(Mark ii. 3.) A man with a withered hand is in the synagogue;
Jesus bid him stretch forth his hand in the presence of the assembly,
and it was "restored whole like the other." (Matt. xii. 10.) There was
nothing tentative in these cures; nothing that can be explained by the
power of accident.
We may observe, also, that many of the cures which Christ wrought, such
as that of a person blind from his birth; also many miracles besides
cures, as raising the dead, walking upon the sea, feeding a great
multitude with a few loaves and fishes, are of a nature which does not
in anywise admit of the supposition of a fortunate experiment.
III. We may dismiss from the question all accounts in which, allowing
the phenomenon to be real, the fact to be true, it still remains
doubtful whether a miracle were wrought. This is the case with the
ancient history of what is called the thundering legion, of the
extraordinary circumstances which obstructed the rebuilding of the
temple at Jerusalem by Julian; the circling of the flames and fragrant
smell at the martyrdom of Polycarp; the sudden shower that extinguished
the fire into which the Scriptures were thrown in the Diocletian
persecution; Constantine's dream; his inscribing in consequence of it
the cross upon his standard and the shields of his soldiers; his
victory, and the escape of the standard-bearer; perhaps, also, the
imagined appearance of the cross in the heavens, though this last
circumstance is very deficient in historical evidence.
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