essentially that practical influence which they ought, and must have been intended, to have. A miracle is, at the least, an act or exertion of some superhuman power, of a being at least able to interfere with, or alter, those laws of the moral or material universe which fall under the cognizance or observation of man. The acts of such a being, if brought forcibly home to us, cannot but take a powerful hold of our attention. They either make on our senses a very forcible impression; or they come to us on the evidence and authority of testimony, a species of evidence which, in point of impression also, has more effect than reasoning on the ordinary state of the mind.

On authority so evidenced, therefore, supposing the miracles real, it is certainly our natural propension to rely, if not implicitly, yet with a very high degree of practical confidence. And though we insert the caution" that the doctrine to be

a It will be seen hereafter that I consider this caution as being perhaps a merely theoretical caution, since I do not contend that, in all human experience, any instance can be produced of a real miracle wrought by evil spirits for pur poses of deception.

proved must be in itself consistent and credible, we may be assured that this caution cannot seriously check the natural disposition to rely on the authority of any real miracle which may be worked in a true or credible cause. All natural scepticism on the subject of miracles attaches to the question whether they were really performed, not, if performed, to the authority which they possess. I do, indeed, hold that if we had reason to think that the doctrine attested by any real miracle was inconsistent with reason, or with a rationally grounded authority, it might be just or reasonable to suspend our assent to it till we could prove its truth or consistency. But certainly our impulse would be to suspect that reason to be erroneous, and that authority unjust and unfounded, which might be alleged in opposition to so high a sanction.

Such, accordingly, was in fact the natural influence on the Jews of the miracles which our blessed Saviour performed. The Jews, the common people, either never suspected that even evil spirits might not perform real miracles, or, at least, did not account miracles strictly conclusive of the truth of every doctrine which

they might be alleged to sustain'. They were placed exactly in the condition of those persons of whom the objector in this place supposes that they must necessarily vacillate as to the reception of any doctrine which might be sanctioned by even unsuspected miracles. They had, doubtless, on this point the same prejudices which the Pharisees had, though we may suppose they were less rootedly and less corruptly tenacious of them. And we may allow that the Pharisees, who, while they admitted the miracles, denied their validity, whether they denied it on the ground of their being worked by demons, or on any other ground, would have argued unimpeachably if they had been right in premising, that the doctrine of Christ was really inconsistent with the revelation which had been taught by Moses.

But though the common Jews had all the prejudices of the Pharisees, yet we know that their impulse was to credit the miracles. They argued, as we should do in a similar case, that these miracles were the true, those prejudices

a John, ix. 16. 24. 30, 31. Compare ch. vii. 3. 12, and indeed nearly the whole of the seventh, eighth, and tenth chap

ters.

the erroneous, authority; and that to refer the miracles, as the Pharisees had done, not to God, but to the power of evil spirits, was only a fetch, or evasion of theirs, to get rid of the force of a hard truth.

It is altogether certain, therefore, that to make the credibility of the doctrine a condition of admitting the authority of the miracle must be far from paralyzing the effect of real miracles. Certainly, if no instance can be found, in which, in point of fact, any real miracle has been worked for purposes of deception, the effect of miracles will be the stronger still this security might be an additional security; but cannot be necessary to give them that power over human assent for which any writer on the evidences of revelation needs to contend.

II. I now propose, secondly, to shew that both Scripture and reason appear in certain cases to point out expressly the actual reasonableness of those conditions which have been assigned, namely the condition of the credibility of the doctrine taught, and the condition that the authority be not refuted. This may indeed be collected from what is said by our Saviour in those passages to which I have already

referred, and in which he vindicates his own miracles from the charge of having been worked by demoniacal agency.-But there are other passages, also, which seem to prove the point more directly.

In Deuteronomy xiii. we find it written as follows: "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the

a See p. 4, and note B at the end of the volume.