this supernatural gift in the person of Jesus, taken in connection with the general expectation that Christ should then appear, was calculated to arrest the notice of the pious Jew, and to cause him to examine the pretensions of our Lord with extraordinary interest. He does not say, 'Thou art the Christ.' That was a point of faith to which Nicodemus was not then arrived; but he admits his divine authority, and confesses him to be a teacher sent from God. If, then, as Nicodemus argues, miracles are an evidence of divine power and authority, and no one can do such things except God be with him, the truth of our Lord's pretensions is to be gathered from the testimony of this nature which he gave to the world.

But before we proceed to the consideration of the miracles themselves, it is important that we should notice the general character and circumstances of them.

Now, it is a remarkable feature in our blessed Lord's life, that he never summoned the people to witness his miracles; that he never commented on them himself, or encouraged the remarks and commendations of others. Even his Sabbath-day cures, which, being wrought at times of leisure, when persons are most easily drawn together, would have supplied to a man, courting popularity, the best and fittest occasions, were unostentatious and unselected, without the most distant view to parade and notoriety; nay, on the contrary, he often prohibited publicity and shunned applause. His miracles were

not confined, like the Heathen Oracles, to time and place. They were exhibited every where. Neither were they done in darkness or secresy. He affected no mystery about them: he resorted to no incantation he used no curious arts. All was open and naked to the eye, and he submitted them to the judgment as matters of fact. Moreover, they did not relate to national occurrences; to peace or war, to worldly honours or advantages like the auguries of old, but they had attached to them, for the most part, a private, a personal, or a particular and local character. They were the farthest removed possible from any benefit to the doer of them; from any thing which, in the strictest acceptation, could be deemed self-interested; indeed, they often exposed him to obloquy, contempt, and danger. Above all, they were never exhibited idly, vainly, wantonly, or on trifling and unimportant occasions, but plainly, simply, significantly, as the emergency called for them, and the opportunity suited. They had, therefore, every character about them which may be considered genuine, and which entitled them to notice.

Now, of these miraculous testimonies to the truth of Christ's character as a man divinely inspired, I propose to select four different instances, in which the greatest variety shall prevail, and the most wonderful powers be exhibited, that every one who hears me may have an accurate knowledge of the supernatural gifts exercised by our blessed Lord, and come to the same rational conclusion as Nicodemus did,

that no man can do these miracles, except God be with him.

I. The First instance I shall produce is over the elements of meat and drink, in the former of which he altered the quantity, and in the latter the quality of the food.

It appears that our blessed Saviour had been followed by an immense multitude of persons, eager to hear his discourses and be healed of their diseases, but heedless, as is often the case with crowds, of the consequences of being drawn far from home, and of assembling together in large masses. They were overtaken by hunger, and the country where they were, was incapable of yielding them the necessary relief. Probably too, many of them had not the means of purchasing provisions, had they been dismissed to the neighbouring villages for that purpose. Our Lord called his Apostles together, not so much to consult with them, "for he himself knew what he would do," as to point out the difficulty of the circumstance, that they might be the more struck with the mode of his relief. Having made them aware of it, he enquired what quantity of food there was in the company. The answer was, "five barley loaves, and two small fishes." On this he commanded the men to sit down on the grass, and, having taken the loaves and the fishes, he brake them, and distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down, as much as they would. The numbers present were about five thousand men, besides women

and children. Yet they all did eat and were satisfied, and there were taken up, of the fragments that remained, twelve baskets full.

Now, this miracle was the more extraordinary, because many thousands were witnesses and partakers of it. They saw it with their eyes. It was an open manifestation of creative power, by which a small quantity of food was increased to an indefinite extent; and it proved, that he who did this, was able to alter the fixed laws of nature, and to render them subservient to his own purposes. The impression it made upon the people is thus recorded by St. John, "Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that PROPHET that should come into the world."-He repeated this miracle on another occasion with some variation as to minute particulars, distributing seven loaves and a few fishes among four thousand, and taking up of the fragments seven baskets full.

But our blessed Lord was able not only to increase the quantity, but also to alter the quality of the food. Being invited to a marriage-feast at Cana in Galilee, he found the entertainment, perhaps on account of the poverty of the parties, destitute of wine. He, therefore, commanded the attendants to fill the water-pots with water, which was no sooner done, but when it was drawn off to be carried to the governor of the feast, it was found to have been changed into wine.-The servants were well aware of the miracle he had wrought. It was a plain matter of fact. But the governor, and probably many

of the guests, were not so directly privy to it. It was, however, a miracle of the highest order, and showed the omnipotence of his authority over the elements of nature; and it produced an immediate effect upon his disciples, who, in consequence, “believed on him there;" that is, their previous opinion of him was greatly strengthened.

II. The next instance I shall offer is a miracle wrought upon the human frame, and, therefore, not as in the former instances upon dead, but upon living

matter.

Passing by the case of the Gadarene among the tombs, who had long laboured under frantic madness, and was restored by Christ to his right mind; and all the cases of bodily disease and infirmity strictly such, the lame, the halt, the blind, the leprous, and the paralytic, of which the examples are innumerable; I will come to one of a compound nature, where both the mind and the body were afflicted together, as affording a wonderful evidence of his supernatural power, and varied exercise of it.-The case is thus related by the Evangelists, "There came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour."

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