Philosophy of Miracles

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 22, 1885

Philosophy of Miracles.

(Concluded.)

WITH this point in view, the design in the management and character of the miracles in Egypt, is interesting and obvious. Notice, first, the whole strength of the magicians' skill was brought out and measured with that of the miraculous power exerted through Moses. If this had not been done, the idea would have remained in the minds of the people, that although Moses wielded a mighty miraculous power, it might be derived from the Egyptian gods, or if it was not thus derived, they might have supposed that if the priests of those idols were summoned, they could contravene or arrest the power vested in Moses by Jehovah. But now, the magicians appearing in the name of their gods, the power of Moses was seen to be not only superior to their sorceries, but hostile to them and their idolatrous worship.

Notice, second, the design and adaptedness of the miracles, not only to distinguish the power of the true God, but to destroy the confidence placed in the protection and power of the idols.

The first miracle, while it authenticated the mission of Moses, destroyed the serpents, which among the Egyptians were objects of worship, thus evincing, in the outset, that their gods could neither help the people, nor save themselves.

The second miracle was directed against the river Nile, another object which they regarded with religious reverence. This river they held sacred, as the Hindoos do the Ganges; and even the fish in its waters they revered as objects of worship. They drank the water with reverence and delight, and supposed that a divine efficacy dwelt in its waves to heal diseases of the body. The water of this, their cherished object of idolatrous homage, was transmuted to blood; and its finny idols became a mass of putridity.

The third miracle was directed to the accomplishment of the same end,—the destruction of faith in the river as an object of worship. The waters of the Nile were caused to send forth legions of frogs, which infested the whole land, and became a nuisance and a torment to the people. Thus their idol, by the power of the true God, was polluted, and turned into a source of pollution to its worshipers.

By the fourth miracle of a series constantly increasing in power and severity, lice came upon man and beast throughout the land. "Now if it be remembered," says Glieg, "that no one could approach the altars of Egypt upon whom so impure an insect harbored; and that the priests, to guard against the slightest risk of contamination, wore only linen garments, and shaved their heads and bodies every day, the severity of this miracle, as a judgment upon Egyptian idolatry, may be imagined. Whilst it lasted, no act of worship could be performed, and so keenly was this felt that the very magicians exclaimed, "This is the finger of God."

The fifth miracle was designed to destroy the trust of the people in Beelzebub, or the Fly-god, who was reverenced as their protector from visitations of swarms of ravenous flies, which infested the land, generally about the time of the dog days, and removed only, as they supposed, at the will of this idol. The miracle now wrought by Moses, evinced the impotence of Beelzebub, and caused the people to look elsewhere for relief from the fearful visitation under which they were suffering.

The sixth miracle, which destroyed the cattle, excepting those of the Israelites, was aimed at the destruction of the entire system of brute worship. This system, degrading and bestial as it was, had become a monster of many heads in Egypt. They had their sacred bull, and ram, and heifer, and goat, and many others, all of which were destroyed by the agency of the God of Moses. Thus, by one act of power, Jehovah manifested his own supremacy, and destroyed the very existence of their brute idols.

Of the peculiar fitness of the sixth plague (the seventh miracle), says the writer before quoted, the reader will receive a better impression when he is reminded that in Egypt there were several altars upon which human sacrifices were occasionally offered, when they desired to propitiate Typhon, or the evil principle. These victims being burned alive, their ashes were gathered together by the officiating priests, and thrown up into the air, in order that evil might be averted from every place to which an atom of the ashes was wafted. By the direction of Jehovah, Moses took a handful of ashes from the furnace (which, very probably, the Egyptians at this time had frequently used to turn aside the plagues with which they were smitten), and he cast it into the air, as they were accustomed to do; and instead of averting evil, boils and blains fell upon all the people of the land. Neither king, nor priest, nor people, escaped. Thus the bloody rites of Typhon became a curse to the idolaters; the supremacy of Jehovah was affirmed, and the deliverance of the Israelites insisted upon.

The ninth miracle was directed against the worship of Serapis, whose peculiar office was supposed to be to protect the country from locusts. At periods these destructive insects came in clouds upon the land, and like an overshadowing curse they blighted the fruits of the field and the verdure of the forest. At the command of Moses these terrible insects came—and they retired only at his bidding. Thus was the impotence of Serapis made manifest, and the idolaters taught the folly of trusting in any other protection than that of Jehovah, the God of Israel.

The eighth and tenth miracles were directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris, to whom, and the river Nile, they awarded the first place in the long catalogue of their idolatry. These idols were originally the representatives of the sun and moon; they were believed to control the light and the elements; and their worship prevailed in some form among all the early nations. The miracles directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris, must have made a deep impression on the minds both of the Israelites and the Egyptians. In a country where rain seldom falls, where the atmosphere is always calm, and the light of the heavenly bodies always continued, what was the horror pervading all minds during the elemental war described in the Hebrew record!—during the long period of three days and three nights, while the gloom of thick darkness settled, like the outspread pall of death, over the whole land, Jehovah of hosts summoned nature to proclaim him the true God—the God of Israel asserted his supremacy, and exerted his power to degrade the idols—destroy idolatry, and liberate the descendants of Abraham from the land of their bondage.

The Almighty, having thus revealed himself as the true God, by miraculous agency, and pursued those measures, in the exercise of his power, which were directly adapted to destroy the various forms of idolatry which existed in Egypt, the eleventh and last miracle was a judgment, in order to manifest to all minds that Jehovah was the God who executed judgment in the earth.

The Egyptians had, for a long time, cruelly oppressed the Israelites, and to put the finishing horror to their atrocities, they had finally slain, at their birth, the offspring of their victims; and now God, in the exercise of infinite justice, visited them with righteous retribution. In the mid-watches of the night, the "angel of

the pestilence" was sent to the dwellings of Egypt, and he "breathed in the face" of all the first-born in the land. In the morning, the hope of every family, from the palace to the cottage, was a corpse. What mind can imagine the awful consternation of that scene, when an agonizing wail rose from the stricken hearts of all the parents in the nation! The cruel task-masters were taught, by means which entered their souls, that the true God was a God not only of power but of judgment, and as such to be feared by evil-doers and reverenced by those that do well.

The demonstration, therefore, is conclusive, that in view of the idolatrous state of the world, and especially in view of the character and circumstances of the Israelites, the true God could have made a revelation of himself in no other way than by the means and in the manner of the miracles of Egypt; and none but the true God could have revealed himself in this way.—Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation.