CHAPTER III.

CONCERNING MIRACLES--PARTICULARLY THE MIRACLES WHICH ACCOMPANIED THE DELIVERANCE OF THE ISRAELITES FROM BONDAGE IN EGYPT.

There has been so much false philosophy written concerning the subject of miracles, that it is difficult for those conversant with the speculations of writers upon this subject, to divest their minds sufficiently of preformed biases, to examine candidly the simple and natural principles upon which are based the evidence and necessity of miraculous interposition.

The following statement is true beyond controversy: _Man cannot, in the present constitution of his mind, have sufficient reason for believing that religion has a Divine origin, unless it be accompanied with miracles._ The natural inference of the mind is that, if an Infinite Being act, his acts will be superhuman in their character; because the effect, reason dictates, will be characterized by the nature of its cause. Man has the same reason to expect that God will perform acts above human power and knowledge, that he has to suppose the inferior orders of animals will, in their actions, sink below the power and wisdom which characterize human nature. For, as it is natural for man to perform acts superior to the power and knowledge of the animals beneath him, so reason affirms that it is natural for God to develop his power by means, and in ways, above the skill and ability of mortals. Hence, if God manifest himself at all--unless, in accommodation to the capacities of men, he should constrain his manifestations within the compass of human ability--every act of God's immediate power would, to human capacity, be a miracle. But, if God were to constrain all his acts within the limits of human means and agencies, it would be impossible for man to discriminate between the acts of the Godhead and the acts of the manhood. And man, if he considered acts to be of a Divine origin, which were plainly within the compass of human ability, would violate his own reason.

Suppose, for illustration, that God desired to reveal a religion to men, and wished them to recognise his character and his benevolence in giving that revelation. Suppose, further, that God should give such a revelation, and that every appearance and every act connected with its introduction were characterized by nothing superior to human power; could any rational mind on earth believe that such a system of religion came from God? Impossible! A man could as easily be made to believe that his own child, who possessed his own lineaments, and his own nature, belonged to some other world, and some other order of the creation. It would not be possible for God to convince men that a religion was from heaven unless it was accompanied with the marks of Divine Power.

Suppose, again, that some individual were to appear either in the heathen or Christian world--he claimed to be a teacher sent from God, yet aspired to the performance of no miracles. He assumed to do nothing superior to the wisdom and ability of other men. Such an individual, although he might in gaining proselytes to some particular view of a religion already believed, yet could never make men believe that he had a special commission from God to establish a new religion, for the simple reason that he had no grounds more than his fellows to support his claims as an agent of the Almighty. But if he could convince a single individual that he had wrought a miracle, or that he had power to do so, that moment his claims would be established, in that mind, as a commissioned agent from heaven: so certainly, and so intuitively, do the minds of men revere and expect miracles as the credentials of the Divine presence.

This demand of the mind for miracles, as testimony of the Divine presence and power, is intuitive with all men; and those very individuals who have doubted the existence or necessity of miracles, should they examine their own convictions on this subject, would see that, by an absolute necessity, if they desired to give the world a system of religion, whether truth or imposture, in order to make men receive it as of Divine authority, they must work miracles to attest its truth, or make men believe that they did so. Men can produce doubt of a revelation in no way until they have destroyed the evidence of its miracles; nor can faith be produced in the Divine origin of a religion until the evidence of miracles is supplied.

The conviction that miracles are the true attestation of immediate Divine agency, is so constitutional (allow the expression) with the reason, that so soon as men persuade themselves they are the special agents of God, in propagating some particular truth in the world, they adopt likewise the belief that they have ability to work miracles. There have been many sincere enthusiasts, who believed that they were special agents of Heaven, and, in such cases, the conviction of their own miraculous powers arises as a necessary concomitant of the other opinion. Among such, in modern times, may be instanced Emanuel Swedenborg. Impostors also, perceiving that miracles were necessary in order that the human mind should receive a religion as Divine, have invariably claimed miraculous powers. Such instances recur constantly, from the days of Elymas down to the Mormon, Joseph Smith.

All the multitude of false religions that have been believed since the world began have been introduced by the power of this principle. _Miracles believed_, lie at the foundation of all religions which men have ever received as of Divine origin. No matter how degrading or repulsive to reason in other respects, the fact of its establishment and propagation grows out of the belief of men that supernatural agency lies at the bottom.[5] This belief will give currency to any system, however absurd: and without it, no system can be established in the minds of men, however high and holy may be its origin and its design.

[5] Mohammedanism is no exception: as the wonders reported by the false prophet, though unseen, were _believed_. 'The Koran,' he said, 'is itself a miracle!'

Such, then, is the constitution which the Maker has given to the mind. Whether the conviction be an intuition or an induction of the reason, God is the primary cause of its existence; and its existence puts it out of the power of man to accept a revelation from God himself, unless accompanied by miracle. If, therefore, God ever gave a revelation to man, it was necessarily accompanied with miracles, and with miracles of such a nature as would clearly distinguish the Divine character and the Divine authority of the dispensation.

The whole fulness and force of these deductions apply to the case of the Israelites. The laws of their mind not only demanded miracles as an attestation of Divine interposition; but at that time, the belief existed in their minds that miracles were constantly performed. Although they remembered the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yet they likewise, as subsequent facts clearly attested, believed that the idols of Egypt possessed the attributes of Divinity. The belief in a plurality of gods was then common to all nations. And although this error was corrected, and perhaps entirely removed, by succeeding providences and instructions, from the minds of the Jews; yet, before the miracles in Egypt, while the God of Abraham was, perhaps, in most cases acknowledged as their God, the idols of Egypt were acknowledged as the gods of the Egyptians, and probably worshipped as the divinities who had power to dispense good and evil to all the inhabitants of that land. And in common with all Egypt, they, no doubt, believed that the acts of jugglery, in which the magicians, or priests of Egypt, had made astonishing proficiency, were actual miracles, exhibiting the power of their idols, and the authority of the priests to act in their name.

In view, therefore, of existing circumstances, two things were necessary, on the part of God,[6] in order to establish belief in any revelation to the Israelites:--First, that he should manifest himself by miracles; and, Secondly, that those miracles should be of such a character, as evidently to distinguish them from the jugglery of the magicians, and to convince all observers of the existence and omnipotence of the true God, in contradistinction from the objects of idolatrous worship. Unless these two things were done, it would have been impossible for the Israelites to have recognised JEHOVAH as the _only living_ and _true GOD_.

[6] When we speak of a thing as necessary on the part of God, it is said, not in reference to God's attributes, but to man's nature and circumstances.

It follows, then, that by the miracles which God wrought by the hand of Moses, he pursued the only way that was possible to authenticate a revelation in which his presence and power would be recognised. The only point of inquiry remaining is, Were the miracles of such a character, and performed in such a manner, as to remove false views from the minds of the Israelites, and introduce right views concerning the true God, and the non-existence of factitious objects of worship?

With this point in view, the design in the management and character of the miracles in Egypt is interesting and obvious. Notice, first, the whole strength of the magicians' skill was brought out and measured with that of the miraculous power exerted through Moses. If this had not been done, the idea would have remained in the minds of the people that, although Moses wielded a mighty miraculous power, it might be derived from the Egyptian gods, or if it were not thus derived, they might have supposed that if the priests of those idols were summoned, they would contravene or arrest the power vested in Moses by Jehovah. But now, the magicians appearing in the name of their gods, the power of Moses was seen to be not only superior to their sorceries, but hostile to them and their idolatrous worship.

Notice, secondly, the design and adaptedness of the miracles, not only to distinguish the power of the true God, but to destroy the confidence placed in the protection and power of the idols.

The first miracle, while it authenticated the mission of Moses, destroyed the serpents which, among the Egyptians, were objects of worship; thus evincing, in the outset, that their gods could neither help the people nor save themselves.

The second miracle was directed against the river Nile, another object which they regarded with religious reverence. This river they held sacred, as the Hindoos do the Ganges; and even the fish in its waters they revered as objects of worship. They drank the water with reverence and delight; and supposed that a Divine efficacy dwelt in its waves to heal diseases of the body. The water of this, their cherished object of idolatrous homage, was transmuted to blood; and its finny idols became a mass of putridity.

The third miracle was directed to the accomplishment of the same end--the destruction of faith in the river as an object of worship. The waters of the Nile were caused to send forth legions of frogs, which infested the whole land, and became a nuisance and a torment to the people. Thus their idol, by the power of the true God, was polluted, and turned into a source of pollution to its worshippers.

By the fourth miracle of a series constantly increasing in power and severity, lice came upon man and beast throughout the land. 'Now, if it be remembered,' says Gleig, 'that no one could approach the altars of Egypt upon whom so impure an insect harboured, and that the priests, to guard against the slightest risk of contamination, wore only linen garments, and shaved their heads and bodies every day,[7] the severity of this miracle as a judgment upon Egyptian idolatry may be imagined. Whilst it lasted no act of worship could be performed; and so keenly was this felt, that the very magicians exclaimed--"This is the finger of God!"'

[7] Every third day, according to Herodotus.

The fifth miracle was designed to destroy the trust of the people in Beelzebub, or the Fly-god, who was reverenced as their protector from visitations of swarms of ravenous flies which infested the land, generally about the time of the dog-days, and removed only, as they supposed, at the will of this idol. The miracle now wrought by Moses evinced the impotence of Beelzebub, and caused the people to look elsewhere for relief from the fearful visitation under which they were suffering.

The sixth miracle, which destroyed the cattle, excepting those of the Israelites, was aimed at the destruction of the entire system of brute worship. This system, degrading and bestial as it was, had become a monster of many heads in Egypt. They had their sacred bull, and ram, and heifer, and goat, and many others, all of which were destroyed by the agency of the God of Moses. Thus by one act of power Jehovah manifested his own supremacy, and destroyed the very existence of their brute idols.

Of the peculiar fitness of the sixth plague (the seventh miracle), says the writer before quoted, the reader will receive a better impression, when he is reminded that in Egypt there were several altars upon which human sacrifices were occasionally offered when they desired to propitiate Typhon, or the Evil Principle. These victims being burned alive, their ashes were gathered together by the officiating priests, and thrown up into the air, in order that evil might be averted from every place to which an atom of the ashes was wafted. By the direction of Jehovah, Moses took a handful of ashes from the furnace (which, very probably, the Egyptians at this time had frequently used to turn aside the plagues with which they were smitten), and he cast it into the air, as they were accustomed to do; and instead of averting evil, boils and blains fell upon all the people of the land. Neither king, nor priest, nor people escaped. Thus the bloody rites of Typhon became a curse to the idolaters; the supremacy of Jehovah was affirmed, and the deliverance of the Israelites insisted upon.

The ninth miracle was directed against the worship of Serapis, whose peculiar office was supposed to be to protect the country from locusts. At periods these destructive insects came in clouds upon the land, and, like an overshadowing curse, they blighted the fruits of the field and the verdure of the forest. At the command of Moses these terrible insects came--and they retired only at his bidding. Thus was the impotence of Serapis made manifest, and the idolaters taught the folly of trusting in any other protection than that of Jehovah the God of Israel.

The eighth and tenth miracles were directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris, to whom and the river Nile they awarded the first place[8] in the long catalogue of their idolatry. These idols were originally the representatives of the sun and moon; they were believed to control the light and the elements, and their worship prevailed in some form among all the early nations. The miracles directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris must have made a deep impression on the minds both of the Israelites and the Egyptians. In a country where rain seldom falls--where the atmosphere is always calm, and the light of the heavenly bodies always continued, what was the horror pervading all minds during the elemental war described in the Hebrew record--during the long period of three days and three nights, while the gloom of thick darkness settled, like the out-spread pall of death, over the whole land! Jehovah of hosts summoned Nature to proclaim him the true God--the God of Israel asserted his supremacy, and exerted his power to degrade the idols, destroy idolatry, and liberate the descendants of Abraham from the land of their bondage.

[8] Against the worship of the Nile, two miracles were directed, and two likewise against Isis and Osiris, because they were supposed to be the supreme gods. Many placed the Nile first, as they said it had power to water Egypt independently of the action of the elements.

The Almighty having thus revealed himself as the true God, by miraculous agency, and pursued those measures, in the exercise of his power, which were directly adapted to destroy the various forms of idolatry which existed in Egypt, the eleventh and last miracle was a judgment, in order to manifest to all minds that Jehovah was the God who executed judgment in the earth.

The Egyptians had, for a long time, cruelly oppressed the Israelites, and to put the finishing horror to their atrocities, they had finally slain, at their birth, the offspring of their victims; and now God, in the exercise of infinite justice, visited them with righteous retribution. In the mid-watches of the night, the 'angel of the pestilence' was sent to the dwellings of Egypt, and he 'breathed in the face' of all the first-born in the land. In the morning, the hope of every family, from the palace to the cottage, was a corpse. What mind can imagine the awful consternation of that scene, when an agonizing wail rose from the stricken hearts of all the parents in the nation? The cruel task-masters were taught, by means which entered their souls, that the true God was a God not only of power but of judgment, and as such, to be feared by evil-doers, and reverenced by those that do well.

The demonstration, therefore, is conclusive, that in view of the idolatrous state of the world, and especially of the character and circumstances of the Israelites, the true God could have made a revelation of himself in no other way than by the means, and in the manner, of the miracles of Egypt; and none but the true God could have revealed himself in this way.[9]

[9] In accordance with the foregoing are the intimations given in the Bible of the design of the miracles of Egypt. By these exhibitions of Divine power God said--'Ye,' the Israelites, 'and Pharaoh shall know that I am Jehovah.'

Miracles, moreover, were the evidence that Pharaoh required.--Ex.