The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1891-08-26
The Ethical Necessity of
Miracle.

The Ethical Necessity of
Miracle.
BY JAMES GARDNER.
Christianity processes to be a
message of salvation. All men are
sinners, but no man is irretrievablv
bound to his sins: that is the great
gospel which has been proclaimed
to us. About the first part of the
proposition there is no mistake :;
Jews, Pagans, Christians, Free
thinkers, all agree in it. The second
part, too, though by no means so
generally accepted in theory, and
generally ignored in practice, seems
in the abstract almost like the voice
of cOmmon-sense. cit is never too
late to mend, we proverbially say.
and centuries before Christ came it
was no less clearly declared that
when the wicked man turneth
away from his wickedness that he
hath committed, and doeth that
which is lawful and right, he shall
save his soul alive" 1t is a senti-
ment to which every well-meaning
man most cordially responds. But,
unfortunately, it is a sentiment very
hard to realize, either philosophi-
cally or practically.
For, dismissing the question of
original sin, and supposing we has
in any instance, a state of rstl
purity to begin with, yet if "
reason of the frailty of our natu re
we cannot always stand upright -
what, | ask, must be the effect Of
the first deviation from standard
of perfect purity? Suppose, for in
stance, it took the form of lie. Do
we not know perfectly we'll that one
lie generally requires another to
protect it? And even if it were per
fectly successful without any such
protection, and did not shake mems
confidence in the sinner, as a de-
tected lie would inevitably do,
would it not pollute the breast of
the sinner himself even worse than
if he had been found out? If he
could not resist at the outset the
temptation to be false, how is it
likely that, with a debilitated moral
constitution, he should be able to
resist such temptation a second
time? And so, the disease having
once entered into his moral nature,
its natural tendency is to grow and
spread-UireS acquirH eundo. 1t will,
moreover, develop into new forms,
for the liar after a time may easily
become thief, when close beset,
may become a murderer. There
seems no reason, so far as the indi-
yidual is concerned, why he should
not roll, like a stone, continually
down-hill.
That is the reign of law" as re-
CARDS the individual, for / need not
say that what naturally results from
a loss of truthfulness results
in like manner from loss
of sobriety, from a loss of
chastity, even from a loss of tenn
per, unless there be some remedial
influence at work to restore the Sin
ner to sound condition. But though
prophets OF ola suggested That this
was possible, and even philosophers
at the present day believe that il is
so to some extent, they do not give
us any clear notion of how it is actu-
ally done. But while prophets of
old were assured that God himself
would do the work ("Though your
sins be as scarlet, they shall be
white as snow - our modern phi
losophers are not clear that there is
any God at all, or, if there be one.
that he will interfere with the uni
versal operation of law under the
distressing sense of which, i'm the
moral world, we are all feeling per
petually dragged downward.
Now Christians believe that their
emancipation is already won. "The
reign of law" in the physical, and i'm
the moral world, too, is quite indis-
putable; but we believe also In the
reign of a higher power than that
which we call law, and that this
higher power once made himself
visible to men, forgiving sins, dis