n in a
large ratio, and each must react on the other. The productive must meet
and correspond to the destructive. The destructive must revise and
stimulate the continued production.

_XXI. ON MIRACLES._

What else is the laying of such a stress on miracles but the case of 'a
wicked and adulterous generation asking a sign'?

But what are these miracles for? To prove a legislation from God. But,
first, this could not be proved, even if miracle-working were the test
of Divine mission, by doing miracles until we knew whether the power
were genuine; _i.e._, not, like the magicians of Pharaoh or the witch of
Endor, from below. Secondly, you are a poor, pitiful creature, that
think the power to do miracles, or power of any kind that can exhibit
itself in an act, the note of a god-like commission. Better is one ray
of truth (not seen previously by man), of _moral_ truth, _e.g._,
forgiveness of enemies, than all the powers which could create the
world.

'Oh yes!' says the objector; 'but Christ was holy as a man.' This we
know first; then we judge by His power that He must have been from God.
But if it were doubtful whether His power were from God, then, until
this doubt is _otherwise_, is independently removed, you cannot decide
if He _was_ holy by a test of holiness absolutely irrelevant. With other
holiness--apparent holiness--a simulation might be combined. You can
never tell that a man is holy; and for the plain reason that God only
can read the heart.

'Let Him come down from the cross, and we,' etc. Yes; they fancied so.
But see what would really have followed. They would have been stunned
and confounded for the moment, but not at all converted in heart. Their
hatred to Christ was not built on their unbelief, but their unbelief in
Christ was built on their hatred; and this hatred would not have been
mitigated by another (however astounding) miracle. This I wrote (Monday
morning, June 7, 1847) in reference to my saying on the general question
of miracles: Why these _dubious_ miracles?--such as curing blindness
that may have been cured by a _process_?--since the _unity_ given to the
act of healing is probably (more probably than otherwise) but the
figurative unity of the tendency to _mythus_; or else it is that unity
misapprehended and mistranslated by the reporters. Such, again, as the
miracles of the loaves--so liable to be utterly gossip, so incapable of
being watched or examined amongst a crowd of 7,000 peo