128 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



longer as the first step in salvation, but as the crowning 

 point of an organic process. The growing belief in 

 God s moral kingdom on earth follows instead of pre 

 ceding the successive development of that kingdom ; 

 and so Christianity, though thoroughly personal in its 

 issue, is not thoroughly personal at each stage of its 

 growth. And so, as is notably the case with Bunsen, the 

 history of redemption ceases to be the history of the 

 establishment of God s kingdom on earth and becomes 

 the history of the progress of faith in that kingdom. 

 But a theory which thus destroys the immediacy of 

 faith, making it the gradual product of an historical pro 

 cess not the immediate outgoing of man s personality to 

 God, is obviously not a theory which satisfies the facts 

 of Christian consciousness or can be reconciled with the 

 substantial identity of saving faith in all dispensations. 



Without dwelling on the essential importance of 

 miracles here developed, or the inconsistency of the 

 theories that attempt to get rid of miracles while yet 

 holding Christian ground, let us look at the necessity 

 that God s miraculous self-manifestation should consist 

 not of isolated acts but of a continuous history. As a 

 witness to doctrine isolated miracles might suffice ; but 

 as a display of God s character a continuous action of 

 God in history is needful. There must be a plan in the 

 divine miracles as there would be in the activity of a 

 human actor in history. Not one act but a whole life is 

 needed fully to declare a character. And then this 

 supernatural activity of God is not merely something 

 superadded to natural history, but enters into natural 

 history, gradually moulding it in conformity with God s 

 redemptive purpose. Each manifestation of God is more 

 than a meteor flashing through the sphere of man s 

 spiritual vision ; it &quot; remains henceforth, like the sun in 

 the firmament, a shining fact in human consciousness.&quot; 

 And so each manifestation prepared mankind for a new 

 and higher display of God s character, until at length in 



