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II.—Are Miracles Morally Possible?

rowne was stretched out on the sofa in his little back parlour, taking forty winks after his early dinner, and the Careful Mrs Browne had given strict orders to the children to be as quiet as mice, and not wake up dear papa, when in rushed our impetuous friend Allman, before—luckily for him—the good lady had espied him. For Mrs Browne, like a good wife as she was, would not permit any one, no matter who it was, to interfere with her husband's little nap, which she considered absolutely necessary for him to enable him to go through the labours of the day. Allman was then most decidedly contraband, however welcome at other times; and it was fortunate for him that, owing to a chance visit of hers to the kitchen, he was able to smuggle himself through. 'Halloo!' said Browne, rising abruptly from the sofa, and rubbing his eyes as though they were unwilling to open properly except under compulsion; 'halloo! who'd have thought of seeing you here at this time of day? I thought it was your dinner hour.'

Allman. So it is, as a rule, Browne, my boy But the old lady is going out shopping this afternoon, and put the dinner half an hour earlier; so I ran down here as soon as I had swallowed my victuals, because—to tell you the honest truth—I couldn't contain myself to myself. But I'm sorry I've waked you up from your snooze.

Browne. Never mind me, my dear fellow. But what has put you into such spirits?

Allman. Well, when I left you, my heart was as gay as a lark; and so home I trudged, and found the old woman and Gronout cheek by jowl. I couldn't keep it in, and—what's more page 15 —I didn't want to: so they both noticed what a change had come over me, and asked me all about it. Well, I told them the whole story. How you had settled my doubts for me; and how I believed in Christianity as firmly as ever, and how I owed it all to you. Well, what do you think? Up jumps wifey, goes out on the sly, buys a tea-cake, which she knows I have a weakness for, butters it herself, and gives me the heartiest kiss I've had from her for these ten years and more. All before Amminadab too. She's a hearty old woman is that, after all. And Amminadab—why, I declare to you he looked quite rampageous, muttered out something about a brand plucked out of the burning, and added—but how you will laugh!—that, after all, he thought it was better even to be a Papist than an infidel. He's not a bad fellow at bottom you know, Browne, only he is such an everlasting donkey. But he can't help that; he was predestined to it, as he would say. If he had only stuck to the shop, and helped his old governor to sell cabbages and onions, and such-like, he'd have been a pretty tidy sort of a chap; but the white choker was too strong a bait for him. And then it was his misfortune that, from his boyhood, bad English would run away with him at a gallop; and his foolish old mother must have it that he was destined, one day, to set the Thames on fire; so he took to black clothes, set up as a serious character, spouts away by the yard on Sundays and has settled down as a harmless fool. But what a caricature of Christianity all that sort of thing is! I really don't wonder at the young fellows turning infidels, when the only religion they come across is such Punch-and-Judy sort of work as that. I beg Punch's pardon for the comparison. How any Englishman can be found to stomach it passes my power of comprehension. Yet they sit it out, Sunday after Sunday, as if they were listening to an inspired Evangelist.

Browne. There I quite agree with you. But still, Allman, you mustn't be too hard upon these poor people. Our God is infinitely good and merciful; and in the midst of all this repulsive cant there are not a few dear souls who know no better, and who feed on the many scraps of truth which were originally pilfered from the Catholic creed, and often put us Catholics to shame. Wherever there is a sincere love for Jesus Christ, God will provide. But now for the rest of the lecturer's objections to miracles, for I know you have come to have it all out.

Allman. You have hit it to a T. So then he went on to say that, even supposing the laws of Nature were not of themselves unchangeable, it would be morally impossible for God to change them.

Browne. And why, pray?

Allman. Because, he said, if He were to change them, the fact would show that He was changeable Himself.

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Browne.I am afraid my answer to your lecturer will not be an easy one, for you see, the subject itself is difficult of its own nature; but I will do my best.

Allman. All right, old boy. My brains want stirring up a bit; and if I don't understand, I'll tell you so.

Browne. Good. Well, now, I must go thoroughly into the matter, or it's no use. And, as the lecturer's assertion is very vague, I will suppose all the answers I can think of.

Allman. Fire away; as the hare said with a wink to the Cockney sportsman.

Browne. First of all, then, he may mean that God would change, because He would be doing a fresh thing. For instance, if I am sitting down, and I then begin to walk, there's a certain change in me. So, it may be argued, if God does this and then does that, He changes too. But I do not think he could mean that, because such an argument would make God perfectly idle throughout His whole eternity. If He ever created, if He continues ceaselessly to preserve things, He would be changing with each fresh act.

Allman. No; I'm sure he didn't mean that. However, as you have mentioned it, I should be glad to know how it is He is not changed. Could you just give it me simply in a few words?

Browne. He changes not, though ever active, because of His infinite perfection. God's life is one pure act, which is equivalent to infinite acts: and He is never merely capable of doing, or willing, or thinking. He does, wills, thinks, all at once and for ever. Therefore He is unchanging. I speak, of course, of the act in His own Being, not of the relation of the object to His will or thought.

Allman. My eye! That beats me to fits. Can't you make it just a bit plainer? Some example, you know?

Browne. Well, I will try. But you must remember that comparisons in such matters are at the best miserably wanting. Take the focus of a magic-lantern, when the light is inside. We will put in different slides. The light has not changed; the focus has not changed; but the figures on the sheet change. 'God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all' (1 St John i. 5).

Allman. Bravo! bravo! I see it. The things which God wills change and come and go; but He sticks fast, like the focus. That'll do famously; and how jollily that text conies in!

Browne. So far, so good. Now then, if he did not mean that, he might have meant that if God worked a miracle, that necessarily supposes that He first made a law in Nature, and then afterwards changed His mind. But if this were so, God's will would be changeable.

Allman. There you've hit it—at least, partly. For he said more than that. But tell me your answer to this, first.

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Browne. Oh, it is easy enough. All the laws of Nature, their constant operation, their occasional suspension, were all together included from everlasting in the one infinite and infinitely simple decree of God's perfect will.

Allman. I say, ain't you going it just? Why, this is harder than ever. Put it, please, in another way for me.

Browne. Well, you see, when God from the beginning decreed in his will to create, He decreed everything at once,—the different kind of things, their exact number, the peculiarities of each individual,—the laws that were to govern them, and each miracle, or suspension of a given law. So from all eternity He decreed the miracles, each and all, that were to take place, as well as the laws of which they were the exception.

Allman. But how could He do that? I am at sea again. Do try and help me with another example.

Browne. Very good; I will try my best. Suppose you were to take your family down to Southport in the summer. You take a season ticket and determine to run down every evening except Tuesday, we will say, because you want to make up your books on that day. Do you not see that by one and the same decree of your will you have determined upon a certain law of action, and also upon an occasional exception to that law?

Allman. Yes; I see that plainly.

Browne. Well, then, if you can do it in a certain particular case, and yet not change your mind, could not God, the infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, living in His own eternity, do it in the whole course of His designs, without changing His mind?

Allman. Clear as a summer lake, old fellow. It's prime. I say, how delightful it is to think about such things, when the light comes in upon them! It lifts one up so; and yet, hang me, if it doesn't knock you down at the same time. It makes one feel oneself so small in midst of this Everywhere Always.

Browne. Did your lecturer give you any other reason for supposing that God's will must be changeable, if He works miracles?

Allman. I don't remember at this moment that he did. The fact is, I have forgotten a great deal of what he said now, because the new thought you have put before me have driven them out of my head.

Browne. Then I will take up the cudgels on the infidel side, and give you another difficulty myself. You will admit with me that the moral laws are immutable, and God cannot change them. He never could will any of His creatures to tell a lie, or to commit adultery, or to dishonour their parents, or to blaspheme His own most holy Name. If therefore God cannot, on any occasion or under any circumstances, violate His own moral laws, because to do so would argue not only a change, but page 18 moral imperfection in His will, so neither can He, on any occasion or under any circumstances, violate His own physical laws.

Allman. By Jove, it is just what the lecturer said. You have brought it all back again. But I tell you what, I was not at all sure that God couldn't violate His moral laws, or change them; because He did change the observance of the Sabbath to the Sunday, or, at all events, He sanctioned its being done; and that's in the ten commandments, you know.

Browne. Quite true. But that commandment forms no part of the moral law, properly so called i it is what is called a positive law.

Allman. I tell you what, I'm positive I haven't a ghost of a notion what you mean by your positive law.

Browne. Oh, that's simple enough.

Allman. I daresay it may be to you, but it isn't simple to me. Just explain a bit, my boy.

Browne. All right. Well, the moral law is that rule of action which of its own nature is essentially right, and cannot be conceived as otherwise than right; like, for instance, the duty of not dishonouring God in our talk, or the duty of being just in our dealings. Nothing could ever justify us in blaspheming or cheating, even though they were not forbidden and punished by the magistrate. But a positive law—I mean one that is merely such—orders or forbids things which are not of themselves right or wrong, but only become so after the law has been made. For instance, there would have been no harm in Eve eating the apple if God had not forbidden it. And there would be nothing morally good in acquainting the registrar with a death in a family, if the law did not require it; whereas now it is an act of obedience to constituted authority.

Allman. I see. Of itself the action is neither good nor bad; but the law comes, and makes it the one or the other. But now I have got into a worse mess. For if God cannot change the moral law, there's something He can't do; so that after all He is not omnipotent. What do you say to that?

Browne. Why, that there are somethings which God cannot do; because if He could do them He could destroy Himself, which is absurd. He cannot lie because he is truth itself. He cannot do evil, because He is goodness itself. He cannot change the moral law, because the moral law is His own justice and sanctity; and if He could, He would not be God.

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But now I don't see how God can change His physical laws any more than the moral. I suppose they were the best laws under the circumstances, and how can He better the best? But if He can't do that, then there is no good reason for changing.

Browne. You have made two assumptions which I should deny. First of all, you suppose that God was obliged to choose the best order in His creation. That you could never prove. Our reason teaches us that the order He establishes must be good, but not necessarily the best. Next, you suppose that God changes the established law when He works miracles; whereas if He did they would cease to be miracles. What He does is to suspend the operation of the law.

Allman. I'm off the rails again, and unless you help me, there will be a smash-up.

Browne. Well, look here. When Nabuchodonosor ordered the three youths to be cast into the fiery furnace, do you suppose that the fire had lost its power of burning things up?

Allman. No, I know it didn't, because it killed the officers who put the three Hebrew lads into the flames.

Browne. Do you not see, then, that the natural law by which fire burns was not changed; God only prevented it from using its power against His servants. If He had changed the law, the others would not have suffered; and as it would soon be known that fire had become harmless, there would be no further miracle. The law therefore was suspended in the particular case of those three youths.

Allman. I understand it now plain enough. But God cannot suspend the moral law, can He?

Browne. Certainly not.

Allman. Well, then, the lecturer's argument has something to say for itself, it seems to me.

Browne. Not a rap, my friend. Don't you remember my pointing out to you that if God were, in any given instance, to suspend the moral law as such, He would be destroying Himself, and making wrong right? That would never do. But surely your common sense will tell you that if, on a certain occasion, fire ceases to burn, or iron swims, or a wooden stick becomes a serpent, or a dead man comes to life again, it can make no change in our idea of God's perfection. There is nothing to shock us in that. It is not essential to the universal order that fire should burn—I mean, if God had arranged it otherwise, it would have made no difference in our idea of Him. It is like a positive law; and there is therefore no reason why He should not give a dispensation in a particular instance, if it be His good pleasure.

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Allman. That's very clear too. It God were to tell me to curse and swear, I should have a right to say He cannot be God. But if He told me to eat a book for my dinner, as He told St. John, I should be surprised at first, but of course I should do it, and I should only say it was very good of Him if I found I got fat on such food. I am sure I wish He would do something of that sort, for I begin to suspect a great number of our modern books are of no use as they are.

Browne. Come, that does my heart good. I didn't expect as much from you yet. Go on and prosper.

Allman. There you are, at me again! Never mind, I've broad shoulders. But I haven't done with you yet, for that lecturer brought another thumper against miracles which had almost slipped my mind.

Browne. Well, what is this next terrible giant of yours?

Allman. At me again! However, you've a right to be bumptious, for I must say you knock 'em down like nine-pins, as soon as I set 'em up. And yet they seemed to me regular ungetoverables at the time. I say, how easy it is to bamboozle a man, if you only listen to one side of a question!

Browne. True for you there, as you would say. But now for your difficulty.

Allman. Why, Mr Rookson said, that if we allow the possibility of miracles, we must be prepared to own that God was not thoroughly up to His work at the beginning, and learned better by experience.

Browne. Oh, that's it, is it? First attack the infinite perfection and immutability of His will; then, if that will not do, attack the perfection and immutability of His intellect! And how did he attempt to make good this assertion, I should like to know?

Allman. Well, he said that if miracles were required to patch up God's government of Nature, His original scheme must have been faulty, and Nature could not have been created good at the first.

Browne. But I deny most indignantly the blasphemous idea that miracles were required to patch up faults in Nature.

Allman. Of course. But the lecturer said it must be so; for either there was some physical disorder that wanted mending, or there wasn't. If there was, then the miracles are mere patchwork, as he said; if there was not, then why is it that God didn't let well alone? There's no reasonable room for a miracle. There, I've put it well this time, I amagine.

Browne. Oh; the wiseacre! Don't you see that this supposes there is nothing real but matter, and what meets the senses?

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Allman. No; I don't.

Browne Why, my dear fellow, it supposes that God has nothing higher or nobler to look after in the world than to see that fire burns, corn feeds, the sun warms, and all that sort of thing.

Allman. I don't see it. Do, for Heaven's sake, explain what you mean. You're like a Chinese puzzle.

Browne. You must have patience then, and I will try to be as short as I can.

Allman. Never mind its being short, if it only settles the matter; as the poor fellow said to Jack Ketch, who was in a quandary about the rope.

Browne. You see, then, that there are two different orders over which God's good Providence extends?

Allman. Oh, bother the orders! You were at them once before, and I couldn't, for the life of me, make out where I was, like a plum in a Christmas pudding at school. I know what an order for the play is, and I know what an order of the mayor means, and I am quite alive to receiving an order in the shop; but when you talk to me of spiritual order, my head gets into disorder. My ideas are all in a maze. So just try and be more simple.

Browne. Well, you see, God rules over souls as well as bodies. Now, His rule over bodies, living bodies, including our own, or inanimate matter, is called the physical order, whereas His rule over our souls constitutes the moral order. So there are two orders. You won't object my using the words now that I have explained them, will you?

Allman. No. I understand what you mean now. Go on; I'm all attention.

Browne. I suppose you, at all events, will not deny that the moral order is of immeasurably greater importance than the physical order, just as the soul is of so much more value than the body?

Allman. Of course; there's no denying that, if a man believes in the existence of a soul.

Browne. Very well; then it follows that the physical order should be subservient to the moral. This whole visible world was created for man's sake, and he is its appointed master. It was appointed to act upon him, as he was to act upon it, in order that by its help he might serve and love God, and, by so doing, save his soul. Now if God knew, as He did, that by a temporary suspension of the physical order He could so influence the free-will of man, in any given cases, as to ensure the preservation of the moral order, that suspension would depend on most reasonable motives, and would not be a patching-up business, page 22 To put it plainer: If God knew that a miracle, by its simple power of startling the mind by reason of its strangeness, would have the effect or bringing back one soul to Him, and of thus saving it from eternal ruin, do you not think there would be cause enough for it, without accusing the Supreme Wisdom of ignorance or incapacity?

Allman. Most true, indeed. But couldn't God have done it some other way? It seems, at first sight, as if it would have been better to keep the two orders distinct and independent.

Browne. Of course, my dear friend, God could have done it some other way, if He had so pleased; but I quite disagree with you as to the advantage of keeping the two orders independent. I see two very startling reasons for His thus bringing them together. The first is, that He thus impresses upon us the true value of Nature as the original, universal, never-ceasing revelation of Himself, and not, as these infidels make it, the mere plaything of their pride and sensual caprice. A miracle serves wondrously to this, for it is an extraordinary homage paid by Nature to its Lord and Master. The second reason, which has even more effect on me, is that this union of orders is a sort of expression of the inexpressible oneness of God. In that consists the beauty of the universal order. I will make my meaning clearer by an illustration. Some astronomers have maintained that comets are the planets of the central system, of which our solar system, and millions of others gathering round their several suns, are parts. I have no reason to know that this theory has been accepted; but it will serve my purpose all the same; so we will suppose, for the moment, it is true. Now, in earlier times, the regular movements of these comets were unknown, and their unexpected coming was a cause of terror and alarm. They are not accounted for, on this theory, in our system, but they belong to another higher central order. So is it with a miracle. It comes darting along the physical order with its vivid train of light, and startles us into sober recollection; but it is all along the well-ordered satellite of a higher and regulating order, which, proceeding from the one God, is the centre and unity of His Providence.

Allman. Browne, Browne, you are right and I was wrong. I like that idea of the comet immensely; it gives me such a clear, just, startling idea of a miracle. The moral order shoots it out; and there it goes blazing away into the physical; and all the people gape up at it and say, 'God help us and save us, what's coming now?' and they get frightened or astonished, and begin to think about the next world. What a nuisance it is that people will look at things outside them with only one eye, and that a squinter! Fancy that lecturer telling us that there was a grand page 23 cove—Hume, I think, was his name—who said he wouldn't believe in a miracle if he saw one with his own eyes, for he would rather discredit the evidence of his own eyes than credit anything so incredible.

Browne. Oh, I know. And they are blind to their own gross inconsistencies all along, these materialists; not perceiving how completely they are cutting away the ground from under their own feet.

Allman. Eh, what's that? I'm at sea again. 'A boat, a boat, unto the ferry,' as the poet says.

Browne. Why, don't you see that their only knowledge of the laws of Nature depends entirely on the trustworthiness of their senses; so that if they are reasonable in distrusting their evidence in the case of a miraculous suspension of those laws, they have no possible right to know that there are any laws to suspend. That a thing happens a thousand times instead of once doesn't make the eyesight better.

Allman. That's a settler, as Robinson Crusoe said to his man Friday. So they're not such grand philosophers after all, these gents. I shouldn't like to buy them at their own valuation, and sell them at market price. I'm afeard it would be rather a losing transaction. I say Browne, their cotton has passed through a strong bath, more than a hundred per cent, of damp, eh? The market's rather overstocked though, just at present, with damaged goods.

Browne. Yes; they come from their galvanic batteries and museum of bones and collection of fossils, without knowing the alphabet of philosophy or theology, and star it about in lecture-rooms and mechanics institutes, as if they were heaven-sent evangelists. And the worst of it is that people, who know no better, swallow down all their sophisms and shallow infidelity, without venturing to use their common sense; and the more inconsequent it is, the better they are pleased, if only it is dressed up in well-turned phrases and happy illustrations, with a deal of dogmatism and self-assurance. There is one consolation; a lie cannot last for ever. But in the mean time, what ruin to souls!

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