332 Regeneration, N. T. Terms Descriptive of, ... ... ... ................B. B. Warfield,. Representative Government in the Church, Scotch-Irish, Influence of the South, God's Problem for the.... Southern General Assembly of 1891, - Spoiling of Doctor Dryasdust, -140, 308, 473, 638 91 I. ST. JOHN'S ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 1. WE are so accustomed to regard John's Gospel as a sweet, tender evangel, that we are apt to leave out of view its argumentative character. John himself, however, in his twentieth chapter, teaches us to avoid this mistake: "Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." If we understand this passage, John does not mean that the preceding part of his book is wholly occupied with an account of various miracles. They have their place along with other things— other things, and, it may be, better things; for our Lord is represented as saying (xiv. 11), "Believe ME, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake." What emphasis is to be placed on that pronoun ME, what unfathomable depths of meaning are involved in it, no finite intellect can know. They who are most spiritually minded see in Christ, more than others do, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, and beholding it as in a glass, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. Perhaps no one ever apprehended this divine glory more fully than did the beloved disciple; but he was preserved from the narrowness of depreciating, much more of despising the argument from miracles; in which, indeed, he would have been untrue to the ancient and sacred beliefs of his race. Hence, in addition to other things, we find in the first twenty chapters of his Gospel a number of what are called miracles; and he tells us that they have been written with an argumentative purpose. 2. For our ends it is hardly necessary to define the term miracle anew. It is enough to say that any satisfactory attestation of a message from heaven must include the exhibition of a wisdom, a power, or some other attribute, above what belongs to man; something that surpasses the skill, the might-may we not add, the love, the pity, the self-sacrifice-to which we can attain. It must be a Tépa, a miraculum, a wonder. Then, too, it should be a onerov, a signum, a sign. Thus will it agree with our Saviour's own words in John iv. 48, "Except ye see onusia za repara, signs and wonders, ye will not believe"; wonders that not only attract attention to accompanying instruction, but that prove its heavenly origin. It is not, then, a matter absolutely indispensable that the sign and wonder should be wrought in the domain of matter, and be discernible by the physical senses. Yet this is usually the case in the miracles of the Bible, and is uniformly so in the miracles appealed to by John in this Gospel. The two apparent exceptions will be noticed in due place. The reason why the realm of matter is thus honored we take to be this: our bodily senses are less injured by the fall, and less. incapacitated for receiving and reporting the truth, than almost any other part of our complex being. A diseased nervous system, or an attack of mania a potu, or a debauch on opium or hasheesh, may make us see visions of all kinds. Dr. Guthrie states in his autobiography that one day in his convalescence he saw a beautiful flower growing out of a marble mantel in his chamber, but knew that it was a hallucination. A man once told us that in a spell of delirium tremens he saw it rain fire, and that the most eloquent preacher could not paint the horrors that he endured. So that sin and disease have not left the sensory part of our nature untouched; and yet, taking mankind in general, we find our five senses reliable in their normal condition. Whatever might be true of disembodied spirits, we know that man can be very effectually reached through his senses. There is a commendable sobriety in this method; as John himself intimates in the opening sentences of his First Epistle: "That . . . . which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life; . . . that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you." Honest Simon Peter, too, says: "This voice, which came from heaven, we heard, when we were with him on the holy mount." Hence he knew that he was not following cunningly devised fables. Doubtless there was a divine wisdom in thus exalting the matter which God the Son had made in the beginning, so that during the long centuries of inspiration earth herself should lift up her voice in witness to the truth of his religion. "Marvellous are thy works, O Lord, and that my soul knoweth right well." 3. The most effective argument is not produced by a bewildering mass of proofs, but by a judicious selection. John had a large store to draw from. He chose nine or ten out of a great number of signs and wonders, and rested his case on these. Let us devoutly seek for the principles on which the selection was made. 4. The gospel is intended for all classes and conditions of men, for the learned and the unlearned, for the gentle and the simple. Hence its evidences must, at least some of them, come down to the level of the lowliest understandings, just as the air which all men must breathe descends from the upper heights, not merely to embrace the mountain peaks, but also to flood the vales; and the blessed sunlight rests upon the summit of Mont Blanc and upon the Swiss chalét far beneath. Although, after the teaching of the Master and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, John was a profound thinker, he was not a scientific man in the modern sense of the term. It was needful therefore that the evidences exhibited to him in the natural world should be adapted to his degree of acquaintance with the laws of nature, in order that he might be a reliable witness; that is, a witness who really understood the matter concerning which he was to give testimony. At the same time, and this is one of the most curious and interesting features of the whole subject, the facts adduced must be such as would stand the test of scientific examination at any period of the world's history. It was eminently proper that the natural laws involved should be im portant laws, of wide application and susceptible of unquestionable verification. It was absolutely necessary that the facts alleged could not be accounted for by the operation of the forces of nature without special divine intervention. And this must be true although new and unsuspected forces should be discovered in the lapse of ages. WALKING ON THE SEA. 5. In his sixth chapter John tells us that on one occasion, not long before a passover, our Lord left his disciples and departed alone into a mountain. The disciples entered into a ship and went over the Sea of Galilee toward Capernaum. The sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. Modern science shows that this sea occupies a very deep depression in the earth. The rapid radiation of the heat from the elevated lands on both sides of the water chills the air, makes it heavier than that lying above the sea, which radiates much more slowly than the land, and thus cold currents rush down the slopes and through the gorges, and lash the lake into fury. On this particular occasion, either from the violence of the gale or from its blowing from the west-John does not state which, but both Matthew and the detail-loving Mark say the wind was contrary-the disciples were toiling at the oars. They had gone three or four miles, when they saw something preternatural walking toward them, and then (Mark) apparently about to pass by the ship. The passover was always at the full moon, sometimes in March and sometimes in April, when the sun sets and rises at or near six o'clock. The incident took place "in" or "about" the fourth watch of the night, i. e., between three and six o'clock A. M. As the moon was near the full, there may have been some light from it hanging low in the west, and it would be advantageously reflected from an object approaching from the east. This probable, though not necessary, feature would add to the phantom-like appearance of one walking upon. the sea. The disciples were frightened, as modern men would be; but Jesus said unto them, "It is I; be not afraid." Then they willingly received him into the ship. We have no doubt of the truth of this narrative. fulness is not precisely the point we are aiming at. But its truth If so, it might |