stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."(1) God, in fact, is represented as exerting his almighty power to deceive a man and then as destroying him for being deceived. In the same spirit is the passage(2) in which Micaiah describes the Lord as putting a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets who incited Ahab to go to Ramoth-Gilead. Elsewhere,(3) and notably in the New Testament, we find an ascription of real signs and wonders to another power than God. Jesus himself is represented as warning his disciples against false prophets, who work signs and wonders: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" of whom he should say: "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."(4) And again in another place: "For false prophets shall arise, and shall work signs and wonders [--Greek--] to seduce, if it were possible, the elect."(5) Also, when the Pharisees accuse him of casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils, Jesus asks: "By whom do your children cast them out?"(6) a reply which would lose all its point if they were not admitted to be able to cast out devils. In another passage John is described as saying: "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbad him."(7) Without multiplying instances, however, there can be no doubt of the fact
that the reality of false miracles and lying wonders is admitted in the Bible.
The obvious deduction from this representation of miracles is that the source and purpose of such supernatural phenomena must always be exceedingly uncertain.(1) Their evidential value is, therefore, profoundly affected, "it being," as Dr. Newman has said of ambiguous miracles, "antecedently improbable that the Almighty should rest the credit of His Revelation upon events which but obscurely implied His immediate presence."(2) As it is affirmed that other supernatural beings exist, as well as an assumed Personal God, by whose agency miracles are performed, it is impossible to argue with reason that such phenomena are at any time specially due to the intervention of the Deity. Dr. Newman recognizes this, but passes over the difficulty with masterly lightness of touch. After advancing the singular argument that our knowledge of spirits is only derived from Scripture, and that their existence cannot be deduced from nature, whilst he asserts that the being of a God--a Personal God be it remembered--can be so discovered, and that, therefore, miracles can only properly be attributed to him, he proceeds: "Still it may be necessary to show that on our own principles we are not open to inconsistency. That is, it has been questioned whether, in admitting the existence and power of Spirits on the authority of Revelation, we are not in danger of