06 — Christ's Miracles

Chapter 6 THE GLORY OF CHRISTS MIRACLES

Some writer has remarked, that " it would have been the greatest miracle of all, if the world had received the Christian religion without miracles." If there were those who. were authorized by God to bear the messages of his truth to men, it would seem to be altogether a reasonable and proper thing, that they should have been able, in the first instance, to attest their divine mission, by signs and wonders such as God only can perform. God himself recognized the reasonableness of this expectation, when he sent Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, and Moses and Elijah to ancient Israel. It was not to be expected that the divine mission and authority of Jesus Christ would be acknowledged by the Jews, unless he brought with him these high credentials. He was a man of humble origin and life, with no adventitious honors, alike destitute of wealth and power, and promising no earthly reward to his followers; yet did he reveal a system of faith and practice so foreign to the habits of the Jewish people, and so hostile to a world that lieth in wickedness, that if he could not have appealed to his miracles as evidence of his divine mission, there is no reason to believe he would have been acknowledged as a Teacher sent from God. The heaven-born religion which he came to teach, had, indeed, very many and concurrent credentials; but, whether they were external or internal, or partook of these mingled characteristics, they all indicated the immediate interposition of the Deity. Prophecy is a miracle; and even the self-evidencing power of the gospel on the hearts of those who receive it, so widely extended and so uniform, is itself miraculous. Christ himself, who " hath the key of David, and openeth, and no man shutteth," is the greatest of all miracles; while the mighty works he wrought, form the foundation on which the gospel rests. And it is a foundation girt round with strength, more firm than that which girds the mountains. The church rests upon it, and has risen, and will continue to rise, when the everlasting mountains are scattered, and the earth and all that is therein is burnt up. Miracles must hold up Christianity, or it cannot stand. The history of the Deistical controversy shows, that there is no one class of arguments against which infidels have combined their forces so strenuously, as the argument from miracles. Some have maintained that miracles are impossible; and some, that if possible, they are so improbable as to be incapable of proof

These remarks evince the importance of the subject to which the present chapter is devoted. Though we do not propose to speak at large of the doctrine of miracles but only of the miracles of’ Christ, yet we cannot do this intelligently, without submitting a few observations at the outset, on the subject of miracles generally.

What is a miracle? Much depends upon a true answer to this question. Is it merely an event which is extraordinary and marvellous, and out of the usual course of nature? or is it an event or occurrence, which to us is unaccountable and for which we can assign no sensible cause? Or will you define it to be an event wrought by the immediate power of God? Or will you say, it is an event which is contrary to the established laws of nature and one which involves a reversion or suspension or violation of those facts? We are not satisfied with either of these definitions. Extraordinary events are not miracles; for then would every earthquake, every monstrous birth, every resuscitation of suspended animation in the human frame, be miraculous. Extraordinary events are not supernatural, but rare occurrences, which accurate inspection and a patient investigation of their causes, show to have existed without any immediate interposition of divine power. Effects that are inexplicable by us, are not miracles. What is an unaccountable event to one man, may be easily accounted for by another; and what is the obvious effect of physical causes, in the view of one man, may be miraculous in the view of another, who is ignorant of those causes. There are effects which are the result of trick and necromancy; of sorcery and magic; of art and deception; where the machinery by which they are produced is understood by those who produce them, and their causes are perfectly simple and easily explained.

Such have been the advances in natural science, that what is spoken in the ear in secret, may be almost instantaneously communicated across mountains and continents, through rivers and seas, without any other reliance than on natural causes. Medical science has made such progress in the knowledge of the human frame, and in its acquaintance with natural causes hitherto unknown; that within its own well defined limitations, it produces results that astonish us. Yet none of these are miracles, nor are they attributed to miraculous power. Pretensions to miracle there have been; there were in the magicians of Egypt; but the effects were confessedly the result of " enchantment," and produced either by the agency of natural causes known only to the initiated, or by demoniacal power, given by God, and given to prove, and not disprove the divine commission of those whose authority they were intended to oppose. There have been and are still such pretensions in the church of Rome; and in modern mesmerism, and in the agency of certain spirits whose invisible knocking is supposed to convey responses from the unseen world; but it were difficult to say of such fictitious and ludicrous claims, which is the greater, the wickedness of the deceivers, or the weakness of the deceived. Miracle is not ignorance; it is not necromancy; it is not nature and science; it is above and beyond them. Nor is it every miracle that reverses suspends, or violates the established laws of nature. It is no violation of the laws of nature that a sudden calm should succeed a storm; or that a sudden storm should succeed a calm; though, under supposable circumstances, such events may carry with them the irresistible evidence of miracles. This definition of a miracle exposes the subject to unanswerable difficulties. A miracle is not a violation of any law of nature. The laws of nature are neither violated, nor altered, when a new effect is followed by a new and inadequate cause. They are violated only when the cause being exactly the same, a different effect is the result. This is Mr. Hume’s definition of a miracle, and one which evinces the subtlety of his reasoning when he affirms that a miracle is in capable of proof. But what violation or alteration of the laws of nature is it that God should be the author of a miracle? It may be out of the common course of nature, but is not contrary to that course. It may be a new and extraordinary effect, resulting from a new and extraordinary cause; while the laws of nature are no more violated by it, than they were when God said, " Let there be light, and there was light." A miracle is an event which is above the power of the natural agent and produced by the immediate power of God. Whatever event is demonstrably above the power of the immediate and visible agent, is miraculous. It may perhaps be more definite to say, that a miracle is a supernatural effect produced by the immediate power of God for the purpose of attesting the divine mission of those who are sent to communicate his will to men. This is the view which the Scriptures give of miracles. The miracles there recorded are not only ascribed to God alone, but were wrought in proof of the divine mission of those who performed them. Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, " There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets; but as for me, this secret is not revealed to me, for any wisdom that I have more than any living." Joseph said to Pharaoh, " It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." We are told that " God wrought special miracles by the hand of Paul;" and that through all the ministrations of the Apostles " God bore them witness, both with signs, and wonders, and divers miracles." These holy prophets were scrupulous in disclaiming this power, and in attributing it to God. " Ye men of Israel, why marvel at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us as though by our own powers and holiness, we had made this man well?" The God of Abraham glorified his Son Jesus; and his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man whole." When the Jews saw the works performed by Christ, they made the confession, " No man can do the miracles which thou doest, except God be with him."

It is not unimportant to remark that miracles are performed by the immediate power of God. Natural causes have no influence in producing them. Like the rod of Moses and the blowing of the ram’s horns around the walls of Jericho, and the branch cast into the waters of Marah, and the smiting of the rock in Kadesh, and the clay upon the eyes of him that was born blind, and the touching of the bier of the widow’s son, natural instrumentalities are the mere indices and exponents of God’s omnipotent will. In every instance of miracle it is the finger of God, it is the voice of God that produces it. Every miracle speaks for him, and bears the signature of his power.

Miracles have an object. The uniformity with which God governs the physical and the moral world, is not thus disturbed without good and sufficient reasons. The capricious interpositions of his power, deviating from the ordinary course of nature, and producing effects which contravene the established method of his agency, would not only destroy the confidence of men in the uniformity of his government, and thus put all human calculations adrift upon an ocean of uncertainty, but would be unworthy of God himself. There must be a demand for this interposition, and there was a demand for it. And that demand consisted in the necessity of attesting the divine mission of those who were sent with the messages of God’s truth to men. There have been " vanity and lying divination" in the world; there have been " signs and lying wonders," which Satan and wicked men may be able to produce; but they profess to be the work of creatures. They are expressly said to be " after the working of Satan." They are not performed in attestation of the divine mission of those who perform them, but are got up for the purpose of producing the false conviction that there are other powers that are miraculous beside the power of God. They do not, therefore, make any pretensions to such attestation. The miracles narrated in the Bible, as performed by Moses and the prophets, and by Christ and his apostles, all have this great and distinguishing characteristic. They are marks of supernatural interposition in giving to the world the revelation of God’s will. Their object was not to excite admiration even in beholding the footsteps of him who doeth wonders, and whose ways are unsearchable; but to throw a strong and irresistible beam of conviction upon the eye of men, that those who addressed them were sent of God. With these few observations on the general subject of miracles, we may, perhaps, be the better prepared to take a view of the miracles of Christ. The first remark which here most naturally presents itself is, that they were actually performed. There can be no doubt of the fact that there appeared in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago, a man called Jesus of Nazareth, who wrought the miracles of which we have an account in the New Testament. This was never denied in the earlier periods of the Christian era, even by the enemies of Christianity. There was no impossibility in these miracles, unless we set bounds to the divine omnipotence; there was no improbability in them, if we consider the high ends they were designed to promote. Improbable events may require stronger testimony than those which are probable; but the most improbable, so long as they are possible, are capable of being satisfactorily attested. It was a most improbable event that the Israelites should pass through the Red Sea, as on dry land; but it would have been a more improbable, nay, an impossible event, that they themselves should not know if they did or did not thus pass through it; and if they did not, equally impossible was it that that whole nation should have conspired to palm the falsehood upon the world, and should have done it so successfully that contemporaneous nations, so far from challenging, confirmed their testimony. The confidence placed in human testimony does not depend on the nature of the facts attested, but on the credibility of those who attest them. If it be conceded that the miracles of the Saviour were not impossible events; the only question which presents itself to a fair mind, relates to the credibility of the witnesses who attest them. Their testimony ought unquestionably to be severely scrutinized, and the force of it deliberately estimated. Circumstances not a few enter into this question, and such as demand grave consideration. Who are the men, and what was their object in bearing testimony to these events? What interest had they in substantiating them? and what were the circumstances in which they declared their conviction of the reality of what they saw and heard? Were they bad men and deceivers? Were they weak, credulous men, and easily deceived? Were the miracles which they attested, in favor of a religious system that consulted their national or individual prejudices? Were they few in number, and men that had little opportunity of being acquainted with the miracles themselves? Is their testimony discordant, and at variance with itself; and if not so, was their harmony the result of pre-concerted arrangement? Were they gainers by their testimony, and prompted by any considerations of personal interest? Were the miracles they attested wrought privately, or in secluded places, or by night, and in the presence of a few? And were there other concurrent witnesses and testimonials, confirming their simple narrative, and placing their testimony beyond dispute?

We have the most satisfactory answer to these inquiries. The character of these witnesses was never impeached, even by their bitterest enemies. They were plain men, but shrewd and sober men; and one of them so incredulous, that he refused to believe in the testimony of his companions, until he had seen the facts with his own eyes. The religious system in favor of which the miracles they attested were wrought, frowned on all their prepossessions, and was established on the subversion and ruins of their own system, so venerable for its age, and for its splendor so flattering to their national pride. They were twelve men who were Christ’s companions for the three years of his public ministry. There was just enough incidental variety in their testimony to preclude the possibility of pre-concert, and just such a concurrence as establishes the great and essential facts. They were, in every view, disinterested witnesses. Their Leader instructed them that they must forsake all and follow him; and though some of them vainly imagined that he came as a temporal Prince, and would elevate them to dignity and power, yet when they came to be thoroughly disabused of these imaginations, and found by experience that they were no regal honors they attained to; they firmly adhered to their testimony, through poverty, contempt, and a persecuting malignity, that was quenched only with their blood. They were martyrs, not to a set of opinions but for their testimony to facts. One word of recantation — any doubt — would have delivered them from this barbarous doom; but they "would not accept the deliverance." The miracles they attested were performed in the open light of the sun, in the presence of enemies as well as friends, in the streets and in the Temple, in the city and in the villages, on mountain and plain, inviting observation and scrutiny, and open to detection, if there were any appearance of fraud. Concurrent testimonials also, and concurrent witnesses there were, in the standing effects of this miraculous power, in established and perpetuated memorials, and in the testimony of the enemies of Christianity. It is a remarkable fact that their testimony was uncontradicted. It was not contradicted at the time, even by their most violent persecutors; in solemn council they confessed "they could say nothing against it." The chief priests and Pharisees made the confession, " This man doeth many miracles." Peter appealed to " the men of Israel, and told them that they themselves knew, that Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved by God, by wonders and miracles which he did in the midst of them." Josephus, the enemy of Christ, records in his Jewish antiquities, that the man Jesus "performed many wonderful works." The Jewish traditions called the Talmud, while they vilify Christ as a seducer of the people and a sorcerer, acknowledge that he performed numerous and wonderful works. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, gave an account of his miracles to the Emperor Tiberias. Suetonius, Tacitus, the younger Pliny, AEius, Lampridius, and other Roman historians, as quoted by Dr. Lardner, in his " Heathen Testimonies," and by Dr. McKnight in his " Credibility of the Gospel History," all confirm the narrative of the four Evangelists. Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, the first living in the second century, the second in the third, and the last in the fourth, did not deny the miracles of Christ, though they ascribed them to magic. The fact also is patent as the day, that thousands of Jews and Pagans, who were once the bitter persecutors of Christ and his followers, were, by this and other concurrent testimony, won over to the Christian faith; cast in their lot with the despised Christians, and with them, " took joyfully the spoiling of their goods," and at last sealed their testimony with their blood. These conflicts and triumphs of the early disciples and martyrs to the Christian faith, stand forth to the world as proofs of the miraculous power of Christ, which cannot be resisted. They arrested the attention and attracted the admiration of an admiring world. These early converts, also, like the first apostles, did not suffer martyrdom for their opinions but for facts which forced themselves upon their conviction. And may we not demand, did this cloud of witnesses testify falsely? Would not this have been a greater miracle, less probable, and more in opposition to the established laws of human conduct, as confirmed by observation and consciousness, than the miracles of Christ themselves? We affirm, therefore, that the miracles were actually performed. To the men of that generation, one would think the testimony was sufficiently convincing. We are not surprised that the acknowledgment was extorted from the lips of the Pharisees, " Behold, the whole world is gone after him!" and only wonder that the whole world did not become Christian. In the next place, the miracles of Christ were many and various. There was no needless multiplication of them, and no parade in the selection of their objects; yet were they more various in their character than a careless reader of the Gospels would imagine, and more in number than could be well recorded. There was no ostentation in performing them. It was at no stated hour and in no selected spot, and by no published programme by which the multitude were assembled to witness his mighty deeds. There was no trumpet sounded and no national flag to salute him; no military, or civic pageant, no thunder of cannon, and no triumphal arch to greet his quiet progress. It was in the ordinary course of his ministrations that he performed these mighty deeds, and as " he went about doing good." Many, very many instances of his power are specified by the Evangelists; but they constitute a very small part of those which actually existed. We read of his " healing great multitudes;" of " great multitudes coming to him and his healing them all;" and of people flocking from all parts of the country, and bringing to him those who suffered under the varied maladies which flesh is heir to, and many of them utterly incurable by human power. The whole course of his three years’ ministry was thus employed. Wherever he went, the people followed him in order to solicit his healing power. It was a wonderful period of the world while he was upon the earth; and wonderful scenes were they that were exhibited in Palestine during the years of his active ministry. Just think of a man appearing in the Holy Land, unostentatiously manifesting these miraculous powers, and wherever he goes attracting the multitude by his mighty deeds. What days of power were these, and what days of glory to the Son of man! Everywhere, throughout Judea, Samaria, and Galilee the scene is repeated. They come from far; they would know the Great Teacher and hear his voice, and see his wonders. And when one crowd of applicants after another retires, with one voice they exclaim, " When the Messiah cometh, will he do greater things than these?"

Though the variety of his miracles could not be as great as their number yet was it as great as can well be conceived. When the enemies of God’s ancient people were overcome, they attributed their defeat to their ignorance of " the manner of the God of the land." They encouraged themselves with the thought that he is the " God of the valleys and not the God of the hills." To rebuke their presumption and convince them of his universal power, God varied his miracles; he caused the sun and moon to stand still in their orbits, that for once they might see that hill and valley, earth and heaven were alike under the control of Israel’s God. I have tasked my own imagination and have endeavored to think of some expression of miraculous power which might have been made by Christ, that he did not make; and I have done so in vain. I cannot think of one, unless it be some capricious manifestation, and one that has no object but a mere parade of power. Make the experiment for yourself. What shall the miracle be? Shall it be to change the elements? at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, he changes water into wine. Shall it be to heal the sick who are ready to die; Jesus said to the nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum, " Go thy way, thy son liveth," and at " the same hour the fever left him." Shall it be the cure of the raving demoniac; "Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and he came out of him." Shall it be the healing of the leprous; the restoration of the paralytic; the recovery of the infirm and impotent; the withered hand restored; the blind recovering their sight; the deaf their hearing, the dumb their speech; the dropsical made whole; the lame walking, and the perished and lost limb of the maimed created anew, and grown out afresh? All these things Jesus did. Shall he still the tempest; hear him rebuking the winds, and the sea, and making them calm, and then listen while the witnesses exclaim, " What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?" Shall he walk upon the sea as confidently and securely as upon dry land; " in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them walking on the sea, and when they cried out for fear, he said to them "Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid." Shall he, from a few barley loaves and small fishes, so multiply them as to supply the wants of thousands; he not only does this, but the fragments that remain are more than the food originally provided. Would you see greater things than these; go to the village of Nain, and see him raise the widow’s son to life by touching the bier; or stand by the grave of Lazarus, and hear him say, " Lazarus, come forth," and he that was dead comes forth bound in grave clothes. What other acts of miraculous power can the most skeptical mind require? What other can he think of which these do not imply, and which are not less expressive than these? Do you say, he might have removed mountains, and dried up rivers and oceans; or turned in the sea upon the solid land; or sunk cities; or created and peopled them in the desert; or transformed the sandy desert into verdant fields; these things, and others like them, he could have done; and while they would have demonstrated his power, they would not show forth his wisdom. They were not called for; they would have been worse than useless; and if he had performed a thousand such miracles, they would have been no more convincing than those which he actually performed. What more than this, does the skeptical Jew, or the infidel Gentile demand? What is there that is more demonstrative and significant? Is there anything?

There is one act of his power greater than all these. What if he himself should sicken and die; what if you should see him even suspended from the gibbet, or nailed to the cross, and there, after his blood had trickled down, drop by drop, taken down and laid in the sepulcher, and then come back from the abodes of death, and once more dwell, a living man with living men. You shall see it all. The sun had crossed his meridian and was going down, when Jerusalem is emptied of its inhabitants, and they stand gazing on his cross. Many a long hour had he hung there the sport of Jew and Roman, till at length he cries, " Father, into thine hands I commit my spirit," and then gives up the ghost. A Roman soldier rudely plunges his spear through his heart, in order to make sure that the murderous deed was done. The quaking earth, the reeling city, the veil of the Temple rent in twain from the top to the bottom, the midnight darkness that came over the land at noonday, the silent and retiring multitude, all bear witness that Jesus of Nazareth is no longer among the living. His lifeless body sleeps in the garden in a new sepulcher. In the mean time, unwonted scenes take place within the city; the dead came forth from their graves and appear to many of its horror stricken inhabitants. And on the third day after his crucifixion, this same Jesus, armed with the terrors of a second earthquake, rises from the grave, according to the Scriptures, and appears to his disciples, who went forth and preached through Jesus, the resurrection of the dead. And to crown the whole, this same Jesus, who thus expired on a cross between two malefactors, and rose again on the third day, after having lived forty days on the earth, left the earth which despised and rejected him, and went back to his Father’s throne. There was a small company of Christians, consisting of somewhat more than five hundred, who were assembled on Mount Olivet, who were witnesses of his ascension, when, by his own Godlike omnipotence, he made the clouds his chariot, and walked upon the wings of the wind, and the distant heavens received him out of their sight. Is it easy to conceive of a greater variety of miracles than this?

We remark, again, the miracles of Christ were all of a benevolent character. Inspect them all, from the first which he wrought at the marriage in Cana, of Galilee, consecrated to social joy, to the last, by which he ascended to heaven; and you will perceive that they are striking manifestations of his love and mercy, as well as his power. They were the applications of human want to which he responded; and the cries of human misery and helplessness which reached his ear. It was the courtier’s appeal for a suffering servant; it was the father’s appeal for a dying daughter; it was the cry of the prostrate lunatic, or the foaming demoniac to which he listened. It was the orphan sisters weeping at the grave of their only brother, and the lonely widow broken-hearted for the death of her only son, with whom he sympathized. He did not seek the rich, nor overlook the poor. What he did was without fee or reward. He asked only that these beneficiaries of his benevolent power should receive the greater gift of the gospel of his grace. See that wretched demoniac, naked and bleeding, "howling with agony as a wanderer among the tombs." " Evil spirit, I command thee to come out of him," says Jesus, and the man is " sitting at his feet, clothed, and in his right mind." Go to the lake of Gennesaret, and see that loathsome and frightful form, shut out from the society of men, because " his flesh is putrefied, and inch by inch is dropping from his bones." He had laid himself down to die; but roused by the tumult of the multitude, and told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, he uttered the cry, " Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!" Every eye was fixed on Christ, and every ear heard the prompt reply, " I will; be thou clean!" Look, now, at that dense crowd of human beings, pressing on every side, tossed as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. It is a " perfect sea of faces, and rocked as if it stood upon the sea;" but it is composed of the helpless and those who help them. They are parents who were once the pride and glory of their children, and children who were once the pride and glory of their parents; the rich and the poor, the maimed, the halt, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the palsied, the leprous, and the maniac. As fast as one is healed, another steps in his place. The more distant and helpless begin to despair; and as they give utterance to their despondency, Jesus responds, " All things are possible to him that believeth; go in peace!" Such was the benevolent character of his miracles; they were not wrathful, nor omens of wrath.

We remark again, the miracles of Christ were strongly indicative of those greater cures which he came to perform for the souls of men. They were so in their nature, in the means by which they were effected, and in the prescribed conditions on which they were wrought. If we look at their nature, we perceive that they were bright omens of good to lost men, blind, deaf, diseased, and dead as they are in trespasses and sins. One of the most effective methods by which the minds of Jew and Gentile were arrested, their prejudices subdued, and their prepossessions enlisted in favor of the gospel, was the fact that these miraculous cures of the body preceded the cures which Christ came to effect for the soul. Men everywhere needed to be convinced that Jesus Christ was their best friend, and that he had no other object than to promote their best interests for time and eternity. There was great wisdom and love in his selecting the most distressing diseases of the body and the mind as the medium through which his miraculous power was manifested. It showed the benignity of his heart, and was fitted to disarm their suspicion, win their confidence, and indicate the nature and objects of his heavenly mission. This thought demands more enlargement than we can now give to it; and we must content ourselves with merely selecting a few examples. The miracle of giving sight to the man who was born blind happily illustrates the spiritual illumination of men when they are brought out of darkness into God’s marvellous light. They are born spiritually blind. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Jesus anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam; and when he had done so he was restored to sight. So the dark and benighted sinner, who obeys the voice of Jesus Christ, and washes in Siloam’s fountain, is cured of his blindness by God’s effective grace; sees spiritual things as he never "before saw them, and becomes a monument of the Redeemer’s glory. He may not be able to describe the process of the work of grace in his soul, nor" how this happy change was brought about; but he is conscious of its effects, and can say with the restored Jew, " One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, I now see." Those instances in which Christ cured men of the leprosy are among the most illustrious miracles which he wrought; and most beautifully illustrate the power of his grace in cleansing the soul from the defilement of sin. Just as the leper forfeited his privileges, under the law, of approaching God in his sanctuary, has the sinner forfeited his legal right of drawing nigh unto God. Just as the leper was defiled and unclean and loathsome, so is the sinner defiled and impure, and covered with the wounds and sores and plague of sin. Just as the leper was threatened with a slow and lingering death, so is the spiritual disease of the sinner of the most alarming and dreadful kind, diffusing itself throughout all the faculties of his mind and heart, and everywhere spreading its malignity. Just as the leper was required to have a just sense of his loathsomeness, to lay his hand upon his mouth, and cry unclean! unclean! so is the sinner required to have just apprehensions of his vileness, a deep sense, and a humiliating conviction of his malady. Just as the leper fell at Jesus’ feet, crying " Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean," so is the guilty and perishing sinner’s only refuge and hope in the sovereign and almighty grace of the adorable Saviour; and just as the leper, in his application to the great Healer, found himself a recovered and new man, so the sinner, in thus committing himself to the hands of the Redeemer, is washed from his filthiness; and though the remains of his distemper cleave to him, its deadly poison is extracted, its power broken, and he lives. The most emphatic miracles of Christ, and those which excited the most admiration, were his raising to life the daughter of Jairus, the widow’s son at Nain, and Lazarus. They were not only diseased, but dead; the lamentations of the mourners had begun; one of them was being borne to his sepulcher, and the body of one had become putrescent and lain in the grave four days. But at Christ’s command the departed spirit came again to its earthly tabernacle, and they went forth into the world among the living. So fallen man is not only diseased and far gone in his spiritual malady, but dead in trespasses and sins. Nor is there any power that quickens him but the power of Christ. " You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." By him there is a complete resurrection from the death of sin to a life of righteousness. Christ is their life, and his mighty power it is that quickens them. It is worthy of remark also that the prescribed condition on which Christ wrought his miracles was faith’ in him. " Believest thou that I am able to do this?" " According to your faith be it unto you!" So faith is the revealed condition of the gospel salvation. " He that believeth shall be saved." Christ " is the power of God to every one that believeth." The Saviour, also, as the great Healer, was accessible to all; no matter what their condition in the world, nor how inveterate and hopeless the malady, they had the privilege of applying to him. So have men everywhere the same privilege and the same access. There are no legal obstructions; no adamantine or fiery walls of justice to exclude them from entering into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Christ is a sovereign antidote, and " cleanseth from all sin." No sinner that desires it but may be admitted to his mercy. He need not pine away in his iniquities, for " there is balm in Gilead, and a physician there."

We remark, in the last place, the miracles of Christ were always effective. We know they are so, in regard to the diseases of the soul. He " saves his people from their sins." They are no longer alienated from God, but he is their chosen portion. They are no longer led captive by Satan at his will. Outwardly and inwardly, they are new creatures. They are no longer odious in God’s sight, but the people whom he loves. His wrath no longer abideth in them, nor are they exposed to the arrest of his justice. There is perfect relief in Christ, and he frees the soul " from the law of sin and death." So did his miracles while he was on the earth, accomplish their object. He performed no partial cures, and left no relics of the old malady which he attempted to eradicate. He spake and it was done. Whatever the malady was, no sooner did it come under his treatment, than it was removed. The remedy was complete and permanent. Filthiness was washed away; shame was covered; fear removed; health, comfort, and joy, restored to the abodes of despondency. Not one goes away disappointed and in sadness. The eyes of the blind saw; the lame leaped as a hart; and the tongue of the dumb sang. They were effects which transcended the power of man; and in those cases in which they were effected by means, the means were not only inadequate, but even adverse; while for the most part they were without the intervention of means, and were effected by a touch, a word, or a look. They were always instantaneous, and never unsuccessful. In this respect they differ from the whole class of cures effected by the skill of men, and give the Great Physician the everlasting pre-eminence. We do not disparage the skill of man; nor are we unmindful of those advances in science, which, under the reign of the great Prince and Saviour, have contributed so largely to the relief of human suffering. Wonderful cures are effected even of the deaf and dumb; but in no case is the recovery effected by a look, a word, or a touch, and in none is it complete. Medical skill, through the power of natural causes, may give vigor to the torpid nerves of the ear; but it cannot perform what the Saviour did, " touch the tongue," so that the recovered deaf, without the aid of that culture which so gradually produces articulate speech, can "speak plainly." And it deserves remark, that Jesus invoked no higher power, in the wondrous works he wrought, than his own. It was not in another’s name and by another’s power that he did these things; but by his own power and authority, for he himself was God, and competent to perform the God-like work. The question which he put to the two blind men that came to him was, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" He did it, and he did it effectively for the objects of his compassion, and for his own mighty prerogative, and for the introduction and extension of his kingdom among men.

Such is a compendious view of the miracles of Jesus Christ; and do they not bespeak him glorious? Yet this is the Personage whom that wretched generation nailed mangled and bleeding, to the accursed tree. How true is the record, " They hated me without a cause." They could see no virtue where all virtue was. " Many good works," saith he, "have I done among you; for which of these do you stone me?" This is the man for whom they mingled such bitter waters, and on whom they wreaked their pitiless malignity. There was nothing in his character, nothing in his deeds, nothing either in his influence, or his object, that ought to have provoked them to this cruelty; yet the deed was done, that deed of infernal malignity, which shook their city and their Temple; which, in accordance with their own solemn and fearful imprecation, brought his blood upon themselves and their children, and super-induced over that blinded and wretched people, the midnight darkness of eighteen centuries. No marvel that as he stood over against that ill-fated city, he wept. They were but the convulsive throes of his own divine tenderness, when he bathed his face in his hands, and exclaimed, " O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

Take ye heed how ye reject this Great Healer. The men of that generation had nearer and more obvious testimony of his divine mission, from the miracles he performed, than is possessed by the men of this distant age. But the proof of his miracles is not less real to us, than it was to them. We have the testimony of apostles, because we have their own record, and such abundant proof of its genuineness and authenticity. No question has been more thoroughly scrutinized and sifted than this, both by the enemies and friends of Christianity, and none more satisfactorily settled by the laws of evidence. Christianity cannot afford to be credulous. The human mind cannot demand greater evidence of a divine mission, than is furnished by the credibility of the original witnesses to the miracles of Christ, and the genuineness and authenticity of their recorded testimony. Death has called them away; their dust is perished, and no man knoweth the place of their sepulcher; but their memorial remains. Their evidence is not weakened by the distance of time and place, because it is supported by facts, and facts do not lie. We feel an interest that links us to these bygone generations, and these entombed witnesses, because we have the same faculties of judgment, the same responsibility, the same wants, and the same immortality. Our gospel was theirs; our faith was theirs; our hope, our salvation, rest on the same basis with theirs. We believe in Christ, " for his works’ sake." The appeal which he made to them, he makes to us: "The works which the Father hath given me to finish," says he, " these same works do bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me." Here we rest our confidence, and here they rested theirs, when in the depth of their solitude, they entered the prison from which they went out only to bare their neck to the axe of the executioner. The life giving power of that gospel which gave them victory, when Roman lictors threw off their headless trunks from the scaffold, and cast them to Nero’s lions, cheers us with the light of immortality, even as they were cheered. Jesus said to the Jews, "If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." He came to be the Saviour of men; nor will he now cast out any that come to him, any more than he cast any who came to him in the days of his flesh; no, not one! " Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." He still heals the broken heart, and binds up the prisoner’s wounds. He still preaches the forgiveness of sin, and cures the ills which sin has caused. He still enters the strong man’s house and spoils his goods, and destroys the works, and breaks the chains of that Great Enemy who leads men captive at his will. He still raises the dead in trespasses and sin, and quickens whom he will. " Verily I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is; when they that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and they that hear shall live."

I would not turn away from such a Healer. I would not reject such evidence of his mission. I would not refuse to inquire and satisfy myself of the foundation of bis claims. Nor would I be long in prosecuting that inquiry, nor slow of heart to believe in him, lest he should come suddenly and shut the door of hope. The remedy is simple: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." You will be won over to him, if you once see him in his true loveliness and glory. There is form and comeliness in him, and beauty, and everything to make him to be desired.

" Ne’er in heaven’s mansions, calm and bright, Did his immortal brow Send forth its pure, celestial light, More gloriously than now."

Great Physician! Almighty Healer! come to us from thine own mansions, and show us thy glory here, in this low, dark world. Every one who, having seen the Son, hath believed in him, hath everlasting life. Say not, I know he can heal me, and save me; but I am unworthy! So thought the suffering paralytic. But Jesus said to him, "My son!’’ — they were strange words, but they opened the sufferer’s mind to new views, and new confidence in the Divine Healer — "My son be of good courage, thy sins are forgiven thee "