MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 53 



formance of Jannes and Jambrcs, for it is a smaller thing to 

 convert one liquid into another than to convert a dead rod 

 into a living serpent. But Jannes and Jambres, we are in- 

 formed, were not good. Hence, if Mr. Mozley's test be a 

 true one, a point must exist, on the one side, of which 

 miraculous power demonstrates goodness, while on the other 

 side it does not. How is this " point of contrary flexure " 

 to be determined ? It must lie somewhere between the 

 magicians and Moses, for within this space the power passed 

 from the diabolical to the Divine. But how to mark the 

 point of passage — how, out of a purely quantitative differ- 

 ence in the visible manifestation of power we are to infer a 

 total inversion of quality — it is extremely difficult to see. 

 Moses, we are informed, produced a large reptile, Jannes 

 and Jambres produced a small one. I do not possess the 

 intellectual faculty which would enable me to infer from 

 those data either the goodness of the one or the badness of 

 the other ; and in the highest recorded manifestations of the 

 miraculous I am equally at a loss. Let us not play fast and 

 loose with the miraculous ; either it is a demonstration of 

 goodness in all cases or in none. If Mr. Mozley accepts 

 Christ's goodness as transcendent, because He did such 

 works as no other man did, he ought, logically speaking, to 

 accept the works of those Avho, in His name, had cast out 

 devils, as demonstrating a proportionate goodness on their 

 part. But it is people of this class who are consigned to 

 everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Such 

 zeal as that of Mr. Mozley for miracles tends, I fear, to eat 

 his religion up. The logical threatens to stifle the spiritual. 

 The truly religious soul needs no miraculous proof of the 

 goodness of Christ. The words addressed to Matthew at 

 the receipt of custom required no miracle to produce obedi- 

 ence. It was by no stroke of the supernatural that Jesus 

 caused those sent to seize Him to go backward and fall to 

 the ground. It was the sublime and holy effluence from 



