makes no difference at all if God were connected with the question as the author of the supposed miracles. And why? Because, says he, we know God only by experience -meaning as involved in nature-and, therefore, that in so far as miracles transcend our experience of nature, they transcend by implication our experience of God. But the very question under discussion is-whether God did, or did not, manifest himself to human experience in the miracles of the New Testament. Yet, at all events, the idea of God in itself already includes the notion of a power to work miracles, whether that power were ever exercised or not; and as Sir Isaac Newton thought that space might be the sensorium of God, so may we (and with much more philosophical propriety) affirm that the miraculous and the transcendent is the very nature of God. God being assumed, it is as easy to believe in a miracle issuing from him as in any operation according to the laws of nature (which, after all, is possibly in many points only the nature of our planet): it is as easy, because either mode of action is indifferent to him. Doubtless this argument, when addressed to an atheist, loses its force; because he refuses to assume a God. But then, on the other hand, it must be remembered that Hume's argument itself does not stand on the footing of atheism. He supposes it binding on a theist. Now a theist, in starting from the idea of God, grants, of necessity, the plenary power of miracles as greater and more awful than man could even comprehend. All he wants is a sufficient motive for such transcendent agencies; but this is supplied in excess (as regards what we have called the constituent miracles of Christianity) by the case of a religion that was to revolutionise the moral nature of man. The moral nature-the kingdom of the will-is essentially opposed to the kingdom of nature even

by the confession of irreligious philosophers; and, therefore, being itself a supersensual field, it seems more reasonably adapted to agencies supernatural than such as are natural.

GENERAL RECAPITULATION.

In Hume's argument-x, which expresses the resistance to credibility in a miracle, is valued as of necessity equal to the very maximum or ideal of human testimony; which, under the very best circumstances, might be equal to + x, in no case more, and in all known cases less. I, on the other hand, have endeavoured to show—

1. That, because Hume contemplates only the case of a single witness, it will happen that the case Beta (of Sect. II.) where a multitude of witnesses exist, may greatly exceed + x; and with a sufficient multitude must exceed x.

2. That, in the case of internal miracles-operations of divine agency within the mind and conscience of the individual-Hume's argument is necessarily set aside: the evidence, the +x, is perfect for the individual, and the miraculous agency is meant only for him.

3. That, in the case of one primary miracle-viz., the first organisation of man on this planet-the evidence greatly transcends x: because here it is an evidence not derived from experience at all, but from the reflecting reason: and the miracle has the same advantage over facts of experience, that a mathematical truth has over the truths which rest on induction. It is the difference between must be and is-between the inevitable and the merely actual.

4. That, in the case of another order of miracles-viz., prophecies-Hume's argument is again overruled; because the +x in this case, the affirmative evidence, is not de

rived from human testimony. Some prophecies are obscure; they may be fulfilled possibly without men's being aware of the fulfilment. But others, as that about the fate of Babylon-about the fate of the Arabs (the children of Ishmael)—about the fate of the Jews-are not of a nature to be misunderstood; and the evidence which attends them is not alien, but is intrinsic, and developed by themselves (a contingency for which Hume has made no allowance) in successive stages from age to age.

5. That, because the primary miracle in No. 3 argues at least a power competent to the working of a miracle, for any after miracle we have only to seek a sufficient motive. Now, the objects of the Christian revelation were equal at the least to those of the original creation. In fact, Christianity may be considered as a second creation; and the justifying cause for the constituent miracles of Christianity is even to us as apparent as any which could have operated at the primary creation. The epigenesis, the secondary birth, was, at least, as grand an occasion as the genesis, the original birth. Indeed, it is evident, for example, that Christianity itself could not have existed without the constituent miracle of the Resurrection; because without that there would have been no conquest over death. And here, as in No. 3, + x is derived-not from any experience, and therefore cannot be controlled by that sort of hostile experience which Hume's argument relies on; but is derived from the reason which transcends all experience; that is, which would be valid-I do not say against the positive case of a hostile experience, but in the neutral or negative case, where all confirmatory experience is wanting.

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CASUIS TRY.

PART I.

*

It is remarkable, in the sense of being noticeable and interesting, but not in the sense of being surprising, that casuistry has fallen into disrepute throughout all Protestant lands. This disrepute is a result partly due to the healthier morality which usually follows in the train of the Protestant faith. So far it is honourable, and an evidence of superior illumination. But, in the excess to which it has been pushed, we may trace also a blind and fanatical reaction of the horror inspired by the abuses of the Popish Confessional. Unfortunately for the interests of scientific ethics, the first cultivators of casuistry had been those who kept in view the professional service of auricular confession. Their purpose was-to assist the reverend confessor in appraising the quality of doubtful

* "Usually :”—We Protestants, being generally bigots where we happen to be sincere and earnest, have assumed it as a settled point that, wheresoever Protestant and Popish provinces lie intermingled with each other (as in Germany and in Switzerland), the transition from the first to the second, in all that argues order, industry, social activity, and public welfare, leaves an impression so powerfully advantageous to Protestantism, as to resemble the alternate successions of sunlight and twilight. But candid observers, amongst whom is to be reckoned the late Dr Arnold of Rugby, do not admit the truth of this representation-at least so far as regards Switzerland.

actions, in order that he might properly adjust his scale of counsel, of warning, of reproof, and of penance. Some, therefore, in pure simplicity and conscientious discharge of the duty they had assumed, but others from lubricity of morals or the irritations of sensual curiosity, pushed their investigations into unhallowed paths of speculation. They held aloft a torch for exploring guilty recesses of human life, which it is far better for us all to leave in their original darkness. Crimes that were often all but imaginary, extravagancies of erring passion that would never have been known as possibilities to the young and the innocent, were thus published in their most odious details. At first, it is true, the decent draperies of a dead language were suspended before these abominations: but sooner or later some knave was found, on mercenary motives, to tear away this partial veil; and thus the vernacular literature of most nations in Southern Europe was gradually polluted with revelations that had been originally made in the avowed service of religion. Indeed, there was one aspect of such books which proved even more extensively disgusting. Speculations pointed to monstrous offences, bore upon their very face and frontispiece the intimation that they related to cases rare and anomalous. But sometimes casuistry pressed into the most hallowed recesses of common domestic life. The delicacy of youthful wives, for example, was often not less grievously shocked than the manliness of husbands, by refinements of monkish subtlety applied to cases never meant for religious cognisance-but far better left to the decision of good feeling, of nature, and of pure household morality. Even this revolting use of casuistry, however, did less to injure its name and pretensions than a persuasion, pretty generally diffused, that the main purpose and drift of this science was a sort of