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by the publicity of the miracles which these two great leaders have left on record, but also and more decidedly by their effects or consequences still accumulating under the same direction: insomuch that it may be truly said of the performance of each as it was by St. Paul of one, 66 This thing was not done in a corner" (Acts xxvi. 26); and of its effects in the sublime language of Isaiah, "Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth" (Isa. xii. 5). It would seem therefore, that what these objectors want to know and understand, is the propriety of those miracles generally which God has wrought by different persons. And what have they to do with his counsels in respect of such things; or to determine, whether the means employed for them were necessary or not? "Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?" (Ib. x. 15.) We may own the existence of miracles a sufficient evidence of their propriety: and for that of their existence,-it is hoped, the accounts of them may sometimes be relied on after all exceptions; notwithstanding the best evidence of past miracles is found in present effects as aforesaid: and if we take this observation along with us, we shall be in a better capacity to judge of the truth and importance of those to which the premises chiefly relate.

Such are the miracles of the Subject or Second Mediate; who is allowed on all hands to have done many (John xi. 47), and has indeed assumed so much himself (Ib. xv. 24) very justly, notwithstanding a chance-disavowal of the same also by him. For it must be by chance as coming from himself, though by direction as coming from God,— that he tells the Jews "there shall no sign be given unto this generation" (Mark viii. 12), all the while that he was shewing them signs continually,-"works which none other man did,” nor ever heard of “ since the world began." As each of these works was a distinct act or simple constituent of the Subject's important life, it would be too much

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to enter here into all their particulars; and not quite pru-` dent, if it were even desirable, to vouch for the truth of the same in every case that is recorded of his performance: if half of them could be relied on, it would be abundantly sufficient. Some and perhaps not very easy assentors may be satisfied with two or three only, which they know to be genuine. But it is truly grating to a candid inquirer, to one e. g. who would give infidelity itself a fair hearing, having at the same time a due esteem for the gift of reason, and considering its holders as accountable before God for the exercise of this as others for the exercise of other advantages, as wealth, power and the like entrusted to themto such a one it must be truly grating, to observe how reason, if it may be called reason, fails sometimes in this respect, making its fancied owners at once both guilty and ridiculous; who to overthrow the credit of our Saviour's miracles will question perhaps, not their reality but their propriety in some particular, and think it a great matter in their wisdom, if they can cavil at the form while they confess the fact; because perhaps they have a purpose to answer by the letter of the gospel, to which its divine Spirit might not be so easily reconciled.

It is to the effect and intention of a miracle that we should look, more than to its form or particulars: as for example when one is given either for a present sign of some future contingency, or for an evidence of the power to produce it. Such was to be the effect of the indubitable miracle of our Saviour's self-resurrection or resurrection of himself by his own divine Principle, before but not sufficiently alluded to, as an evidence and a most. decided evidence from God direct of THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT; which St. Paul remarked to the Athenians in the midst of the Areopagus, "Because He hath appointed a day (said he) in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; WHEREOF HE HATH GIVEN ASSURANCE unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead" (Acts

xvii. 31). Such was the intended effect of another miracle but lately alluded to in the definition of a miracle, where its evidence of the forgiveness of sins was also mentioned. For a miracle that was only wrought, to shew that a friend of the objects had a power or licence to forgive sins on earth (Matt. ix. 6.), if he had to forgive no where else, might signify something more than a miracle to them, although that be not an every day consideration : it might signify as much more than an ordinary miracle, as a fortune than a gift, or the fruitfulness of the earth than a single harvest. Indeed the plain inference from any miracle so wrought and introduced with such a preface would be an implicit belief in the Performer from its objects or witnesses. It seems, that "when the multitude saw it, they marvelled and glorified God which had given such power unto men" (Ib. 8). But a Greek duly esteeming the knowledge of God and considering with St.Paul how such knowledge could only be derived from God himself (Cor. I. ii. 11), might have seen such a confirmation with more satisfaction than astonishment,-or without seeing, he might conclude beforehand, that if God should be graciously pleased to impart the lost knowledge of himself again to mankind, he would be pleased also to authenticate that knowledge at the same time somehow; not determining in his own mind the manner of the evidence that God should give on such an occasion, as "the wild boar out of the wood"or the ignorant and headstrong multitude would be apt to do, with all their marvelling and glorification.

Then understanding so, much, it would not become the wisdom of the Greeks to hesitate on receiving the evidence of miracles truly wrought either by or concerning the Subject, and either in word or deed on account of those falsely imputed to him and others-it may be sometimes, with the same view to evidence. No more, understanding likewise the almighty and omnipresent Spirit or Influence of the eternal Word to be equal to the direct conviction of any whom it may please the Lord to call and confirm in

his service-that is to say, without any outward signs given either by himself or others, would it seem more reverent to query, Why the evidence of outward miracles should be employed in the church so commonly and for so many ages when they might in this way have been dispensed with altogether? For without admitting the principle or that miracles were ever so common in the church or for so many ages, the same answer may be alleged for those really happening as before. And some other day perhaps some of us may be wise enough, not to doubt all the miracles that we read of for all the impositions that we have no reason to doubt. For the more any one reads and considers, the more he will be satisfied of these two points regarding wonders and miracles wrought, or said to be wrought, in the church under both, that is under both the old and new dispensations.

First, that from the opportunity afforded for error in so long a record as this running on from Genesis to Revelations some passages may have become more marvellous than they were ever intended, and only perhaps by the alteration of a letter: while other passages more marvellous than true may also have been wilfully inserted in "the times of ignorance" by treacherous guardians, and pious as well as impious, to please the credulous multitude: which erroneous passages have not been attacked by honest critics with the same unsparing vigour as spurious volumes have been, and very successfully; lest in endeavouring" to gather up the tares, they should root up also the wheat with them" (Matt. xiii. 29).

Secondly, that all this notwithstanding, or in spite of all this confusion and falsehood, we certainly read of miracles in the line of both dispensations, that are rendered credible by experience, and enough to save the authority of the productions in which they are recorded,―being such for magnitude and sublimity as the world never saw besides, AND ALL THE WORLD COULD NEVER INVENT. But to comprehend the extent of this sublime effect, we should view

its particulars in combination as well as in selection or specification, as some of them have been viewed. And

=1, We must admire that wonder of wonders, the ordering and combining of two such dispensations in the manner and to the effect before signified* under the head of the Subject's indirect evidence.

=2, The carrying out of such an effect with self evidence to the wonderful extent only to which it has already proceeded, without taking any credit for that which is to come; although its coming is hardly to be doubted, nor that of a conclusion worthy of the beginning and preparation. For

+1, While no one doubts the foundation or first part, consisting in a temporal deliverance of God's people, it may not occur to every one to recollect and consider, what a work it must have been, only to draw that vast multitude, not out of their own territory, be it remembered, like a free people, but out of the house of bondage like a race of Helots, to what was for them a sort of new world; and there to maintain, increasing all the while, a whole nation -men, women and children, with their cattle and beasts of burden, in a wilderness chiefly, for the space of 40 years: as it occurred to the great leader and legislator himself, when he had just set his foot on the borders of the promised land." For ask now of the days that are passed, (said he) which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing, as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?" (Deut. iv. 32.)

It may be thought no small wonder, for any one to believe, that so great an effect as this only could ever be compassed without a miracle, or otherwise than as it is related" by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out

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