... "The miracle, consequently, does not take place contrary to universal nature, but contrary only to nature so far as it is known to us; though even those things which occur in nature as known to us are not less wonderful and stupendous, to those who would carefully consider them, were it not that men are accustomed to wonder only at things that are infrequent and rare. . . . That miracle of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he made the water wine, is not wonderful to those who know that it was God who performed it. For He who made wine on that marriage day, in those six water pots which he commanded to be filled with water, makes wine the whole year round in the grape vines. But this latter we do not wonder at because it occurs all the year round. By reason of the uniformity, we lose our wonder." 1 The sphere of the miraculous lies outside our knowledge of the capabilities of natural causes under superhuman adjustment and enforcement. It may at length be found that there is no more real opposition to the order of nature in a miracle, than in any instance of providential interposition. The difference between the two would seem mainly to lie in the measure rather than the kind of power thus exerted upon material causation by Deity, carrying the action into a higher sphere of seeming yet not real opposition to the ordinary course of nature. We say, not real; for in all these preternatural events, "the effect which a given antecedent, or sum of antecedents," we should prefer to say, causes, "would otherwise produce, may be counteracted by the presence of other forces which are also natural." This, also, answers the objection, that miracles imply a defect in nature. Rather it follows, that the supernatural element in God's government is the exponent of a nobler constitution of nature than otherwise were discoverable. Nor are miracles to be regarded as a make-shift for unforeseen emergencies, but as an integral part of the everlasting predeterminations of the unchangeable Deity. 2 Impressive, however, as are these exhibitions of the Divine government in controlling the physical world, and in authenticating a revelation of truth and salvation to men, we have another step to take to reach the proper termination of our inquiry to notice the intervention of God in human affairs — 1 Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine. I. 169. 2 Fisher's Essays, p. 480. (3) Through remedial grace. The legitimateness of this extension of our discussion is obvious from the effort uniformly made, to overturn evangelical Christianity, by the deniers of its supernaturalism. It is not unfair to say, that as a general rule, an aversion to this is the conscious or unconscious motive which inspires the rationalism of the times. No one ought to object to the guarded and charitable manner in which Professor Fisher states this tendency of the rationalistic temper, in his first essay; while every lover of truth should be grateful that, at this initial and pivotal point, he has not failed to bear a distinct testimony to the power of that "evil heart of unbelief" which breeds so many errors in the brain." in The end of God's connection with men is not to convey to them a knowledge of the facts that he exists, that he governs, that the earth is his, and its people, that he can and does use its forces for moral results. The end of God's connection with us is to work in us to will and to do of his good pleasure: that is, to secure a harmony of being between himself and us. Now, we mark the close analogy between his processes in nature and grace, ever keeping in view, of course, the essential constitutional differences of a simply material and a rational system of being. Divine power or will acts upon human wills as directly and conclusively as upon physical nature, although not in the same way. The government is as real in the one case as in the other. The interpositions for gracious purposes are as definite as for mechanical. Mind and soul are the subjects of God's influence as much as earth and water. Does he work in them? So is it God who worketh in us. It is a supernatural inworking of his grace, though not, in strict language, a miraculous. Our helplessness is not of the same sort nor explanation as that of inanimate nature; but it is as certain and positive. We can no more carry on our spiritual life and training without a continual Divine inworking, than the laws of matter can of themselves sustain their regular evolutions. We know this when hours of temptation come, when we are bands of marauding appetites and passions. scious that while, as responsible actors, we ought to be free and strong for the right, we are not, but are miserably bound in the driven in upon by enslavement of sense. There may not be much poetry in the confession, but there is a deal of truth in it: "I'm like a helpless captive sold I can not do the good I would, Nor keep my conscience clean." Is there any thing in nature more appealing for succor unto God than this inthralment of an immortal spirit? We will not say, with one of the writers of the Aids to Faith, that "the transmission of sin in human history can only be defended as a just arrangement of Providence in view of a Deliverer from its guilt." God's ways in connection with this momentous matter scarcely demand this vindication. But while no situation in which a sinful soul may find itself, can put its Maker under the obligation of saving it, this lost estate of humanity cries from the ground in piteous accents to heaven for the interposition of Almighty mercy. It points directly to the necessity of the counterparts, in the spiritual world, of those acts of superhuman power which attested the coming of Christ in our nature. As he opened blinded eyes, quickened deaf ears, cured the lame and sick, raised the physically dead, so, to make his redeeming work a personally possessed blessing to us, there is equal need for Divine grace now to unseal the shut eyes and ears of the soul, to heal its sicknesses, to give true life to the dead in trespasses and in sins. The first of these displays of miraculous intervention were but the types and pledges of the last; wholly worthless and purposeless except as accompanied and followed by these other acts of regenerating and sanctifying power. A sublime harmony runs through the entire system of God's administration in the natural and moral universe. Creation is the prophecy and the promise of re-creation. This is in the hands of the Son and the Spirit of God. The problem is to restore to loyal love a race of beings made free and accountable under righteous law, but subjugated, with their own subsequent full assent, to the dominion of Satan. So long as men always find themselves entirely satisfied with a sinful state, when they first awake to the consciousness of it, they can not throw off the blame of its existence because of any antecedent agencies outside of themselves in its production. The salvation which we want is from our own depravity, and that of our fathers, so far as this has entered as poison into our being. Now this is the intrinsic subject and value of revelation. "What we believe is, that the death of the Redeemer purchased our life, our reconciliation, that without his obedience our sins would have borne their natural fruit of death. And whether we call this act a sacrifice on account of its being an offering to appease the Divine wrath, or a satisfaction, as it is a mode of payment which God accepts instead of the debt of obedience that we can not render, is of less importance than might at first appear. So long as we believe that the wrath of God because of our disobedience fell in the shape of affliction on Him who alone had so acted as to please God, the terms in which it may be expressed may be suffered to vary."1 It A sovereignty of compassionate wisdom marks this mediatorial interposition in our behalf, which we are in no condition to criticise, which we should have no inclination to modify. Jehovah no more asks counsel of creatures in inaugurating this dispensation of mercy, than he did in creating our world; than Christ did in his miraculous deeds. He, whose is the kingdom, must determine his own measures of its administration. pleases him to announce these glad tidings; to confer the gift of his Holy Spirit upon all who will receive it; to go as far as he sees to be best in inducing a disposition in human hearts to repent of sin, a preference in human wills to submit themselves to his supreme control. Grace is his own, and he has a right to do with it as he will. His will can not be wrong. The true philosophy of neither the natural or the spiritual world demands the exclusion of God from it. His absence from either realm creates a more frightful vacuum than nature ever abhorred. Philosophy, in the indignant majesty of her outraged honor and veracity, rises in stern protest against this impious folly. But God demands admittance among us not as a silent spectator of our business or amusements, He will speak, and be listened to, as one entitled to rule wherever he is present. If he is God, he should assert this prerogative; he must, or be recreant to the obligations of eternal right and 1 Aids to Faith: Being a Reply to "Essays and Reviews." p. 404. goodness. These should bear sway; and if he is better than should com How cheer his creatures, if he is infinitely excellent, then he mand, and all dependent souls should obey him. less a world without a God! How cheerless and unblessed a human spirit without God in the world! The spirit of religious unbelief, in every degree of its indulgence, is a cold and dreary thing. It envelops the soul in an atmosphere of chill, damp mist, where it has no outlook, no genial warmth — a curtain drawn closely all around it — a sort of premature death-shroud, instead of glimpses of light and beauty coming into it from earth and heaven. Infidelity is nothing but a chattering ghost, lean and lifeless for all purposes of its own comfort and others' benefit. Irreligion is scarcely better in any of its many forms. They differ rather in degree than, in essential quality. They both shut out the true light which would lighten every one that cometh into the world. They do this as really while thinking to accept and to honor God, if he be only a God of their own imagining, received in a way of their own devising rather than in the methods of the divinely revealed mercy. Neither can give rest. Their nature is alien to our wants however it may gratify our taste. Their spirit is proud, self-reliant, self-flattering. They promise to make us gods in our own right, but it is only a repetition to willing. ears of the old lie which was first whispered to our deceived mother" ye shall not surely die." But die she nevertheless did, for God had said it. And what he then said he has never recalled. ARTICLE II. THREE THOUSAND MILES UP THE MISSOURI. [Concluded from Vol. V., page 461.] JUNE 8th, 1865, finds us at Fort Rice. This Post was built last season by order of Gen. Sully, for military purposes, on a high and beautiful elevation of prairie land, on the west side of the river, overlooking a large extent of country. |
