tary effect may be called in question; the solid and lasting consequences of a cure, in the abiding health of the individual, attest the finger of God.

7. Lastly, the miracles of the New Testament were done for a high and holy end, an end worthy of the Almighty Creator, which renders a suspension of the ordinary course of nature highly credible. They were not wasted on any trivial occasion. They were not superfluous or undefined in their purpose. The wise and benevolent end was to ascertain the truth of a declaration of God's will; to mark out the Saviour of mankind from all pretenders; to give his accountable creatures a due assurance of a divine revelation-such an end is unquestionably neither inconsistent with the divine wisdom, nor unbecoming the divine goodness. So far as we can judge, some such interference was absolutely necessary as an attestation to a religion sent from God. The extraordinary acts were precisely suitable to the extraordinary occasion which called for them. And to those who admit the being and perfections of the Moral Governor of the universe, (and those only I address,) it must appear in the highest degree probable that miraculous works would attend the declaration of his will. With such positive evidence before us, then, the case is undoubted-the wonderful actions of the gospel history were absolutely and palpably miraculous.

But this leads us to notice

III. That there was such a CONNEXION BETWEEN THESE MIRACLES AND THE RELIGION THEY ARE

SAID TO ATTEST, as to prove satisfactorily that that religion was from God.

1. For our Saviour and the apostles constantly appealed to their mighty works in proof of their mission. When John Baptist sent his disciples to our Lord to inquire whether he were the Messiah, he bid them return and tell John what miracles they had witnessed,

and what doctrine they had heard. To trace out the manner of this proof, to follow our Lord's various arguments, to study the credentials of the gospel in the gospel itself, to read the Christian evidences as Jesus himself stated them, will give the most entire satisfaction to the candid mind. The progress of the proof-the wise and forcible manner of our Saviour's arrangement of it---the majesty, the compassion, the truth of his appeals, carry their own conviction with them. Every time that we read the gospel, we are more struck with the matchless character of veracity appearing in the proofs which he adduced of his mission. At first he made scarcely any remarks on his miracles; he performed them, and let them speak for themselves. Towards the close of his ministry, again, he wrought but few mighty works, because of the unbelief of the people. But between these periods, the intermixture of arguments and miracles, of appeals to the heart and displays of divine power, form an irresistible evidence to every attentive mind, that his doctrine was divine.12

2. Moreover the miracles of our Lord had been predicted as the express evidence of the Messiah. A long previous expectation had been excited, no room was left for conjecture either as to the agent or the design. The wonders of our Lord were not single, unconnected, unexplained prodigies, but miracles performed in consequence of a design avowed long before, and which ceased to be wrought when that design was accomplished. The prophet Isaiah had marked out the very miracles which should designate the Messiah: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, then shall the lame man leap as the hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." We shall see the finger of prophecy pointed to the Messiah still more clearly when

12 Franks.

we come to the proper place; but the predictions fulfilled in the miracles of our Lord, fix and designate and seal him as divinely commissioned of God, and as not only a prophet, but the Messiah and the Saviour of the world.

3. And surely we cannot fail to observe the admirable fitness of this attestation to a divine religion. It is a manner of acting worthy of God. Let men reason to support their opinions; let them establish their doctrines by a course of arguments---they have no right to command the understanding of others. But for the Almighty God, it is not becoming that he should speak as a philosopher who disputes---no, he speaks as a Master who decides; he supports his religion, not by arguments, but by deeds of omnipotence. His word is truth; to obey it is the duty of man---and what more worthy of God than to command the obedience of man by visible acts attesting the homage which all nature pays him.13 Such a proof is level to the capacity of man as man. It is calculated to awaken the attention, and command the assent, and satisfy the doubts, and silence the objections of persons of all classes and conditions. Such an attestation becomes the simplicity and universality of revelation, and carries on it the genuine impress of the majesty of heaven. Miracles are the broad seal annexed by God himself to the grand charter of salvation in Jesus Christ.

4. For it is further to be noted, that the miracles of Christianity were performed by those who had all other signs of a divine mission; and therefore to whose doctrine implicit obedience was due, as to a communication from God. The mighty works, however palpable and numerous, were not the only credentials of our Lord and his apostles. Every thing else corresponded. Dignity, simplicity, disinterestedness,

13 Frayssinous' Défense du Christianisme.

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 ex

ercising 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.

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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