tellectual barbarism; that while they are fitted to impress with awe the minds of men in such an age, they are quite out of place in the argument for Christianity in this nineteenth century. This is the key-note of the essay of Mr. Powell, to which we have so frequently referred. Rosenmüller and Paulus also take the view that miracles were of evidential force only at the time when they were wrought, but have long ceased to be so. Similar is the view of Schliermacher who regards them as, in fact, not miracles at all, except as relatively to the apprehensions of the age.

In opposition to all such views, we maintain that those miraculous manifestations of divine power which accompanied the promulgation of Christianity were adapted not to the age, as such, in distinction from other ages of the world, not to any one age as being more or less enlightened, more or less credulous, more or less barbarous, but rather to any age that is to receive a new dispensation or revelation from God. They are adapted not to one age more than another, save as one, and not another, is to receive that revelation. No increase of intellectual or scientific culture would have obviated the necessity for such divine interpositions, at any time, when a new system of religious truth was to be inaugurated, and its claims to divine authority established. Indeed, if a new revelation were now to be made, miracles would be necessary to establish it; nothing short of this would convince the very men who reject as unnecessary all external evidences of Christianity, that God was in very deed speaking unto them. The distinction now made between the adaptation of miracles to the promulgation of a new system of divine truth, and their adaptation to the particular age in which that system happens to be first promulgated, is a distinction too obvious to require argument, but one which is wholly overlooked by the class of objectors to whom we refer.

But, it will be said, even though miracles may have been useful at the first introduction of a new dispensation, it by no means follows that they are useful now. In one sense this is true. Christianity once established as a system from

God, there is no further need of miracles to establish it. The working of miracles may thenceforth be dispensed with, unless some new occasion shall arise demanding new interpositions of divine power. But it does not follow that the miracles which have been wrought, and on which the system depends for confirmation, are no longer of use. They are as much needed now as they ever were. There is no need of new piers to support the dome of St. Peter's. Pier-building, so far as St. Peter's is concerned, may be discontinued when once the dome is up, and securely held in its place. It does not follow, however, that the piers already there are no longer needed, and may as well be taken down. This again is a distinction which certain minds of a comprehensive capacity " fail to apprehend. Because miracles are no longer needed in support of Christianity, they conclude that the argument from miracles is no longer of use.

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Our argument thus far proceeds on the supposition that the direct and special object of a miracle is to establish the divine commission and authority of him who performs it, and so of the truth or system which he propounds. For this it is needed. This it accomplishes, and was designed to accomplish. But does it prove anything more than this? Does it also prove the inspiration, or divine authorship of the writings that record it? We think not. Miracles are wrought, not to prove the writings infallible, and of divine origin, but to substantiate the claims of the teacher or prophet to be a man sent from God, and clothed with divine authority. They prove the inspiration of the man, and not of the books or writings, as such. The miracles of Jesus prove his inspirarion and authority, and that of his doctrine, but they do not prove the inspiration or divine authority of the Gospel of Matthew, or of the Gospel of Luke. If the problem be to establish the inspiration of the sacred scriptures, the argument from miracles is not in place, unless it can be shown that miracles were wrought with a view to establish that inspiration; but we know of no miracle wrought for this purpose. If, however, the problem be to establish the divine authority of Moses or of Paul, as

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speaking by commission from God, and so to confirm their teaching or message, the argument from miracles is in place, and of force; for it does prove that. And such is the use which Christ and his apostles actually make of the miracles which they perform, as shown in the passages cited above. They constantly appeal to them as evidence of their own divine commission: "Though ye believe not me, believe the works."1 "Go and tell John what things ye have seen,' said Christ. To the same effect is the language of Paul to the Hebrews: "God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders, and with diverse miracles." 3

To the question, then: What does a miracle prove? we answer, it proves the divine commission of him who performs it, and so the divine authority of his doctrine. It proves Christianity to be a system of divine origin, a religion sent from God. It is the broad seal of Heaven stamped upon the system, as its credentials. This was the intention; this the accomplished fact.

ARTICLE V.

HUMANENESS OF THE MOSAIC CODE.

BY REV. J. B. SEWALL, LYNN, MASS.

We have frequently heard the Mosaic laws alluded to as barbarous and bloody, and belonging to an age of like character; adapted, perhaps, to the degree of civilization, or rather uncivilization, which then prevailed, but altogether unfit for the present advanced stage of enlightenment and progress. An instance of this kind within our knowledge. led us recently to examine the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, with this point in view. We took note as we went along, both of the features which give

1 John x. 38.

2 Luke vii. 28.

Heb ii. 4.

rise to the charge, and the opposite, the laws which must be marked as lenient and humane. We have embodied in the following remarks our results, at which we confess, on our own part, no little surprise.

We note it as wonderful, at the outset, that a code of laws, if barbarous and bloody, should have made a people so highly civilized as the Hebrews certainly became, whatever we may say of the age. A barbarous and bloody code should belong to a barbarous and bloody people, and make them only the more so. We should expect such a people to be rude, warlike, cruel, idolatrous, and perhaps cannibal. We should think of them together with the old Assyrians, the later Scythians, and the still later fierce tribes which overbore the power of the Roman Empire, and later still, with the inhabitants of New Zealand and the South Sea Islands. We should think of them certainly as little advanced in the arts and customs of civilization. We cannot think thus, however, of the Hebrews. They were far from being a people of this character. From the day of their exodus from Egypt, a nation of emancipated slaves, they occupied the level of an unparalleled civilization. They were widely distinguished at once from the barbarous nations around them. The degraded and barbarous practices of Egypt, Edom, Assyria, Syria, and the tribes of Canaan, they were wonderfully exempt from. Observe the difference, e. g. between them and the Egyptians, a close similarity to whom, on the contrary, we should have expected. It was remarkable. The Egyptians had a civilization which, it is true, was very high in certain respects. It had arts and learning, for Moses had profited by them, being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The monuments likewise which stand to this day on the banks of the Nile witness the same. It had the science of astronomy, and had carried it as far as was possible, perhaps, without the aid of modern instruments; also the science of chemistry in certainly greater degree than modern civilization had attained before the time of Lord Bacon. It had geometry too, and a grand massive architecture, as the Pyramids and temples

But this

like those at Karnac, to this day, again, testify. civilization was idolatrous, monarchical, sensual, and depraved. Their best worship was that of Osiris and Isis, while their common and general religion descended to the worship of animals, vegetables, and the basest of reptiles.1 Men are as they worship. We have therefore a state of society in Ancient Egypt never exceeded, and probably not reached, by Greece or Rome in their days of lowest vice and depravity. The reading of what modern discovery has revealed in the inscriptions of the ancient ruins, carries us back to a civilization which, however surprisingly advanced in certain respects, was yet a civilization of ambition, lust of power and domain, blood-thirst, superstition, and sensuality.

The Hebrew civilization, on the other hand, born suddenly and brought to a great degree of maturity in the wilderness of Sinai, if wanting in the science and art of Egypt, was yet possessed remarkably of other elements, and those which enter more into the constitution of true civilization, — are more the essence of civilization. It was a civilization of high principles and practices in the customs and relations of life. Justice, generosity, and mercy were eminent traits. Its religion was spiritual; its worship that of the true and living God. Men are as they worship, again. It was also a free, republican civilization of the purest form. If we estitimate therefore a civilization by the refinement of a people's manners and feelings, and their remoteness from savage grossness, which we maintain is a truer standard of estimation than improvement in arts and learning, we must rank the Hebrew civilization in the first order, and far before the Egyptian. We would say that a moral civilization, if we can so distinguish, is higher than an intellectual. Christian civilization is higher than any infidel or pagan civilization the world ever saw. England would not wish to change her civilization for that of Greece or Rome in their most exalted days. And this was just the difference between

1 Posterity might repeat the saying which had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of the same country: That in Egypt it was less difficult to find a god than a man. Gibbon, Decl. and Fall of Rom. Emp, Vol. III. p 524.