Did you never read of one who says, in words very like your version of the Baron’s reverie:  ’It came to pass, that, as I took my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus, about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me:  and I fell on the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’

In the short space of four years the newspapers contained three several cases, two of which I cut out, and still have among my ocean of papers, and which, as stated, were as nearly parallel, in external accompaniments, to St. Paul’s as cases can well be:—­struck with lightning,—­heard the thunder as an articulate voice,—­blind for a few days, and suddenly recovered their sight.  But then there was no Ananias, no confirming revelation to another.  This it was that justified St. Paul as a wise man in regarding the incident as supernatural, or as more than a providential omen.  N. B. Not every revelation requires a sensible miracle as the credential; but every revelation of a new series of ‘credenda’.  The prophets appealed to records of acknowledged authority, and to their obvious sense literally interpreted.  The Baptist needed no miracle to attest his right of calling sinners to repentance.  See ‘Exodus’ iv. 10.

Ib. pp. 346, 7.

This sentiment, that miracles are not the proper evidences of doctrinal truth, is, assuredly, the decision of the Truth itself; as is obvious from many passages in Scripture.  We have seen that the design of the miracles of Moses, as external performances, was not to instruct the Israelites in spiritual subjects, but to make them obedient subjects of a peculiar species of political state.  And though the miracles of Jesus Christ collaterally served as testimonies to his character, he repeatedly intimates that this was not their main design. * * * At another time more plainly still, he says, that it is ‘a wicked and adulterous generation’ (that) ‘seeketh after a sign’; on which occasion, according to Mark, ‘he sighed deeply in his spirit’.  How characteristic is that touch of the Apostle, ’The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom!’ (where by wisdom he means the elegance and refinement of Grecian literature.)

Agreeing, as in the main I do, with the sentiments here expressed by this eloquent writer, I must notice that he has, however, mistaken the sense of the [Greek:  saemeion], which the Jews would have tempted our Saviour to shew,—­namely, the signal for revolt by openly declaring himself their king, and leading them against the Romans.  The foreknowledge that this superstition would shortly hurry them into utter ruin caused the deep sigh,—­as on another occasion, the bitter tears.  Again, by the [Greek:  sophia] of the Greeks their disputatious [Greek:  sophistikae] is meant.  The sophists pretended to teach wisdom as an art:  and ‘sophistae’ may be literally rendered, wisdom-mongers, as we say, iron-mongers.