CREATION: A SERIES OF MIRACLES. 335 exercise of other senses: the apparatus for walking is perfect even in an infant; but the art of walking is, in fact, a wonderful acquisition. Now, as man comes into the world at present, a long time is required for his development; and during that time he is absolutely dependent on the care of those who have already in their turn required similar care. And the functions which thus task our parents' care, are necessary for our existence, and for any chance of our being able to develop into men. Will any one pretend that the first man was like us in these respects? If he was, then the miracle which brought him into the world might make him a baby of six feet high, but he would be no more than a baby still. All that was to constitute him a man-all those habits by which alone his existence was capable of being preserved, and without which he must have perished immediately after his creation-would have to be learned; and his existence during that time-(and a long time it must have been, having no teachers and aids as we have―) must have been preserved by a miracle. If he were taught by the Creator himself, then we have the miracle in that direction. If he were not brought into the world under the same conditions of development as we are, but with habits ready made (though that involves a contradiction,) then we have a miracle in that direction. If he had his faculties preternaturally quickened and expanded, so as to acquire instantaneously, or possess by instinct, what we acquire by a long and slow process, and not for many years-then we have a miracle in that direction. So that whatever supposition be adopted, we still have the actual preservation and development of the first man effected under totally different conditions from those which have formed the uniform experience of all his posterity; and so far from any subterfuge of a law stepping in, it is a single expedient provided for our first parent alone. In the face of facts so many, so varied, so obvious as these, can anything be more absurd than the pretence that "a miracle is impossible"? X. "But even if miracles were possible they could never command our faith." How is it then that they have commanded the faith of those multitudes who in apostolic days forsook Paganism for Christianity, impelled, in the first instance, by the force of the miracles alone? I say in the first instance, because it is part of the fallacy of this sophism to pretend to sever the divinity of the Revelation from the divinity of the miracle attesting the revelation. It is on the congruity of these two that we rely. The Teaching is worthy to be regarded as Divine. But lest there should be any doubt as to its character it is attested by the Working of a Power which cannot but be Divine. Like His great prototype, the Author of Christianity was "mighty in words and deeds." Never man spake like this Man: that was the tribute to His teaching. And His miracles were the credentials of His teaching: for "if this Man were not of God He could do nothing." And if a Divine Revelation cannot be attested by miracle, how can it be attested! XI. "But all book-revelation is impossible.' If this were true, then that would be possible with man which is impossible with God. For it is by means of a "bookrevelation" of Mr. Newman's, that a few visionaries have been led to adopt this dogma that "book revelation is impossible.' Now if, as they pretend, whatever moral and spiritual truth man acquires, he acquires and can acquire only from within, then indeed the external teaching of prophets and apostles is an impertinence: and so is that of Mr. Newman. But if, as his admirers declare, his external teaching has been of the greatest benefit to themselves, it is rather too much to ask us to believe that the similarly external teaching of God Himself can be of no benefit whatever-nay more, that it cannot possibly have any existence! It is certainly a somewhat grotesque absurdity" to pretend that God cannot do what Mr. Newman can do; and that when it was impossible for Him to give us a book-revelation declaring all book-revelation to be impossible 18 Yet it is by no means chargeable on Mr. Newman alone. Even Dr. Temple tells us (in Essays and Reviews) that "the faculty of faith has turned inwards, and cannot now accept any outer manifestations of the truth of God." He yet "raised up His servant Newman to perform the office " by doing that very thing! XII. "Admitting, however, the possibility of external revelation, the actual revelation before us contains incredibilities which are themselves impossible: e.g. that God should authorize the extirpation of the Canaanites; or that he should inflict eternal punishment upon the wicked." To examine these instances in detail. (I.) 'How thankful we must be," exclaims Bishop Colenso, "that we are no longer obliged to believe, as a matter of fact, the story related in Numbers xxxi., where we are told that a force of 12,000 Israelites slew all the males of the Midianites, took captive all the females and children, seized all their cattle and flocks, and burnt all their cities," &c. He then adds"The tragedy of Cawnpore, where 300 were butchered, would sink to nothing, compared with such a massacre, if we were required to believe it." Some one told Dr. Johnson that he did not know a certain thing, and that he was thankful he did not know it. The Dr. exclaimed, "You are thankful for your ignorance, are you?" To which the angry disputant replied, "Yes sir, I am!" "Well then," curtly rejoined the Doctor, "you have a great Ideal to be thankful for !" How much scepticism and disbelief Bishop Colenso means "to be thankful for," we know not; but a little will be of small avail. For what good will it do him to be thankful for his unbelief of Numbers xxxi., if he cannot disbelieve 2 Kings xix? The wholesale slaughter of 185,000 men in one night, was surely as terrible a massacre as that of Midian. But a much harder task is before him. Does he believe that such a city as Jerusalem ever existed? Does he believe that it was destroyed by Titus? Does he believe that eleven hundred thousand persons, men, women, and children, perished in this siege, by the most horrible modes of destruction, and that all the survivors were sold into hopeless slavery? If he does not believe all this, he puts himself beyond the pale of argument. But if he does believe it-if he is not sceptical concerning the deeds of Vespasian and Titus-what does he gain by disbe Y lieving the Books of Kings, or the Books of Moses? If I believe that God shewed himself a God of vengeance in the greater case, what do I gain by rejecting the thought in the smaller ? 22+ 99 19 But Bishop Colenso declares, again and again, his belief in a "God of Providence," and his certainty that there is such a thing as a "moral government of the world." The question between us is reduced, therefore, to this :-Is there any greater difficulty in the dealings and operations of God as described in the Bible, than we actually find in the dealings and operations of God in the world around us? The answer to this question is equally unequivocal and undeniable. "He sends forth His pestilence, and produces horrors on which imagination dares not dwell; horrors not only physical, but indirectly moral; often transforming man into something like the fiend so many say he never can become. He sends His famine, and thousands perish,-men and women, and the child that knows not its right hand from its left,—in frightful agonies. He opens the mouth of a volcano, and buries the population of a city in torrents of burning lava. Diseases, in infinite forms, in endless variety of anguish, are racking and torturing myriads of human beings in all ages and countries; apparently without any reference to the moral worth or turpitude of those who suffer. All such phenomena in the works and ways of God are, to all appearance, no less opposed to our conceptions of equity and goodness, than the so-called 'difficulties of Scripture.' So that, as Bp. Butler has well observed," "he who denies the Scripture to have been from God upon account of these difficulties, may, for the very same reason, deny the world to have been formed by him." While, on the other hand, as Origen" has with equal force remarked, "he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded from Him who is the Author of Nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in The Pentateuch Examined: Part I. pp. 149, 151. "Introduction to "Analogy." 20 Defence of the Eclipse of quoted in "Analogy." Faith: p. .42. 2 Christian Observer, Dec. 1862. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 339 it as are found in the constitution of Nature." It is therefore not the presence, but the absence of these difficulties which would constitute a valid ground of objection to the Bible. Their existence and their actual character furnish an indispensable (though incidental) guarantee that the Author of Nature and the Author of Scripture are One. (II.) The doctrine of eternal punishment is rejected both on critical and on moral grounds. On the former, it is averred that the frequent usage of the words 'eternal' and 'everlasting' in a limited sense, warrants the belief that it is in this limited sense only that these words are to be understood when applied to the final retribution of the wicked. On the latter, it is affirmed that the idea of punishment absolutely eternal is incompatible with the benevolence of God. To the first, we answer, that the averment is true only in part. The part that is material is untrue: and the part that is true is immaterial. It is true that both Diy and alovios are sometimes used to denote finite periods; but it is not true that this exceptional usage casts any doubt on the normal meaning and application of these words. Besides, it is important to observe, that even the exceptional usage itself serves but, in the strongest manner, to confirm the normal usage. For while this latter denotes a duration lasting literally "for ever," the former denotes a duration lasting as long as the thing of which it is spoken is capable of lasting. Thus, "he shall be thy servant for ever (De. xv, 17.) though a limited period, is yet a period terminable only with life; and the nature of the subject determines the meaning of the predicate. Precisely in like manner is that meaning shown to be absolutely illimitable and eternal, when we read the solemn declaration of the Most High, "I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever!" The words whose This then, is the first part of our case. meaning is here in question do, beyond all question, bear the primary meaning of an absolute and literal eternity. And when used in a modified and secondary sense they never signify less than a duration as long as ever possible. It now remains to shew that when we speak of "everlasting punish |