else corresponded. Dignity, simplicity, disinterestedness, purity of life, holy instructions, bold rebukes of vice, fortitude, meekness, constancy unto death, were conspicuous in the heavenly ambassadors.

The gift of prophecy distinguished the same and no other persons. The miracles were acts of mercy, deeds of compassion and grace, exertions of goodness and piety. They were not disjointed wonders, but were harmoniously united with the other signs of a mission from heaven. You need not be told that the prodigies of heathenism, even if the facts be admitted, and the other means of solving the phenomena waived, (as the cures said to be performed by the emperor Vespasian, on which Hume relies,) were done by persons who did not even pretend to a divine commission, and who exhibited not one single mark of the messengers of the Most High.

5. The inference, therefore, from the miracles to the truth of Christianity is direct, forcible, conclusive: it speaks to every unprejudiced mind. The language of Nicodemus is the language of the unsophisticated conscience. "We know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles which thou doest, except God be with him." The testimony of our senses is not a more satisfactory evidence of the existence of external objects, than the Scripture miracles are of a divine commission. When men born blind suddenly received their sight, when multitudes were cured of the most desperate diseases by a touch or at a distance, when the dumb were made to speak, and the dead were raised, when devils were cast out, and confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, when all nature gave way, and started back at the command of Christ, surely no proof could be more decisive of the immediate presence of the God of nature -surely no language, not even an angel's voice, could proclaim more intelligibly, that God was revealing his will. Surely these wonderful works challenged implicit obedience to the Sovereign of the universe, thus exercising his dominion over nature-first making the whole creation bow and tremble and obey-and then delivering the record of his stupendous scheme of redemption to an awe-struck world.

6. Accordingly, the miracles of Christianity are so incorporated with the instructions, as to oblige men to receive not only the religion generally, but all the doctrines it communicates, as of divine authority. It is most reasonable to submit

with unlimited faith to all that was delivered by messengers thus commissioned and accredited. The wonderful actions which they performed are incorporated and intermingled with the whole substance of their doctrine. The actions without the instructions are unintelligible. If the New Testament history and the New Testament miracles are entitled to credit, then all the New Testament doctrine is entitled to the same. None of the supernatural works were performed for subordinate ends: they did not aim, like the heathen prodigies, to prove the greater sanctity of an altar, or raise. the credit of an oracle, or establish the usage of some insignificant rite; but they were performed as the great ends of the mission required, were involved in the most important doctrines, and were directed to the development of one vast scheme the redemption of mankind.

That men might "know that the Son of God hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the sick of the palsy," as our text particularly notes, Arise, take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house." That the people might learn that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, he expelled him from the bodies of the possessed. He was eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, feet to the lame, and a father to the poor, in the literal sense, that he might afford a pledge of the correspondent spiritual blessing. Those whom he healed, he suffered not to remain with him for the purpose of swelling his retinue, but bade them go to their friends, and "sin no more." To assure the apostles of their future success in preaching the gospel, he encouraged them by a miraculous. draught of fishes to follow him, and become "fishers of men." He taught the universality of his religion, and the admission of the Gentiles into his church, by purifying the outward court of the temple, and driving out, in a miraculous manner, the Jewish traffickers. He showed the power of faith, by devoting the barren fig-tree to sudden decay and destruction. He encouraged the timid belief of his disciples by calming the tempest. Those multitudes whom he fed by a miracle, were first wearied and faint by a long attendance on his instructions. Thus were our Lord's miracles inseparably connected with the revelation they were designed to attest.* The same may be said of those performed by the apostles; every thing had a regard to the high object of the mission: the facts involve the doctrines, and oblige us to receive them. Bishop Van Mildert.

VOL. I.

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7. We observe, lastly, that though all false religions have made some pretensions to wonderful works, yet there never was a religion set up and established by miracles, but the religion of the Bible. A series of wonderful works like that on which the mission of Christ rests, was never heard of since the world began.*

Mankind have, indeed, always expected that God would reveal himself to them by working some things above the course of nature; and, therefore, there never was any false religion set up, but it professed to be confirmed by some miraculous works or appearances; but these very attempts serve to set forth to greater advantage the undeniable miracles of the Scripture.

Mahomet wisely disclaimed the performance of miracles as a test of his divine mission; and though he was not sparing in his account of sensible communications from heaven, his own statements represent him as at once the object of them, and the sole witness.

The prodigies of the heathen were few in number, were attested by no credible witnesses, were insulated and solitary wonders, were never submitted to the senses and examination

* I except, of course, that religion, of which Christianity was the complement and consummation, and with which it formed one connected divine revelation-the legation of Moses.

We have already proved the authenticity and credibility of the books of the Old Testament through the medium of those of the New. Of the miracles which introduced the Mosaic economy, I need not say a word: the very same arguments which support the Christian miracles, prove those of Moses. The four marks laid down by Leslie, that they were palpable-publicly performed-commemorated by national monuments and usages-and that these monuments and usages began at the very time when the mighty works were performed, are perfectly conclusive. I will only add, that there is something of greater magnificence in the Mosaic miracles-they were on a larger scale, and of bolder features, in order to be handed down the better by indelible memorials, through those many centuries, during which written testimony by contemporary authors was impossible. The miraculous passage of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire, the flaming summit of Sinai, the drying up of Jordan, the descent of the manna, the streams poured out from the smitten rock, the prostrate walls of Jericho, were miracles of that prodigious grandeur, as to stand forth palpably from the scene, and to remain visible, as it were, from that remote age to the present. The milder and less stupendous, but not less divine, miracles of the New Testament, were at once more suitable to the genius of the religion, and more adapted, so to speak, to a learned period, when contemporary writings could hand down with ease, to future ages, the authentic records of the minutest divine operations.

of mankind, were at best rather subjects of speculative curiosity, than matters with which any serious truth was connected. They totally differ from the miracles of Christ in all their leading features, as well as in their connection, import and final cause. Their foundation was chiefly rumor or fable; the wonders themselves are easily resolved into natural causes; the persons who recorded them lived at a remote age and in a distant country. Besides, there is no proof that any of these religions was set up, in the first instance, by means of these alleged supernatural works. Not a single miracle can be named that was ever offered as a test of any of these religions before it was established. Their miracles were appendages, not proofs; and the reception of them was the effect, not the cause, of a belief in the religion with which they were connected.*

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The Christian doctrine looks down on these pretences from the glorious height on which it stands. The conviction of the probability of miracles for attesting the divine will, in the minds of all who admit the being and providence of God, prepared the way; and the miserable impotency of all false religions in their pretences to them, left the whole field unoccupied for the clear and undoubted miraculous operations which usher in the Scripture revelation. They stand as the single series of divine works, to attest the single series of divine communications which was ever made to man.

And here let us observe, that, as under the head of the Authenticity, we found that the Christian books were the only records professing to contain a divine revelation written by the first teachers of that revelation, and submitted to the examination of mankind; and as again, under the head of the Credibility of those books, we discovered that no account of the admitted facts of Christianity was ever given but the narrative therein contained; so now, under the head of Miraculous Operations, we see that no other religion was ever attempted to be established in the first instance by miracles, but the religion of the Bible. Thus solitary, in unapproachable dignity, stands the proof of the gospel.

I. Are you not, then, convinced-for I must pass on to the CONCLUSION-by the statements laid before you? I address

*The above remarks, with a slight variation, apply to the miraculous works ascribed to the Roman Catholic saints,

the docile and sincere. Does not the impression left on your mind by the review of the Christian miracles, resemble that which was produced on the multitudes in whose presence they were first wrought? Yes, all your previous hesitation and doubts are dispersed. You feel the force of truth. You are "astonished beyond measure." You "glorify God," with the people in our text, "saying, We never saw it on this fashion." You bear witness to the grace and power and divine mission of the Son of God.

The impression, the first dictate of the unsophisticated conscience, the language of the heart of man, on reading the miracles of Christ, is, "Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. This is the prophet that should come into the world. He hath done all things well." We have probably now quite as strong evidence of the divine miracles as the first Christians. We have not seen them, indeed, with our eyes, and so the sensible proof cannot be so lively, but other parts of the demonstration are more clear to us. The concurring marks of the Messiahship of Christ are more distinct; the direct miraculous character of the wonderful works is better recognized. Those doubts, for instance, which arose from the notions of magic, of the occult powers of nature, and the agency of evil spirits, are passed away; and with the brighter light of modern philosophy and science, we distinguish far more decisively the miracles of Christ from the ordinary course of God's providence.

II. Let us, then, yield to the conviction which these miracles are designed to produce. Let us pray to God for his grace that we may renounce all interfering prejudices and appetites, and submit unreservedly to the Christian doctrine. Miracles only serve to introduce the Saviour, to verify his doctrine, and then to send us his promises, his warnings, his encouragements. Miracles cannot give a right disposition of heart. That must be sought for from the Holy Spirit, whom our risen Lord poured out upon his church. We have great cause to fear for ourselves. If we harden our hearts to the voice of conscience, no arguments can convince, no moral proofs subdue. It is probable that external evidences to miracles COULD NOT be stronger than ours actually are, considering the nature and circumstances of man as a responsible creature, But this is nothing, if the heart be fixed on the * Penrose,

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