knowledge and discovery, and it is a principle even of piety; but wonder, which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with wondering, is the quality of an idiot.

This stupidity, so common in all ranks of men,-for what I now describe is no peculiarity of those who are ordinarily called the vulgar and illiterate,-this stupidity is not natural to man: it is the effect of an over-solicitude about the low concerns of the present world, which alienates the mind from objects most worthy its attention, and keeps its noble faculties employed on things of an inferior sort, drawing them aside from all inquiries, except what may be the speediest means to increase a man's wealth and advance his worldly interests.

When the stupidity arising from this attachment to the world is connected, as sometimes it is, with a principle of positive infidelity, or, which is much the same thing, with an entire negligence and practical forgetfulness of God, it makes the man a perfect savage. When this is not the case, when this stupid indifference to the causes of the ordinary and extraordinary occurrences of the world, and something of a general belief in God's providence, meet, as they often do, in the same character, it is a circumstance of great danger to the man's spiritual state, because it exposes him to be the easy prey of every impostor. The religion of such persons has always a great tendency toward superstition; for, as their uninquisitive temper keeps them in a total ignorance about secondary causes, they are apt to refer every thing which is out of what they call the common course of nature,—that is, which is out of the course of their own daily observation and experience,-to an immediate exertion of the power of God: and thus the common sleightof-hand tricks of any vagabond conjurer may be passed off upon such people for real miracles. Such persons as these were they who, when they saw a dumb demoniac endued with speech by our Lord, were content to wonder at it.

The Pharisees, however, a set of men improved in their understandings, but wretchedly hardened in their hearts,

were not without some jealousy even of this stupid wonderment. They knew that the natural effect of wonder, if it rested on the mind, would be inquiry after a cause; and they dreaded the conclusions to which inquiry in this case might lead. They would not, therefore, trust these people, as perhaps they might have done with perfect secu-rity, to their own stupidity; but they suggested a principle to stop inquiry. They told the people, that our Lord cast out devils by the aid and assistance of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. This extraordinary suggestion of the Pharisees will come under consideration in its proper place.

We read again, in St. Matthew, that our Lord, upon another occasion, restored a dumb demoniac to his speech; and the multitude assembled upon this occasion marvelled, saying, "It was never so seen in Israel." These people came some small matter nearer to the ancient definition of man, than the wondering blockheads in St. Luke, who had been spectators of the former miracle. They not only wondered, but they bestowed some thought upon the subject of their wonder; and in their reasonings upon it they went some little way. They recollected the miracles, recorded in their sacred books, of Moses, and some of the ancient prophets: they compared this performance of our Lord with those, and perhaps with things that they had seen done in their own times by professed exorcisers; and the comparison brought them to this conclusion, that "it was never so seen in Israel," that our Lord's miracle surpassed any thing that ever had been seen even in that people which was under the immediate and peculiar government of God, and among whom extraordinary interpositions of power had, for that reason, been not unfrequent. They seem, however, to have stopped short at this conclusion. They proceeded not to the obvious consequence, that this worker of greater miracles was a greater perso nage, and of higher authority than Moses and the prophets. The Pharisees, however, as might be expected, again took

alarm, and, to stifle inquiry, had recourse to their former solution of the wonder, that our Lord cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.

Upon a third occasion, as we read again in this same evangelist, St. Matthew, a person was brought to our Lord,' "possessed with a devil, and blind and dumb." Our Lord healed him," insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." The populace, upon this occasion, were amazed. But they were not only amazed,--they said not only that it never was so seen in Israel, but they went much farther; they said, "Is not this the Son of David?" Of these people, we may assert that they were not far from the kingdom of God." They looked for the redemption of Israel by a son of David: they believed, therefore, in God's promises by his prophets ;' and they entertained a suspicion, though it appears not that they went farther, that this might probably be the expected son of David. The alarm of the Pharisees was increased, and they had recourse to their former suggestion.

The manner in which these people treated the miracles which were done under their eyes, comes now under consideration.

They were impressed with wonder, it seems, no less than the common people; but their wonder was connected with the pretence at least of philosophical disquisition upon the phenomena which excited it. They admitted that the things done, in every one of these instances, were beyond the natural powers of man, and must be referred to the extraordinary agency of some superior being; but they contended, that there was no necessity to recur to an immediate exertion of God's own power,-that the power of the chief of the rebellious spirits was adequate to the effect.

This suggestion of the Pharisees proceeded upon an assumption, which, considered generally, and in the abstract,' without an application to any specific case, cannot be denied: they supposed that beings superior to man, but still created beings, whose powers fell short of the Divine, might possess that degree of power over many parts of the universe which might be adequate to effects quite out of the com

mon course of nature; and that, by a familiarity with some of these superior beings, a man might perform miracles.

Some of the philosophizing divines of latter times, who, under the mask of zeal for religion, have done it more disservice than its open enemies,-some of these, anxious, as they would pretend, for the credit of our Lord's miracles, and for the general evidence of miracles, have gone the length of an absolute denial of these principles, and have ventured to assert, that nothing preternatural can happen in the world but by an immediate act of God's own power. The assertion in itself, is absurd, and in its consequences dangerous; and nothing is to be found in reason or in Scripture for its support,-much for its confutation. Analogy is the only ground upon which reason, in this question, can proceed; and analogy decides for the truth of the general principle of the Pharisees. Not, certainly, in their application of it to the specific case of our Lord's miracles,—but for the truth of their general principle, that subordinate beings may be the immediate agents in many preternatural effects, analogy is clearly on their side. It is a matter of fact and daily experience, that mere man, in addition to the natural dominion of the mind of every individual over the body which he animates, has acquired an empire of no small extent over the matter of the external world. By optical machines, we can look into the celestial bodies with more accuracy and percision, than with the naked eye we can look from an eminence into a city at the distance of a few miles; we can form a judgment of the materials of which they are composed; we can measure their distances; we can assign the quantity of matter they severally contain,— the density of the matter of which they are made; we can estimate their mechanical powers: we know the weight of a given quantity of matter on the surface of the sun, as well as we know its weight upon the surface of the earth: we can break the compound light of day into the constituent parts of which it is composed. But this is not all: our acquired power goes to practical effects. We press the elements into our service, and can direct the general principles of the

mechanism of the universe to the purposes of man; we can employ the buoyancy of the waters and the power of the winds to navigate vast unwieldy vessels to the remotest regions of the globe, for the purposes of commerce or of war; and we animate an iron pin, turning on a pivot, to direct the course of the mariner to his destined port; we can' kindle a fire by the rays of the sun, collected in the focus of a burning-glass, and produce a heat which subdues that stubborn metal which defies the chemist's furnace; we can avert the stroke of lightning from our buildings. These are obvious instances of man's acquired power over the natural elements,—a power which produces effects which might seem preternatural to those who have no knowledge of the means. And shall we say that beings superior to man may not have powers of a more considerable extent, which they may exercise in a more summary way,which produce effects far more wonderful, such as shall be truly miraculous with respect to our conceptions, who have no knowledge of their means?

Then, for Scripture, it is very explicit in asserting the existence of an order of beings far superior to man; and it gives something more than obscure intimations, that the holy angels are employed upon extraordinary occasions in the affairs of men, and the management of this sublunary world.

But the Pharisees went farther: their argument supposed that even the apostate spirits have powers adequate to the production of preternatural effects. And, with respect to this general principle, there is nothing either in reason or Scripture to confute it.

Reason must recur again to analogy. And we find not that the powers which men exercise over the natural elements, are at all proportioned to the different degrees of their moral goodness or their religious attainments. The stoic and the libertine, the sinner and the saint, are equally adroit in the application of the telescope and the quadrant, -in the use of the compass,-in the management of the sail,