must allow that they were done by some familiarity of these magicians with the Devil: for they were done in express defiance of God's power; they were done to discredit his messenger, and to encourage the king of Egypt to disregard the message.

It was not, therefore, in the general principle, that miracles may be wrought by the aid of evil spirits, that the weakness lay of the objection made by the Pharisees to our Lord's miracles, as evidence of his mission. Our Lord himself called not this general principle in question, any more than the writers of the Old Testament call in question the reality of the miracles of the Egyptian magicians. But the folly of their objection lay in their application of it to the specific instance of our Lord's miracles, which, as he replied to them at the time, were works no less diametrically opposite to the Devil's purposes, and the interests of his kingdom, than the feats of Pharaoh's magicians, or any other wonders that have at any time been exhibited by wicked men in compact with the Devil, have been in opposition to God. Our Lord's miracles, in the immediate effects of the individual acts, were works of charity: they were works which, in the immediate effect of the individual acts, rescued the bodies of miserable men from that tyranny, which before the coming of our Lord, the Devil had been permitted to exercise over them; and the general end and intention of them all, was the utter demolition of the Devil's kingdom, and the establishment of the kingdom of God upon its ruins. And to suppose that the Devil lent his own power for the furtherance of this. work, was, as our Lord justly argued, to suppose that the Devil was waging war upon himself.

There is, however, another principle upon which the truth of our Lord's miracles, as evidence of his mission from the Father, may be argued,-a principle which applies to our Lord's miracles exclusively, and gives

them a degree of credit beyond any miracles, except his own, and those which after his ascension were performed by his disciples, in his name, in the primitive ages. To this principle we are led, by considering the manner in which the particular miracle to which my text relates affected the spectators of it, who seem to have been per. sons of a very different complexion from any that have yet come before us:

“ They were beyond measure astonished;"_SO we read in our English Bibles; but the better rendering of the Greek words of the evangelist would be, “ 'They were superabundantly astonished, saying, He hath done all things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.”

They were superabundantly astonished ;--not that their astonishment was out of proportion to the extraordinary nature of the thing they had seen, as if the thing was less extraordinary than they thought it; but their astonishment was justly carried to a height which no astonishment could exceed. This is that superabundant astonishment which the evangelist describes, not taxing it with extravagance. It was not the astonishment of ignorance: it was an astonishment upon principle and upon knowledge. It was not the astonishment of those who saw a thing done which they thought utterly unaccountable. They knew how to account for it: they knew that the finger of God himself was the efficient cause of what they saw; and to that cause, they, without hesitation, yet not hastily and in surprise, but upon the most solid principles of belief, referred it. It was not the astonishment of those who see a thing donę which they thought would never come to pass : it was the astonishment of those who find a hope which they had entertained of something very extraordinary to be done, satisfied in a degree equal to or beyond their utmost expectations: it was the astonishment of those who saw an extraordinary thing, which they expected to take place some time or other, but knew not exactly when, accomplished in their own times, and under their own inspection: it was that sort of astonishment which any of us, who firmly expect the second coming of our Lord, but knowing not the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power, look not for it at any definite time, it was that sort of astonishment which we should feel, if we saw the sign of the Son of Man this moment displayed in the heavens: for, observe the remark of these people upon the miracle,“ He hath

“ done all things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” To have done a thing well, is a sort of commendation which we bestow, not upon a man that performs some extraordinary feat, which we had no reason to expect from him, but upon a man who executes that which by his calling and profession it is his proper task to do, in the manner that we have à right to expect and demand of him, who pretends and professes to be a master in that particular business. This is the praise which these people bestowed upon our Lord's performances. “He hath done all things

“ well;"-he hath done every thing in the most perfect manner which we had a right to expect that he should do, who should come to us assuming the character of our Messiah. • The ancient prophecies had described all the circumstances of our Saviour's birth, life, and death; and, with other circumstances, had distinctly specified the sort of miracles which he should perform. This is the circumstance which, I say, is peculiar to our Lord's miracles, and puts the evidence of them beyond all doubt, and supersedes the necessity of all disputation concerning the general evidence of miracles. Our Lord, and of all persons who have ever appeared in the world, pretending to work miracles, or really working miracles

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in proof of a divine mission, our Lord alone, could appeal to a body of recorded prophecy, delivered many hundred years before he came into the world, and say, “ In these ancient oracles it is predicted that the Messiah, appearing among you at a time defined by certain signs and characters, shall be known by his performing not miracles generally but such and such specific mi. racles. At a time distinguished by those signs and characters, I come; those specific works I do; and I exhibit the character of the Messiah, delineated in those prophecies, in all its circumstances.”

It is remarkable, that our Lord, in reply to the Pha, risees, condescended not to resort to this summary and overbearing proof. But he answered their objection by an argument, just indeed, and irresistibly conclusive, but of more refinement. This, I conceive, was in resentment of the insincerity of these uncandid adversaries. It is indisputable, from many circumstances in the gospel history, that the Pharisees knew our Lord to be the Messiah; and yet they were carried, by motives of worldly interest, to disown him, just as Judas knew him to be the Messiah, and yet he was carried, by motives of worldly interest, to betray him. Thus, disowning the Messiah, whom they knew, they were de. liberate apostates from their God; and they were treated as they deserved, when our Lord rather exposed the futility of their own arguments against him, than vouchsafed to offer that sort of evidence, which, to any that were not obstinate in wilful error, must have been irresistible, and which had indeed to the godly multitude offered itself. But when John the Baptist sent his disciples to inquire of Jesus if he was the person who was to come, or whether they were to look for another (they were sent, you will observe, for their own conviction, not for John's satisfaction; for he at this time could · have no doubt), our Lord was pleased to deal with them

in a very different manner. He made them eye-witnesses of many of those miracles which were a literal comple, tion of the prophecies, and bade them go back and tell John what they had heard and seen. “Go and tell your master that you have seen me restore the paralytic; you have seen me cleanse the leper, cure the lame, the blind, the deaf, and the dumb; you have seen me liberate the possessed; you have seen me raise the dead; and you have heard me preach the gospel to the poor. He will connect these things with the prophecies that have gone before concerning me; he will tell you what conclusion you must draw, and set before you the danger which threatens those who are scandalized in me."

I must now turn from this general subject, nor farther pursue the interesting meditations which it might suggest, in order to apply the whole to the particular occasion which has brought me hither.

You will recollect, that the miracles which are speci. fied in the prophecies as works that should characterize the Messiah when he should appear, were in great part the cure of diseases, by natural means the most difficult of cure, and the relief of natural imperfections and inabilities. In such works our Lord himself delighted; and the miraculous powers, so long as they subsisted in the church, were exercised by the first disciples chiefly in acts of mercy of the same kind. Now that th miraculous powers are withdrawn, we act in conformity to the spirit of our holy religion, and to our Lord's own example, when we endeavour what we can to extend relief, by such natural means as are within our power, to the like instances of distress. It was prophesied of our Lord, that when he should come to save those that were of a fearful heart, “ the eyes of the blind should be opened, and the ears of the deaf should be unstopped; that the lame man should leap as the hart, and the