If an ordinary man, such as a prophet or an apostle, were to affirm that he had a communication from God which he was directed to make to others, or in other words that he had a divine commission, it is evident that no one would be bound to believe him on his mere affirmation. The simple and obvious reply would be, Give us some proof of the reality of the fact. Your claim is far too lofty to be admitted as valid on your simple affirmation. The question then is, how is such a claim to be tested? I reply by the person who makes it performing some action which is adequate to prove that the Great Governor of the Universe ratifies this claim. He must do something analogous to what all persons who claim to be acting under commissions from others do, _i.e._ he must produce some direct and formal credentials from the authority in whose name he claims to be acting. In this case the authority is God. He must therefore perform some action which directly identifies himself with God. How is this to be accomplished? I answer by the performance of an unequivocal miracle which will directly connect him with the Great Governor of the Universe. I say unequivocal miracle, because if there were any doubt as to its supernatural character it would be useless. Nor would it be of any avail if it were a bare objective fact in external nature, devoid of its moral and spiritual environment. What is required is some direct manifestation of the divine on the sphere of the human and the natural. It must, in fact, exactly fulfil the character so often assigned to miracles in the Gospels. It must be a σημεῖον, or indication of the presence of God, resembling as it were the Great Seal which is affixed to state documents as the final mark of sovereign authority. Of such a character are all the chief miracles recorded in the Gospels. The question about miracles has been beclouded by debating it in an abstract instead of in a concrete form; thus forgetting that it is not every conceivable form of alleged supernatural occurrence with which we have to deal, but the miracles recorded in the New Testament. By discussing it in this form it has been possible to raise a number of difficulties which may be abstractedly conceivable, but which have no bearing whatever on the miracles in question. Thus it has been frequently urged that to enable us to be certain that an alleged miracle is really due to supernatural agency, a jury of savants ought to be impanelled, before whom the worker of the miracle should exhibit his miraculous operation. They are to subject it to a variety of scientific tests. Even then if they have failed to discover error, they are to demand a second and a third performance, in order that it may be again and again submitted to the same process of scientific scrutiny. Until miracles can be submitted to and verified by tests of this description they have been affirmed to be unworthy of credit, even on the strongest ordinary testimony.