or, at all events, not strictly divine?

Besides this, also, do we not reckon on miracles, not only as a sanction of doctrines evidently good, but also as one evidence of their actual goodness? May it not be reasonable to allege a miracle as authority even for doctrines, which, as far as we can judge of their goodness only by the light of reason or nature, may seem to be of a doubtful or indifferent character? But how can this be, if the character of the doctrines be a part of the evidence of those miracles themselves? If miracles may be performed by evil beings in support of doctrines which are in their nature evil, may they not be performed also without the sanction of God, in support of such doubtful or indifferent doctrines: and, on this principle, is not the doctrine

itself every thing, and the sanction of the miracle futile or worthless?

In answer to these questions, it is contended by some persons that, though superhuman beings inferior to God may possess some sphere of operation of their own, and of course may perform acts which are above human power, yet that a real miracle, or one which may be counted as evidence for the truth of Christianity, or of any other religion, is out of that sphere, or

a

It may here be worth observing that there are two different cases in which the character of the doctrine which professes to rest on miracles may come before us for consideration, and that the case here before us is not the principal of them. A doctrine professing to rest on miracles may be opposed on the two pleas following: the one, that admitting the real performance of the miracles, they still may not prove the divine authority: the other, that we may discredit their real performance. The first of these alternatives is that which comes before us here, and in every statement of the whole question must be considered distinctly. The second, and the more important, comprises that part of the argument in which the objection that we argue in a circle, or that we prove the doctrine by the miracle first, and then the miracle by the doctrine afterwards, is commonly met with. Of the nature of the stress which may be justly laid on the doctrine in the proof of this point of the real performance of the miracle, I speak at length in Chap. II. Sect. VI.

is beyond the

power, which any of those beings can be supposed to possess, or is an actual contradiction of the law of nature, which is God's work, and which His hand alone can alter or violate.

And it is contended, secondly, by those who acknowledge the impossibility of limiting in any degree that sphere of operation which may be possessed by beings of more than human power, that, whatever their powers may be, they are never permitted to work miracles, except under the special direction of God: that our Saviour's argument concerning those miracles, which were by the Jews attributed to the agency of demons, does not imply that any were actually wrought by them :-and that God himself, therefore, either by his own personal act, or by that of beings under his own special direction, is properly to be accounted the sole author of all real miracles whatsoever.

If either of these answers could be completely substantiated, nothing can be more certain than that we should have an answer in point; and an answer, which, if we could also prove of the Scripture miracles, that they agree with the condition so proposed or suggested, would at

once establish them as affording to our religion a sanction or authority clearly divine. But unhappily they both of them include incautious assumptions, or positions, to the proof of which our knowledge cannot extend. Of events which, like all miracles, are clearly above human power, man cannot institute any comparison. It is wholly impossible, if we allow the existence and operation of beings interposed between God and man, to put any limitation to the power possessed by those beings, or to draw any distinction between God's power and theirs. To His almighty power theirs is doubtless subordinate. No creature can vie with the Creator in any thing. But the difference between their works we are not skilled to appreciate. Once take an event which is beyond the power of man, and we know not in the least whether an angel's hand could perform it, or whether it require a power which God has reserved to himself. And though the moral qualities which an agent discovers, may, I apprehend, in some cases, prove the truth of his doctrine, yet still those qualities cannot give to the doctrine any higher sanction than that of the agent himself.

It may be improper to say, also, that God can

alter, or violate, any law which he has himself established. He is a Being in whom there is no variableness. We allow that a miracle is an event contrary to, or inconsistent with, that course of nature which we can deduce from our own limited observation and experience; but the law of nature, or of God, in its larger sense, is a law which man cannot discover. What with us are miracles, that is, discrepancies from, or exceptions to, those laws by which our world is seen to be governed, may still be with God, on certain occasions, events no less natural than the rise and fall of the tides, and no greater violations of His order or system. It is impos

See Butler's Analogy, Part II. Chap. iv., and Bonnet's Philosophical and Critical Inquiries concerning Christianity, Book II. Chap. ix. Engl. Tr. I may here add, that as it is common to speak of miracles, and even to define them, as being supernatural events, the observations in the text will enable us to judge how far it is correct to speak of them by this appellation. If by supernatural we mean events inconsistent with those laws and that course of nature which come under human experience and observation, our use of the word is no less correct than convenient. But if, on the other hand, we mean events inconsistent with those doubtless much more comprehensive laws, which may have been stamped on universal nature by God, it is a word which we cannot and ought

not to use.