"the ear of His zeal heareth all things.' And many are "heard by God in anger; of whom saith the Apostle, God

gave them up to the desires of their own hearts.' And to many God in favour gives not what they wish, that He may 66 give what is profitable. .. Read we not that some

were heard by the Lord God Himself in the high places of "Judah, which high places notwithstanding were so displeasing to Him, that the kings who overthrew them not "were blamed, and those who overthrew them were praised? "Thus it appears that the state of heart of the suppliant, is "of more avail than the place of supplicating. Concerning "deceitful visions, they should read what Scripture says, that "Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light,' " and that dreams have deceived many.' And they should "listen, too, to what the Pagans relate, as regards their

temples and gods, of wonders either in deed or vision; "and yet the gods of the heathen are but devils, but it is "the Lord that made the heavens.' Therefore many are "heard and in many ways, not only Catholic Christians, but

Pagans and Jews and heretics, involved in various errors "and superstitions; but they are heard either by seducing spirits, (who do nothing, however, but by God's permission, judging in a sublime and ineffable way what is to be be"stowed upon each;) or by God Himself, whether for the "punishment of their wickedness, or for the solace of their "misery, or as a warning to them to seek eternal salvation. "But salvation itself and life eternal no one attains, unless "he hath Christ the Head. Nor can any one have Christ "the Head, who is not in His body, which is the Church; which, as the Head Himself, we are bound to discern in "holy canonical Scripture, not to seek in the various rumours "of men, and opinions, and acts, and sayings, and sights. "Let no one therefore object such facts who is prepared "to answer me; for I too am far from claiming credit for

....

my assertion, that the communion of Donatus is not the "Church of Christ, on the ground that certain bishops among "them are convicted, in records ecclesiastical, and municipal, "and judicial, of burning the sacred books, or that the "Circumcelliones have committed so much evil, or that some "of them cast themselves down precipices, or throw them"selves into the fire. . . . or that at their sepulchres herds "of strollers, men and women, in a state of drunkenness and "abandonment bury themselves in wine day and night, or "pollute themselves with deeds of profligacy. Let all this "be considered merely as their chaff, without prejudice to "the Church, if they themselves are really holding to the "Church. But whether this be so, let them prove only from "canonical Scripture; just as we do not claim to be recog"nized as in the Church of Christ, because the body to "which we hold has been graced by Optatus of Milevis or "Ambrose of Milan, or other innumerable Bishops of our "communion, or because it is set forth in the Councils of our colleagues, or because through the whole world in holy places, which are frequented by our communion, so great "marvels take place, whether answers to prayer, or cures; "so that the bodies of Martyrs, which had lain concealed "so many years, (as they may hear from many if they do "but ask,) were revealed to Ambrose, and in presence of "those bodies a man long blind and perfectly well known to "the citizens of Milan recovered his eyes and sight; or "because one man has seen a vision, or because another has "been taken up in spirit, and heard either that he should "not join, or that he should leave, the party of Donatus. "All such things, which happen in the Catholic Church, are "to be approved because they are in the Catholic Church; not "she manifested to be Catholic, because these things happen "in here."

e De Unit. Eccl. 49, 50.

So far St. Augustine; it being granted, however, that the object of Ecclesiastical miracles is not, strictly speaking, that of evidencing Christianity, still they may have other uses, known or unknown, besides that of being the argumentative basis of revealed truth; and therefore it does not at once destroy the credibility of such miraculous narratives, vouched to us on good authority, that they have no assignable object, or an object different from those which are specified in Scripture, as was observed in the last section.

Here we are immediately considering the internal character of the miracles later than the Apostolic period: and what real prejudice ought to attach to them from the dissimilarity or even contrariety of many of them to the Scripture miracles will be best ascertained by betaking ourselves to the argument from Analogy, and attempting to measure these occurrences by such rules and suggestions as the works of God, as brought before us in the visible creation or in Scripture, may be found to supply. And first of the natural world as it meets our senses:

"All the works of the Lord are exceeding good," says the son of Sirach; a man need not to say, What is this? Where"fore is that? for He hath made all things for their uses." Yet an exuberance and variety, a seeming profusion and disorder, a neglect of severe exactness in the prosecution of its objects, and of delicate adjustment in the details of its system, are characteristics of the world both physical and moral, and characteristics of Scripture also; but still the Wise Man assures us, that the purposes of the Creator are not forgotten by Him or missed, because they are hidden, or the work faulty because it is subordinate or incomplete. All things are not equally good in themselves, because they are diverse, yet every thing is good in its place. "All the works of the "Lord are good, and He will give every needful thing in due 66 season. So that a man cannot say, This is worse than

"that; for in time they shall all be well approved." To persons who have not commonly the opportunity of witnessing for themselves this great variety of the Divine works, there is something very strange and startling, it may even be said, unsettling, in the first view of nature as it is. To take for instance, the case of animal nature, let us consider the effect produced upon the mind on seeing for the first time the many tribes of the animal world, as we find them brought together for the purposes of science or exhibition in our own country. We are accustomed, indeed, to see wild beasts more or less from our youth, or at least to read of them; but even with this partial preparation, many persons will be moved in a very singular way on going for the first time, or after some interval to a menagerie. They have been accustomed insensibly to identify the wonder-working Hand of God with the specimens of its exercises which they see around them; the forms of tame and domestic animals, which are necessary for us, and which surround us, are familiar to them, and they learn to take these as a sort of rule on which to frame their ideas of the animated works of the Creator generally. When an eye thus habituated to certain forms, colours, motions, and habits in the inferior animals, is suddenly brought into the full assemblage of those mysterious beings, with which it has pleased Almighty Wisdom to people the earth, a sort of dizziness comes over it, from the impossibility of our reducing all at once the multitude of new ideas poured in upon us to the centre of view habitual to us; the mind loses its balance, and it is not too much to say, that in some cases it even falls into a sort of scepticism. Nature seems to be too powerful and various, or at least too strange, to be the work of God, according to that Image which our imbecillity has set up within us, for the Infinite and Eternal, and as we have framed to ourselves our contracted notions of His attributes and acts; and

f Eccles. xxxix. 16-85.

if we do not submit ourselves in awe to His great mysteriousness, and chasten our hearts and keep silence, we shall be in danger of losing our belief in His presence and providence altogether. We have hitherto known enough of Him for our personal guidance, but we have not understood that only this has been the extent of our knowledge of Him. Religion we know to be a grave and solemn subject, and some few vague ideas of greatness, sublimity, and majesty, have formed in our minds the whole character of Him whom the Seraphim adore. And then we are suddenly brought into the vast family of His works, hardly one of which is a specimen of those particular and human ideas with which we have identified the Ineffable. First, the endless number of wild animals, their independence of man, and uselessness to him; then their exhaustless variety; then their strangeness in shape, colour, size, motions, and countenance; not to enlarge on the still more mysterious phenomena of their natural propensities and passions; all these things throng upon us, and are in danger of overpowering us, tempting us to view the Physical Cause of all as disconnected from the Moral, and that, from the impression borne in upon us, that nothing we see in this vast assemblage is religious in our sense of the word religious. We see full evidence there of an Author,-of power, wisdom, goodness; but not of a Principle or Agent correlative to our idea of religion. But without pushing this remark to an extreme point, or dwelling on it further than our present purpose requires, let two qualities of the works of nature be observed before leaving the subject, which (whatever explanation is to be given of them, and certainly some explanation is not beyond even our limited powers) are at first sight very perplexing. One is that principle of deformity, whether hideousness or mere homeliness, which exists in the animal world; and the other (if the word may be used with due soberness) is the ludicrous;-that is, judging of things, as we