Christ's own miracles were momentary; as the transfiguration, the appearance and voice from Heaven at His Baptism, a voice from the clouds on one occasion afterwards (John xii. 28), and some others. It is not denied that the distinction which we have proposed concerning miracles of this species applies, in diminution of the force of the evidence, as much to these instances as to others. But this is the case, not with all the miracles ascribed to Christ, nor with the greatest part, nor with many. Whatever force, therefore, there may be in the objection, we have numerous miracles which are free from it: and even those to which it is applicable, are little affected by it in their credit, because there are few, who, admitting the rest, will reject them. If there be miracles of the New Testament, which come within any of the other heads into which we have distributed the objections, the same remark must be repeated. And this is one way in which the unexampled number and variety of the miracles ascribed to Christ strengthens the credibility of Christianity. For it precludes any solution, or conjecture about a solution, which imagination, or even which experience, might suggest concerning some particular miracles, if considered independently of others. The miracles of Christ were of various

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kinds, and performed in great varieties of situation, form, and manner: at Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Jewish nation and religion; in different parts of Judea and Galilee; in cities and villages; in synagogues, in private houses; in the street, in highways; with preparation, as in the case of Lazarus; by accident, as in the case of the widow's son of Nain; when attended by multitudes, and when alone with the patient; in the midst of His disciples, and in the presence of His enemies; with the common people around Him, and before Scribes and Pharisees, and rulers of the synagogues.*

Not only healing every species of disease, but turning water into wine (John ii.); feeding multitudes with a few loaves and fishes (Matt. xiv. 15; Mark vi. 35; Luke ix. 12; John vi. 5); walking on the sea (Matt. xiv. 25); calming a storm (Matt. viii. 26; Luke viii. 24); a celestial voice at His Baptism, and miraculous appearance (Matt. iii. 16; afterwards John xii. 28); His transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1-8; Mark ix. 2; Luke ix. 28; 2 Peter i. 16, 17); raising the dead in three distinct instances (Matt. ix. 18; Mark v. 22; Luke viii. 41; Luke vii. 14; John xi.).

To the exceptions enumerated by Paley may be added accounts of miracles analogous to known physical effects, such as luminous appearances in the air, the sweating statues of the ancients, and the weeping Madonnas of Romish countries; or analogous to intellectual efforts, as when the Koran itself is styled a miracle. Miracles, too, in one line or confined to one place, are liable to doubt, for it is probable that if Providence permitted them to be wrought at all they would exhibit variety (as Paley well

I apprehend that, when we remove from the comparison the cases which are fairly disposed of by the observations that have been stated, many cases will not remain. To those which do remain, we apply this final distinction: "that there is not satisfactory evidence, that persons, pretending to be original witnesses of the miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undertaken and undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and properly in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts."

remarks those of Christ did), and would not be restrained by local limits. It is remarkable that they who fully believed in magical or demoniac agency recognized a marked distinction between such miracles and those of Christ ("No man can do these miracles that Thou doest except God be with him," John iii. 2). The resurrection of Lazarus excited astonishment and anger in the minds of the Pharisees, who admitted the supernatural agency of demons. The Athenians, to whom the arts of magic and the responses of the oracles were familiar, mocked when they heard of the resurrection of the dead (Acts xvii. 32).— EDITOR.

CHAPTER II.

BUT they, with whom we argue, have undoubtedly a right to select their own examples. The instances with which Mr. Hume has chosen to confront the miracles of the New Testament, and which, therefore, we are entitled to regard as the strongest which the history of the world could supply to the inquiries of a very acute and learned adversary, are the three following:

I. The cure of a blind and of a lame man of Alexandria, by the Emperor Vespasian, as related by Tacitus;

II. The restoration of the limb of an attendant in a Spanish church, as told by Cardinal de Retz; and,

III. The cures said to have been performed at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, in the early part of the present1 century.

I. The narrative of Tacitus is delivered in these terms: "One of the common people of Alexandria, known to be diseased in his eyes, by the admonition of the god Serapis, whom that superstitious nation worship above all other gods, prostrated himself before the emperor, earnestly imploring from him a remedy for his The eighteenth.

blindness, and entreating that he would deign to anoint with his spittle his cheeks and the balls of his eyes. Another, diseased in his hand, requested, by the admonition of the same god, that he might be touched by the foot of the emperor. Vespasian at first derided and despised their application; afterwards, when they continued to urge their petitions, he sometimes appeared to dread the imputation of vanity; at other times, by the earnest supplication of the patients, and the persuasion of his flatterers, to be induced to hope for success. At length he commanded an inquiry to be made by the physicians, whether such a blindness and debility were vincible by human aid. The report of the physicians contained various points, that in the one the power of vision was not destroyed, but would return if the obstacles were removed; that in the other the diseased joints might be restored, if a healing power were applied; that it was, perhaps, agreeable to the gods to do this; that the emperor was elected by divine assistance; lastly, that the credit of the success would be the emperor's, the ridicule of the disappointment would fall upon the patients. Vespasian, believing that everything was in the power of his fortune, and that nothing was any longer incredible, while the multitude