ch term I mean to denote miracles of which the
whole existence is of short duration, in contradistinction to miracles
which are attended with permanent effects. The appearance of a spectre,
the hearing of a supernatural sound, is a momentary miracle. The
sensible proof is gone when the apparition or sound is over. But if a
person born blind be restored to sight, a notorious cripple to the use
of his limbs, or a dead man to life, here is a permanent effect produced
by supernatural means. The change indeed was instantaneous, but the
proof continues. The subject of the miracle remains. The man cured or
restored is there: his former condition was known, and his present
condition may be examined. This can by no possibility be resolved into
false perception: and of this kind are by far the greater part of the
miracles recorded in the New Testament. When Lazarus was raised from the
dead, he did not merely move, and speak, and die again; or come out of
the grave, and vanish away. He returned to his home and family, and
there continued; for we find him some time afterwards in the same town,
sitting at table with Jesus and his sisters; visited by great multitudes
of the Jews as a subject of curiosity; giving, by his presence, so much
uneasiness to the Jewish rulers as to beget in them a design of
destroying him. (John xii. 1, 2, 9, 10.) No delusion can account for
this. The French prophets in England, some time since, gave out that one
of their teachers would come to life again; but their enthusiasm never
made them believe that they actually saw him alive. The blind man whose
restoration to sight at Jerusalem is recorded in the ninth chapter of
Saint John's Gospel did not quit the place or conceal himself from
inquiry. On the contrary, he was forthcoming, to answer the call, to
satisfy the scrutiny, and to sustain the browbeating of Christ's angry
and powerful enemies. When the cripple at the gate of the temple was
suddenly cured by Peter, (Acts iii. 2.) he did not immediately relapse
into his former lameness, or disappear out of the city; but boldly and
honestly produced himself along with the apostles, when they were
brought the next day before the Jewish council. (Acts iv. 14.) Here,
though the miracle was sudden, the proof was permanent. The lameness had
been notorious, the cure continued. This, therefore, could not be the
effect of any momentary delirium, either in the subject or in the
witnesses of the transaction. It is the