Saints, were enabled by God to perform several. But they prove that he is under the divine direction, and works by the divine authority and help. If, therefore, the worker of miracles should lay claim to some most distinguished office as derived from God, and should perform some very striking acts of this kind in support of his claim, it will plainly follow, that he has the sanction of God for it, and that God, by the wonders he enables him to do, has set his seal to the truth of the pretension. The Jews argued the case with great clearness when some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath-day.""How," replied they, "can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" If the laws of nature can be altered by none but the great Author of them, would he have delegated this power to a bad man, and allowed him to have reaped the honours of it? -The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable, that his works proclaim his authority, and that God is manifestly with him.

Since, then, miracles are an evidence of divinity, and Christ rested his title to the Son of God upon them, it will not be an unprofitable use of our time, to examine the nature of some which he performed, because they were so extraordinary as amply to bear out the truth of his pretensions. There was in Christ's miracles great variety and great peculiarity, and it is these qualities which distinguish them so highly from all other, and proclaim, at once, the preeminence of his character. If he spake as never

man spake, so likewise he did the works which never man did.

The first miracle I shall adduce as evidence of his divine character, is one of bodily disease. It is the case of the woman who had an issue of blood twelve years.

It appears that this hapless patient had laboured under her affliction for the long period I have mentioned, during which she "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." The prospect before her, therefore, was one, not only of unmitigated, but of increasing suffering. In this helpless state, at a loss how to get relief, and despairing of the effect of any human skill, she turned her attention to Jesus, of the fame of whose miraculous cures, no doubt, she had heard, if she had not witnessed them herself. Our blessed Lord was now at Capernaum, and a great concourse of people surrounded and thronged him. Through this crowd she made her way, and coming close to the object of her earnest solicitude, she touched his garment, saying to herself, "If I may but touch his clothes I shall be whole.” The result was as she had anticipated, for "straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up."

Now, in considering this miracle, we are to observe, that previous to the cure being wrought, no conversation passed between the sufferer and the Author of her cure, and but for the notice of our blessed Lord, it might have remained secret to all

the persons who were present. This shows that there could be no collusion. The woman was evidently a stranger to him, and meant to remain concealed, and the bystanders were unaware of any thing having occurred. It was upon our blessed Lord turning round and declaring that virtue was gone out of him, that the woman, conscious of her cure and fearing detection, ingenuously confessed the whole of the proceeding.-In the next place it is to be remarked, that our blessed Lord could distinguish between the multitude who pressed upon him on every side from motives of mere curiosity, and the woman who touched him from a principle of faith. This proves that the virtue which went out of him to heal her, was not an involuntary act, but proceeded by his direction, and that when he asked who had done this thing, he knew, perfectly well, both the sufferer who had thus piously approached him, and the object she had in view in so coming to him. It is farther to be observed, that this was an incurable case, and, therefore, the effect of his divine power was the more striking. He did nothing and spake nothing, yet a disease, incapable of being reduced by human means, and notoriously the object of much unsuccessful experiment, yielded in a moment to his agency.

The next miracle to which I shall draw your attention, was one of mental infirmity.

Our Saviour, having crossed the lake of Gennesareth, came into the country of the Gadarenes, and there met him, a man, naked, exceeding fierce,

who had his dwelling among the tombs, so wild as to be incapable of being bound by fetters and chains, for he burst his bonds, however firmly fastened, and plucked his chains asunder, and rendered it dangerous for travellers to pass by that way. He laboured under that species of disease known in those times by the name of possession, which appears to have been a dreadful subjection of the body to fiendish spirits, and which exhibited itself in various complaints of body and mind. In the poor object before us it assumed the character of madness. Our blessed Lord, by the word of his command, ejected these evil spirits from the lunatic, and restored him at once to his perfect mind.

Now, with respect to this miracle we may remark, that the means resorted to by medical men for the recovery of deranged persons are slow in their progress, and require time and care and management, whereas this was instantaneous and without any extraneous aid; that it was an extreme case of madness, as bad as could possibly be; - that the operation was not only immediate but visible, inasmuch as the ejected spirits entered into a herd of two thousand swine, which were feeding nigh, and rendered them mad likewise, so that they all rushed violently down a steep place into the sea, and were drowned;—that the person on whom the cure was performed was a well-known character, and incapable from his circumstances of entering into any confederacy with Jesus;-that the effect of the cure was striking to all, for not only did the persons present,

who had accompanied Jesus, see it, but the whole population of the adjacent town of Decapolis, who, on hearing of it, came out, and beheld the man sitting by Jesus clothed, and in his right mind.

The next miracle I shall produce is one neither of bodily, nor of mental disease, nor strictly speaking of disease at all, but of a defect in nature. It is the case of the man who was born blind.

This miracle differs so far from the other two in the peculiarity of its nature, that it was performed upon a case which does not admit of any human remedy. Disease of every kind may be alleviated by care and skill, if not entirely removed. But no human means can remedy a defect. If a man be born with the want of any sense or any limb, nothing that the imagination can conceive will supply the deficiency. How then shall we account, but by divine inspiration, for the gift of sight to the man who was born blind? In this remarkable case our blessed Lord resorted to the simplest means. He spat upon the ground and made clay, and having anointed the eyes of the blind man with it, bade him go and wash in the pool of Siloam. And his faith in this remedy was crowned immediately with vision.

Now, it is obvious to every one, that the clay had no concern in the cure of the fortunate man. Let any one try the experiment, and he will soon be convinced, that, with such materials, sight cannot be imparted to the blind. Neither did the waters of Siloam effect his cure. There was no medicinal

quality in them to alter the course of nature, and