pass, than one tittle of the law to fail," and might, indeed, be inferred from the nature of the case. What man of honor regards property at all, when his moral character is concerned? What wise man does not sacrifice property for the true good of rational and intelligent beings? So, if God has a moral character, and a moral government, then what we call nature and its laws, must hold the same relation to him that property does to the moral character of man. The power and wisdom of God may be seen in nature; but his justice, and truth, and mercy, in which his highest glory consists, can be seen only in his dealings with his moral creatures. If a law of nature were destroyed, it could be reëstablished; if a system of suns and planets were annihilated, another might be produced in its room; if heaven and earth were to pass away, they might be created again; but if the brightness of the moral character of God should be tarnished, that character would be lost forever. This distinction between mere nature and moral government is fundamental; and nothing could have a greater tendency to wake men up to a perception of it than to see God, as he moves on to the accomplishment of his moral purposes, setting aside those laws of nature which we had supposed were established like the everlasting hills-than to see the whole of visible nature, with all its laws, standing ready to pay its obeisance to the true ambassadors of his moral kingdom. How else could God express to us the true relations to each other of his natural and moral government?

If, then, miracles were necessary to give authority to revelation, to give a practical impression of the existence of a personal God, and to indicate the true

position of his moral government, who will say, on the supposition that he has a moral government, that they are improbable?

There has, indeed, been a question raised, — and it is one of so much importance that it may be well to notice it here, how far we are bound to receive any doctrine or command that may be confirmed by a miracle. But this depends on the further question, whether a miracle can be wrought by any being but God. If God, and God only, can work a miracle, then we are bound, both by reason and conscience, to believe and to do every thing taught or commanded with that sanction. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, he was to do it though it might seem to contradict the dictates of natural affection, and what, without the command, would have been the dictates of conscience, and to be in direct opposition to the promises of God himself; and in doing it he honored God, and acted in accordance with the dictates of natural religion, and of the reason that God had given him. Not to believe and obey the direct word of God, whatever impressions and feelings it may oppose, or whatever contradictions it may seem to involve, would lead at once to absurdity and contradiction. It would involve the charge of falsehood and tyranny against God. But the moment you charge God with falsehood, there is an end to all ground of faith in any thing. If I cannot believe God, I cannot believe the faculties that come from God. By charging Him who gave me my moral nature with being false, I involve the probability that all the notices and indications of that nature are false, and all its distinctions baseless. Nothing could then save me from universal skepticism. Certainly natural religion,

and reason itself, if it would not lose from under it the very ground on which it stands, would lead me to this. When God speaks, it is sufficient. His reason is the infinite reason, his authority is absolute authority, and nothing more dreadful, or more opposed to our most intimate convictions, could possibly occur than would be involved in disbelieving and disobeying him. Nor can I doubt that it is in the power of God so to authenticate his word to the soul of man as thus to set it in opposition to the utterances and promptings of every natural faculty; nor that it is only, as in the case of Abraham, when such an opposition occurs, that the most implicit confidence in God, and the highest grandeur of faith, can be seen.

If, then, we suppose that God only can perform a miracle, its authority will be absolute. But may there not be a suspension or a reversal of the laws of nature caused by other beings than God? May not some malignant agent do that which, if it is not, must appear to us to be a real miracle? This is a question which I cannot answer. what intermediate powers and agencies there may be between the infinite God and man. I know not but there may be created beings of such might that one of them might seize upon the earth, and hurl it from its orbit, or control its elements; nor do I know what range God may give to the agency of such, or of any other intermediate beings. I do not myself believe that any being but God can work a real miracle. Miracles are his great seal. This may be counterfeited; but if he should suffer it to be stolen, I see no possible way in which he could authenticate a communication to his creatures. A real miracle is to be

It may be so. I know not

distinguished from those feats and appearances which may be produced by sleight of hand, and by collusion when once a religion is established; and also from any effects of merely natural agents, however occult, under the control of science, but working according to their own laws. These, especially if science and deception are combined, and in an age of popular ignorance, may go very far; probably far enough to account for every thing in the Bible, seemingly miraculous, which we should not be willing to attribute to God. They may account for appearances and coincidences which, to the ignorant, must have seemed like miracles, and for extraordinary cures of a certain class, while the principle of life remained; but they cannot account for a reversal of a law of nature, as when an axe is made to swim, or the shadow to go back on the dial; nor for an operation where the powers of nature have nothing to work upon, as when one really dead is raised to life. However, something like that of which I have spoken above is implied in the Bible, and provision is made for the state of mind which it must induce. This speaks of "signs and lying wonders." It was said to the Israelites of old, "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul."

I would say, then, that an apparent miracle, per

formed by a creature of God, would not authorize me to receive what seemed to me to be contradictory to my natural faculties; and the voice of God himself would lay me under obligation to do this simply because the highest reason demands faith in him as the only ground of faith in any thing else. It is, indeed, a contradiction to say that a man can believe what he knows to be absurdity, or can be under obligation to do what is wrong; and, in general, I would say that no man is under obligation to believe what it is not more reasonable for him to believe than to disbelieve; but it may be reasonable to believe, on the authority of God, that that is not an absurdity which might otherwise seem to be so, and that the command of God would make certain actions right for us, which would otherwise not be so. If God should wish to make a communication to an individual that would seem in opposition to the dictates of his natural faculties, we might expect that he would, as in the case of Abraham, speak himself, and cause it to be known that the voice was certainly his; but when a creature of God appears as his messenger, then his character and the object of his mission must correspond with what we have a right to expect of a messenger from God; and no prodigy, no apparent miracle, ought to be received as a sufficient sanction for that which, without such sanction, would appear to be either absurd or vicious.

But, however we may decide this question on the supposition of a conflict between the message confirmed by a miracle, and the intellectual, or the moral nature. of man, there is no practical difficulty on this point, when we speak of the Christian miracles. These are all worthy of God. They were wrought by men of