severity; and even the innocent may be subjected to unmerited stripes. But these things do not conflict with the doctrine of a righteous retribution, as administered by God himself. Men are imperfect beings, and all that is submitted to their hands will be imperfectly managed. Not so with God. His law is perfect, and all its sanctions are in harmony with his infinite character. It is important that we consider the difference between the motives and conduct of men. The man who forms a wicked design, or cherishes an unholy passion, has already sinned against God, and receives his punishment in the mental suffering thus endured; and from this there is no escape. But he who commits a sinful act, sins against society, and it is left to society to punish him, or allow him to escape all outward infliction. It may be proper to add here, that though the administration of human governments is imperfect, there is a tendency in society toward a righteous retribution. The existence of laws and penalties proves this. For most men, in all ages, vile as they have been, have felt the necessity of opposing crime, and raising barriers to its progress. They have therefore made laws to prohibit what was deemed wrong, and instituted penalties to restrain and prevent crime. These have all been imperfect; but still they indicate a righteous principle within man, and a tendency toward the execution of justice. The same is seen in the tendencies of society, irrespective of law. The man who sets himself against the interests of his fellow beings, will find himself not a little incommoded by those whose rights he disregards. This is the tendency of society. If one man's hand is against every man, every man's hand will assuredly be against him. And there are a thousand ways by which such men can be reached and made to suffer for their crimes. It will not do to say that many such men are rich and powerful. They are not as rich and powerful as the rest of the world. And in most cases, if we could strike the balance between the evils they occasion others, and the evils they themselves suffer in consequence of their oppressions and injustice, I doubt not that we should discover a near approach to a just retribution. It is right that it should be But as men are the agents in bringing about the result, much that is wrong may be expected to mingle in its execution.

SO.

These remarks, however, are not essential to our present discussion. What I would fix in the reader's mind is, that the divine system of retribution, or that part of God's administration that relates to rewards and punishments, is not responsible for the imperfections of human governments. Men, and all their ways, are doubtless under the divine administration, and are controlled with a view to a glorious result; but this does not oblige us to fix the divine sanction to the various measures of men for rewarding and punishing human conduct, much less to regard these measures as a part of his own perfect system of retribution.

5. Finally, on the inequalities of this life, it may be safely affirmed, that, if our system fail to explain them, it will be in vain to seek for a satisfactory explanation from the opposing theory. I know it is said that the irregularities of this world are to be adjusted in eternity; but on examining the grounds of this belief, and the manner in which it is affirmed the adjustment will take place, we are constrained to confess that the subject is involved in incomparably greater embarrassment and difficulties. There are two things worthy of being noticed here. First, the common ground for expecting the alleged adjustment is wholly fallacious. The reason why God will adjust these matters in the future is, it is said, that he does not adjust them now! It is maintained that all the good and ill that checker life belong to the system of retribution, and that because there is now an inequality that does not accord with human merit, in other words, because strict justice is not now done, it will be hereafter.

A little thought, it is believed, will convince any one that this reasoning, so far from being favorable to the idea of a future adjustment, is directly opposed to such an expectation. If the good and evil of this life are meted out with an uneven balance, a greater inequality will exist hereafter.

To use examples before refered to, as often employed against us if an innocent wife is not unfrequently the subject of abuse from an unfeeling husband, she need not flatter herself that it will be better for her in the future world. God is able to torment her worse than her husband can; and unless she repent and become the subject of his grace before she dies, she will meet with a severer

fate than she found on earth, and wish herself again under her more merciful oppressor. The son whose unnatural father has subjected him to undeserved abuse, may yet find still more cruel treatment, from a Father more unnatural, in the abode of despair. The poor and needy, the widow and fatherless, who have been reduced to poverty and want by dishonesty and oppression, need not expect relief hereafter; for though they may be delivered from their suffering, they may, on the contrary, be rendered inconceivably more miserable. And on the other hand, those who have been the occasion of these abuses and oppressions, may escape, both from the stripes of civil law, and from the inflictions of divine justice. This, reader, is the way that the inequalities of this world are to be adjusted in the future-nor can any one say in truth that this is not a fair representation of the subject. The doctrine of future misery for the sins of this life, is wholly inadequate to explain the subject of present inequalities, as connected with a just retribution, besides possessing other insuperable difficulties.

W. E. M.

ART. XXIV.

Relation of the Christian Miracles to Christian Faith.

THAT faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Son of God, is essential, nay indispersable, to a true profession of our holy religion, seems to me too obvious to be denied or questioned. He who does not thus believe in him, whatever else he may be called, can with no propriety be I called a Christian.

The evidences of the Messiahship of Jesus are various, but may be conveniently considered under the twofold division of external, embracing prophecies and miracles; and internal, including a large and miscellaneous class of proofs, drawn from the character of Jesus, the nature of his gospel, its adaptation to the condition and wants of man, &c. &c.

By the almost universal consent of the Christian world,

external evidence, i. e. prophecy and miracles, has been regarded as the only direct and positive proof of Jesus' Messiahship, and consequently of the divinity of his religion. Still the internal evidences have never been despised or neglected. They have been deemed highly important as strengthening the external, though by themselves they are incapable of proving that Jesus was the Christ. One may very well acknowledge that such a person as Jesus existed; that he lived a pure and beautiful life, and sustained an interesting and noble character; that he taught an elevated morality, and proposed a very reasonable system of religious faith; and yet he may be far from being convinced that he was the Son of God, and his religion therefore authoritative and divine. And it is a remarkable fact that many intelligent infidels do actually allow much of this; but, rejecting the external evidence of prophecy and miracles, they never embrace Christianity.

It becomes a question, therefore,—and a question which some indications in the theological atmosphere around us, urge upon our attention at the present time,-what relation the miracles have to our faith as Christians. To one who sincerely believes in the Scriptures, the New Testament, it would seem, must be conclusive proof that, in the time of Christ and his Apostles, miracles,-in which, so far as the general fact is concerned, we may include prophecy, for prophecy is only one form of miracle-constituted the leading and most satisfactory evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, and consequently that his religion was worthy of all acceptation. Among the Church Fathers, so called, it is clear that while they insisted much, as their circumstances required, upon internal evidence, they also appealed with the greatest confidence to prophecy and miracles. The great Origen, in his reply to Celsus, says, "Our doctrine has a peculiar proof which is far more divine than all the demonstrations of the Greeks, viz: the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, as the Apostle calls it, of the Spirit, through the prophecies, which are sufficient to render credible to every reader whatsoever has happened to Christ, of the power, through the extraordinary miracles, whose historic certainty shines forth from many grounds, and among others from this, that some traces of them still remain among those who live according to the will of

Christ." This mode of thinking, and this estimate of the external evidences of Christianity, prevailed, with few and unimportant exceptions, from the beginning, till after the Reformation. There is always, perhaps, a tendency in minds touched with mysticism, to overlook the outward, and to attach a disproportionate importance to the inward; to rely more upon the feelings, than the clear deductions of reason; and it might, therefore, be expected that such minds would sometimes express themselves in a manner apparently inconsistent with the fact stated above. Deeply impressed with the truth of Christianity, feeling in their own souls its pure and elevating influences, they are apt to forget the manner in which they were brought into this very state, and to look upon all external proofs as comparatively poor and unsatisfactory. It is in this way I would explain many careless remarks scattered up and down in theological writings, such as that of Luther, for instance, when he represents that miracles are worthless in exciting faith, and speaks of "spiritual miracles," by which he means nothing more than the sanctifying power of the gospel, as the "true, heavenly SIGNS." In another passage he speaks in a similar manner, saying, that God "was obliged to lead men on by external miracles, and to throw such apples and pears to them, as to children." It was not till long after Luther's time, however, that miracles fell into general disrepute in Germany; nor is it probable that such trifling remarks as these, and standing in so clear contradiction to his well known and deliberate convictions, exerted any influence, either during his life or afterwards, upon the public faith. Only about a century ago the subject of miracles was brought up in Germany, and made the topic of a protracted controversy, which has in some measure extended to the present time. At one period, it seemed as if the whole of Protestant Germany was ready to deny all prophecy, all miracles in relation to Christianity, all inspiration, and indeed every thing in our religion of a supernatural character. Yet those who did this, still claimed to be Christians, and at least rational believers in the Scriptures. They sought industriously to place Christianity on other grounds, and a world of ingenuity was expended in the most unavailing attempts to clear the Bible of every thing miraculous. A history of German theology