the miracle of the pillar of fire and cloud. I know not that even if it had lasted but a day, it could have been entitled with justice a transient miracle. But, continued as it was during a period of forty years, it constitutes in itself a series of miracles, not the less strongly, but rather the more strongly evidenced, because similar in appearance or kind. And the case is the same with regard to the miraculous manna with which the Israelites were so long fed in the wilderness; and with regard to the evidence of the resurrection of our Saviour, who was seen of his disciples forty days.

Nor is it any objection to this, it is indeed, only what we might have expected, that some of the miracles which are recorded in Scripture would, if taken by themselves in those accounts which we have of them, exhibit a less evidence than those which I have selected, of really indicating a superhuman agency. In some diseases, as in some cases of palsy, it may not be easy to deny to the strength of the imagination, or of an ardent faith in a teacher's divine authority, the power of working cures so very extraordinary, that if the cures of this kind which are recorded in the Gospel had stood singly, unaccompanied

by others of a more incontestable kind, I know not that we could have laid much stress on them. But coupled, as these cases are coupled in the Gospel, with acts of a power indisputably superhuman, the superhuman power which exists indisputably in the one class is a sufficient proof under all circumstances of the superhuman agency which is asserted in the other. And though these cures thus add nothing, directly, to the actual evidence of superhuman power, yet when that evidence is once completed they add much to the probability of the religion, inasmuch as it is probable that a divine teacher would have other reasons for working miracles, besides that of urging them as the evidence of his authority. Thus it has often been justly observed of the Gospel miracles, that they are manifestly not solely intended to authenticate the mission, but that they are also intended to illustrate the character of Christ, and to give just notions of the nature of his religion.

Besides this also, it is a highly reasonable conclusion that if a power of working miracles be vested in any person, it will, in all probability, not only be exerted in many instances, not only in some instances of which the particular evi

dence may not come to us in a very satisfactory shape; but also that it will be sometimes exerted on what may appear to us trifling occasions. It may probably be given for one or more principal ends; and yet, being given, may, like many natural agents, be employed for others which are very subordinate. To adopt a comparison from human art or contrivance,-it would be highly ridiculous to erect a steam engine for the mere purpose of opening and shutting a valve but the engine being erected is very wisely employed both for this, and for many other purposes which, comparatively speaking, are of very little significance.

SECTION III.

OF THE EVIDENCE FROM THE IMPRESSION MADE ON THE ORIGINAL WITNESSES; AND THE FULNESS OF THAT CONVICTION WHICH THEY ENTERTAINED.

I. IT was shown in the last section that the great number of the miracles is a point of much strength to prove their real performance, and not at all weakened, although some of the miracles are of a nature which might be suspected if they stood by themselves. I now propose to show farther, that though, in our accounts of some of those miracles, which are in themselves of the most incontrovertible nature, we find no enumeration of those conditions which are undoubtedly requisite to prove the exertion of a really superhuman power, yet in most of these cases we still possess a sufficient evidence of it in the impression which we know was made on the witnesses.

This impression appears to me the important part of the business, the important part of the evidence which we possess that the power exerted was really superhuman. The circumtances may be in all cases, or almost all, the

proof whether an act be superhuman or not: as, in the Gospel miracles, the giving of sight to the blind, and the restoration of Lazarus to life, are proved to be miracles by the circumstances of each case, the eyes being in the one case anointed only with clay, Lazarus, in the other case, being restored to life by a word. If our Saviour had couched the eyes in the one case, and in the other case poured a medicine down the throat of a man who, for anything we could know to the contrary, might have been dead only in appearance, we should demur to the evidence of the superhuman act.

But then though certainly on some accounts satisfactory, it is not indispensable that these circumstances should be related. If the thing done be what we know may be done by human art, or by a religious impostor, aided by the strength of a deluded imagination, we forbear our assent unless a known deity be seen or proved to exert his authority. But if, on the contrary, it be sufficiently evidenced to us by the affirmation or testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, that the thing done is a thing which art cannot do, and in which the imagination cannot possibly be deluded, we conclude on the credit