"This dual character obviously leads to many difficulties in defining the evidential function and force of miracles, and we may best appreciate the dilemma which is involved by continuing to follow the statements and arguments of divines themselves. To the question whether miracles are absolutely to command the obedience of those in whose sight they are performed, and whether upon their attestation, the doer and his doctrine are to be accepted as of God, Archbishop French unhesitatingly replies: 'It cannot be so, for side by side with the miracles which serve for the furthering of the kingdom of God runs another line of wonders, the counter-workings of him who is ever the ape of the Most High.' (Dr. French's 'Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord.') Eighth ed., p. 22. "'This fact,' he says, 'that the kingdom of lies has its wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, is in itself sufficient evidence that miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and finally, in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims.' "This being the case, it is important to discover how miracles perform their function as the indispensible evidence for a Divine Revelation, for with this disability they do not seem to possess much potentiality. Archbishop French then offers the following definition of the function of miracles: 'A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine or the divine mission of him that brings it to pass. That which alone it claims for him at the first is a right to be listened to; it puts him in the alternative of being from heaven or from hell. The doctrine must first commend itself to the conscience as being good, and only then can the miracle seal it as divine.' But the first appeal is from the doctrine to the conscience, to the moral nature of man. Under certain circumstances, he maintains their evidence is utterly to be rejected. 'But the purpose of the miracle' he says, 'being as we have seen, to confirm that which is good, so, upon the other hand, where conscience and mind witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a right to demand submission to the word which they seal. On the contrary, the great act of faith is to believe, against, and in despite of them all, in what God has revealed to, and implanted in the soul of the holy and the true; not to believe another gospel, though an angel from heaven, or one transformed into such should bring it (Deut. 13 : 3; Gal. 1 : 8); and instead of compelling assent, miracles are then rather warnings to us that we keep aloof, for they tell us that not merely lies are here, for to that the conscience bore witness already, but that he who utters them is more than a common deceiver, is eminently a liar and anti-Christ, a false prophet; standing in more immediate connection than other deceived and evil men to the kingdom of darkness, so that Satan has given him his power (Rev. 13 : 2); is using him to be an especial organ of his, and to do a special work for him.' And he