It is the concluding verse of the passage with which I am most concerned— “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or _else_ believe me for the very works’ sake.”(46) The first appeal is to that belief, which ought to have grown up from personal knowledge; that failing, He points to the works. This belief was of the same order as that which we have in the rectitude of an honoured friend. In knowing a man, we get to a deeper kind of knowledge than we do in knowing an object: all we can tell about an object is what its properties are, we know nothing about what it _is_; but we do get nearer to knowing what a friend _is_, our souls interpenetrate, as it were, a little. So that if Philip had known our Lord as Peter did, he would, like him, have recognised the “Son of the living God.” Supposing, however, that he was not sufficiently “finely touched” for such a knowledge, that he judged mainly from his senses, and needed proofs of which they could take cognisance; then—as an alternative course though a very inferior one—He might believe for the _mere Signs’_ sake. Signs were provided to suit the cases of those who could not believe without them. But while many take it for granted that Christ rested His claims on miracles and worked His Signs to provide Himself with credentials; others have gone to the other extreme, and have urged that Christ disparaged the belief that was engendered by the sight of wonders. No doubt the principle—“Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed” runs through all our Lord’s teaching, but it was better they should believe from the sight of _such Signs as our Lord worked_—Signs which were not coercive—than not believe at all. Signs, certainly, have led men to believe, when, either from inward or outward causes, they would not have believed without. This effect I regard as a good one, and all good that has ensued from what our Lord did, I believe that He intended to do. The chief texts adduced in disparagement of miracles are: “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe,”(47) and “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.”(48) If signs and wonders were the appointed means of bringing men to believe, “Why,” ask the objectors, “are those blamed who cannot believe without seeing them?” “Our Lord,” they say, “here shews that He sets little value on the belief that comes of seeing signs.” This is, no doubt, quite true of the sort of belief that comes of the mere assent of a terrified man: but our Lord did not terrify men, and the belief that sprung from seeing _His_ signs involved a will and a disposition to recognize God’s hand.