tage only respected the common people, who regarded John as a true prophet. By the chief priests and rulers of the nation, to whom John had paid no court, he was regarded in a much less favourable light. Nothing, therefore, that John had said, or done, would difpofe them to give Jesus a more favourable reception; but on the contrary would lead them to regard him with a jealous eye. And this jealousy was foon inflamed to hatred and the blackest malignity, though he performed miracles which they could not deny to be fuch, as foon as he appeared, like John, to pay no court to them, but on the contrary openly to expose their hypocrify and other vices, and to denounce the judgments of God against them. In this state of open oppofition to all perfons in poffeffion of power, and alfo to all the learned and most intelligent perfons in the country, the conduct of Jefus would, no doubt, be most narrowly watched; and any thing in him looking like artifice could not fail to have been expofed, and he would have been punished as an impoftor and a blafphemer. Notwith

Notwithstanding thefe deep-rooted prejudices, and these great difadvantages, the miracles of Jefus were fo numerous, and fo confpicuous, that no doubt was entertained of them. Great numbers openly avowed themselves to be his difciples, and even received him as their promifed Meffiah; and they whose prejudices would not suffer them to acknowledge this, did not deny his miracles, but afcribed them to fome other cause than the power of God.

Let us, then, confider the circumstances of miracles which produced fo wonderful an effect; and we fhall find that, extraordinary as it was, the caufe was equal to it. The miracles were fo circumftanced, that it was impoffible to fufpect that there was any impofition in the cafe. As Nicodemus acknowledged, no man could have done the things that Jefus did, if God had not been with him.

1. The number of the miracles performed by Jesus was beyond all example in any preceding time, even thofe of Mofes and Elijah, if we except the ftanding miracle of the defcent of the manna, which was

repeated every day (excepting the sabbath) during forty years. Now an impostor, so narrowly watched as Jefus must have known himself to be, and without affiftants, as he must have been at least at the first, would never have attempted fo many miracles, from the certainty of his being detected in fome of them, though he should have fucceeded in others; and a fingle failure would have been fufficient to expose the whole scheme.

Notwithstanding this, Jefus appears never to have omitted a single opportunity of performing the benevolent miracle of curing diseases of every kind, whoever applied to him for that purpose. With artful management a single perfon, or a few perfons, might appear to be blind, or lame, and fuddenly to recover their fight, or the ufe of their limbs, when commanded fo to do; but Jefus made no exception to any kind of difeafe; and what is much more extraordinary, any maim, or the total want of any limb. too bold for the most artful

impoftor to have undertaken.

This was far and practifed

That fo impudent

impudent an attempt as this fhould have fucceeded, in fuch peculiarly unfavourable circumftances, and to the extent that all history, and the prefent ftate of things, fhews that it did fucceed, would be a greater miracle than any that are recorded by the evangelists.

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It is probable that but few of the miracles performed by Jefus are recorded in the histories we have of him. All the lifts allude to great numbers not specified by them, and they seem to have selected only the more remarkable of them: yet in the history of little more than one year (for the public miniftry of Jefus did not extend beyond this short period) they particularly mention the following, probably only as more distinguished by their circumstances than the rest. Of lepers, mention is made of one who met him at the foot of the mountain on which he had delivered the difcourfe of which we have an account in Matthew and Luke; and of ten who applied to him at the fame time, one of whom was a Samaritan. Of a fever he cured Peter's wife's mother at Capernaum, and ą

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nobleman's fon of the fame place, when he was at a distance. Of blind men there was one whom he met near Bethfaida; another, who had been blind from his birth, at Jerufalem; and two near to Jericho. Of the pally he cured a centurion's fervant at Capernaum before he came to the houfe. Another paralytic perfon was brought to him on a bed, and let down through the roof of the house where he was; and one perfon he cured of a withered hand in a fynagogue on the fabbath day.

Of demoniacs, or infane perfons, he cured one in a fynagogue at Capernaum, the miracle which first excited the particular attention of the public to him; another who was raging mad, and wholly intractable, in Gadara; another who, befides being infane, was both blind and dumb, prefently after the calling of the twelve apoftles. In this cafe he also relieved the daughter of a Syrophenician woman; and another young perfon at the foot of the mount of transfiguration. And incidental mention is made of his having cured Mary Magdalene, who had been grievously afflicted in this way,

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