Necessarily, therefore, from first to last, the Bible is a book of miracle. Miracle is present not as an acci- dent, separable from the main thread, but is itself the very essence of the narrative. The facts of the Old Testament were the basis of the faith of the Jew. They were so as being iniracks, and because, as such, they involved certain dogmatic propositions concerning the divine Being and his relations to themselves. So as re- gards ourselves. When we repeat the Apostles' Creed, we acknowledge our belief first in the existence of a God — an instinct, as we have shown, of our nature— but upon this follow certain historical facts recorded in tlie New Testament, which are either directly miraculous, or become dogmatic because of being based upon mira- cle. Without miracle Christianity is absolutely noth- ing. All that distinguishes it from simple Theism is miraculous.
Miracles in the present day are at a discount. Our men of science have so well studied the laws of the ma- terial universe, and shown us so clearly the existence
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there of a calm, unbroken, unvarying order, that our mind:*, enamored of so f^rand a truth, are impatient of any truth or theory rising above these material laws. Tluis the controversy wlietlier Christianity is true or not really turns upon miracle. The close and exact examination of all the facts of holy Scripture wliich has marked our days has served only to confirm men's be- lief in the authenticity of the sacred writings. Our in- creased knowletlge, especially that obtained from the cuneiform inscriptions corroborative of the Old-Testa- ment history, and from similar unquestionable authori- ties contemporaneous with the New-Testament records, has well-nigh swept away every so-called historical dif- ficulty; while subjective criticism has not merely failed in substantiating any case against the several books of the Bible, but has done very much to place them upon
affinitj', and the like. What is force? What is law? If there be a God — a perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent Being— then law has to us a meaning. It is his will, working permanently and unchangeably because he is a perfect and omnipotent worker. We can understand force. It is his presence, acting upon and controlling all things, but always in the same way, because he changes not. To believe in universal order without a universal will to order all things, to believe in univcsal laws without a imivcrsal lawgiv(T, is to us an absurdity. Ex nihilo nihil Jit. In a world where every effect lias a cause, who and what is the cause of all? Who but God? And who sustains the world now but he who lirst made it?
But it is not the office of science to inquire into the being and attributes and nature of this First Great
a surer basis. At no time was the external evidence ' Cause. Science is solelj' occupied with the secondary in favor of Christianity, or the argument drawn from ;>roce5se5. When it has reached the law, it has done prophecy, so clear an<l so little liable to objection as at its work. It is not the business of science to examine (he present day. And this is no slight matter. A host j into the law as such, but only into the mode of its o()er-
of eager and competent critics have examined witii unfavorable intentions the whole line of our defences, and the result of their operations has been to show how tlioroughly tenable it is in every part.
Thus the whole attack is now thrown upon miracle. Miracle is roundly asserted to be contrarj' to tiie whole course of nature, and to be a violation of that grand law of invariable order which we find everywhere else throughout the universe. In this way a sort of induction is drawn against miracle. Wherever we can examine into the causes of phenomena, we always find them the products of forces acting according to unchanging laws. AVhole regions of phenomena, which w'cre once sup- posed to be under the sway of chance, liave now been reduced to order, and the causes of them made manifest. Men of science have entered one field after another, and have added it to their domains, by showing what laws govern it, and how those laws work. With some sho>v of reason therefore tliey alKrm thit law prevails every- where, and that wliere at i)resent it cannot be shown to I)revail, we may yet be sure of its presence, and con- vinced that the patient investigations of science will in due time demonstrate its sway. And therefore miracle, as being a violation of these universal laws, is not mere- ly, tiiey say, contrary to that experience of men of wliicli Mr. Hume spoke, and upon which he founded an argiiinciit repeatedly shown to be untenable, but of an induction drawn from a vast field of observation and scientific iiKiuiry. In miracle, and miracle alone, sci- yence finds something wliich contradicts its experience. The examination of this most important objection will complete our inquiry.
Tlie proposition contained in this objection, wlien we consider it, seems a most true conclusion as regards the material universe. All material things apparently are governed by general laws, anil it is probable that scientific men are (luite right in endeavoring to show that even in creation all things were produced bv law.