If, as the instincts of our nature teach us, there be a God; if man be more than a very highly-organized machine ; if within him there be an immortal soul, and before him a future life, then miracle is essential to his well-being. It is the sole possible proof of conscious re- lation between man and God. Man could not be sure that God had spoken to him, had revealed to him any knowledge requisite for his use, had entered into cove- nant relation with him, without miracles. We know nothing in physical science to disprove this relation. Suppose that we find a stage elaborately constructed and adorned. No theory, however true, of the manner in which this stage was constructed, no examination of the mechanical laws hj which it is still kept in being, will justify us in concluding that it was not intended for some further purpose. Nor, because the boards are all safely nailed in their place, does it follow that actors may not enter upon it, higher in nature than the boards, and capable of spontaneous motion. Nor, because we have never seen the builder, does it follow that he did not erect the stage on purpose that these actors might play upon it their parts. Geology, chemistry, astrono- my, so far from proving that the world had no purpose, and that the actors upon it have no freedom and no re- sponsibility, rather suggest the contrary. They teach us what a vast amount of skill, patience, wisdom, and goodness has been expended in forming the stage. Quorsiun hac? What was the object of all this? What the end? Oh ! but some physicists answer, We reject teleologj'. That is, we reject something which lies beyond our province, and on which we have no au- thorit}^ to speak. They tell us all about the stage, and then, instead of saying frankly, We have done our part, Plaudite (and ricldy thej' deserve our applause), they tell us. Be satisfied with the stage. It is very pretty, very nicely constructed, but utterly unmeaning. An elaborate universe without a purpose, is a poor, mean thing, unworthj' to exist. It would be a disgrace to a man to erect a noble structure without a purpose : there are many buildings iu England called So-and-So's Folly, because erected without a sufficient purpose. Let us beware of ascribing such child's play to that Power which called the universe into being.
No. The more we consider man, and the more we learn about him, and about the world which he inhab- its, the more sure we are that he is no fortuitous con- currence of atoms, but the chief and culminating point, in whom, and in whom alone, all the skill and wisdom and long patience displayed in the formation of the world find their purpose and their justification. The wonders of phj-sical science all lead up to this. There are some among its teachers who would persuade us that the universe is a mere curiosity shop, fitted to raise our wonder, but never reasonable, because nowhere the product of mind, or controlled by mind. But the very harmony which they find in nature, and the calm reign of law, proves that mind does pervade all nature. With- out mind there can be no harmony ; without a universal mind no universal law. But grant that mind may ex- ist as well as matter, and you grant the possibility of
this world having a purpose — a purpose which, as we have shown, can be realized only in man. But to re- alize this purpose men's finite mind may need converse with the universal, the infinite mind, and, if so, miracle is justified by this necessity.
Thus, then, miracle is not contrary to nature, but rises simply above the sphere of mere material forces. And it is untrue and unphilosophic to regard it as an interference by God with his universal laws, much less a violation of them. Man daily interferes with the ma- terial laws and forces of nature, but we never violate them. The stone thrown into the air interferes with the law of gravitation, but does not violate it. And if God be an intelligent and moral worker like man, only in a superior and perfect degree, he, too, must be capa- ble of bending the powers of nature to instantaneous obedience to his will, or he could not do Avhat man can do. His own laws he could not violate, because they are his laws; but his interference with them would necessarily be what we call a miracle, something which the ordinary operations of nature could not produce; something which transcends nature, and goes utterly beyond it. If a sheep possessed the power of reasoning upon its own actions and those of man, the latter would seem to it absolutely miraculous, because they so entirely exceed its own powers. Yet to man they would be no miracles, but the ordinary exercise of his powers. And so what we call miracles are not miracles to the Deity, and therefore the evangelists call them in Christ simply Cvva/AeiQ, his /acuities ; and John calls them ipya, works, only, the natural products of his faculties ; yet not wrought without a purpose. They were also ar]- fitia, signs, tokens indicating that something was done, which man was thereby required to examine and ob- serve ; and living as the Jews did under a preparatory dispensation, they were signs that the fulness of time had come, and the final dispensation being ushered in.