gift of healing, for some hundred years past, visible in this our nation, and annexed to the succession of our Christian Kings: I mean the cure of the otherwise generally incurable disease, called Morbus Regius or the King's Evil. That divers persons desperately labouring under it have been cured by the mere touch of the royal hand, assisted with the prayers of the priests of our Church attending, is unquestionable, unless the faith of all our ancient writers, and the consentient report of hundreds of most credible persons in our own age," (the writer died 1709-10,) “attesting the same, be to be questioned."

He then proceeds to shew that, if some were not cured, this was because God had not given the gift so absolutely, but that he still kept the reins of it in his own hand; as he had shewn, just before, in the case of the Apostle. Thus, up to not many years before the service was finally excluded from our Prayer-book, we find a Bishop-whatever might be his doctrines on some important points, certainly a respectable authority in a matter of fact-asserting the gift, and asserting it upon the consentient report of hundreds of most credible persons in his own age, attesting the same.

3. The sentence of the Common Prayer and the Canons being such as we have seen, those who seek the denial of miracles in the authorized formularies of the Church of England will in vain turn for comfort to the Homilies. The Homily "Against Peril of Idolatry" plainly admits (in accordance with the Reformers, as we have already seen,) that, "where images be," some miraculous acts may have been done by illusion of the devil; observing, that

"Neither ought miracles to persuade us to do contrary

to God's word. For the Scriptures have for a warning hereof foreshewed, that the kingdom of Antichrist shall be mighty in miracles and wonders, to the strong illusion of all the reprobate*."

The same Homily, also, to prove the estimation in which Epiphanius, who flourished towards the end of the fourth century, was held, cites a passage recording miracles wrought by him.

"And in the Tripartite Ecclesiastical History, the ninth book, and forty-eighth chapter, is testified, that Epiphanius, being yet alive, did work miracles, and that after his death devils, being expelled at his grave or tomb, did roar.' Thus you see what authority St. Jerome, and that most ancient history," (I cite only the latter authority, as referring to our present purpose,) give unto the holy and learned Bishop Epiphanius, whose judgment of images in churches and temples, then beginning by stealth, to creep in, is worthy to be noted †."

And this Homily also represents, as a miraculous sign, a darkness of the sun as late as the eighth century, which continued seventeen days:

"In this history, joined to Eutropius, it is written, that the sun was darkened by the space of seventeen days most strangely and dreadfully, and that all men said, that for the horribleness of that cruel and unnatural fact of Irene, and the putting out of the Emperor's eyes, the sun had lost his light. But, indeed, God would signify, by the darkness of the sun, into what darkness and blindness of ignorance and idolatry all Christendom should fall, by the occasion of images. The bright sun of his eternal truth, and light of his holy word, by the mists and black clouds of men's traditions being blemished and darkened, as by sundry most terrible earthquakes, that happened about the same time, God signified, that the quiet state of true religion should by such idolatry be most horribly tossed and turmoiled +."

*

p. 195.

† p. 159.

‡ p. 172,

Y

But to come to more recent times, the Homily for Whitsunday distinctly represents the Holy Spirit as still working miraculously, and conferring miraculous gifts.

"Now, let us consider what the Holy Ghost is, and how consequently he worketh his miraculous works towards mankind *.'

It may be urged, that here his internal operations, only, are intended; as where it is said, afterwards,

"Did not God's Holy Spirit miraculously work in Matthew +?"

I answer, His internal operations may be included but these are plainly not the only ones meant; witness the next page:

"Here is now that glass, wherein thou must behold thyself, and discern whether thou have the Holy Ghost within thee, or the spirit of the flesh. If thou see that thy works be virtuous and good, consonant to the prescript rule of God's word, savouring and tasting not of the flesh but of the Spirit, then assure thyself that thou art endued with the Holy Ghost: otherwise, in thinking well of thyself, thou dost nothing else but deceive thyself. The Holy Ghost doth ALWAYS declare himself by his fruitful and gracious gifts; namely, by the word of wisdom, by the word of knowledge, which is the understanding of the Scriptures by faith, in doing of miracles, by healing them that are diseased, by prophecy, which is the declaration of God's mysteries, by discerning of spirits, diversities of tongues, interpretation of tongues, and so forth. All which gifts, as they proceed from one Spirit, and are severally given to man according to the measurable distribution of the Holy Ghost; even so do they bring men, and not without good cause, into a wonderful admiration of God's Divine power."

And in the next page,

"Much more might here be spoken of the manifold gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, most excellent and wonderful in our eyes; but to make a long discourse through all, the shortness of time will not serve *."

I must now, then, turn to those opponents of post-Apostolic miracles who profess themselves members of the Church of England, and tell them, with the evidence here before their faces, that their extreme wrath, and persecuting bitterness of opposition, are any thing but churchman-like. What a shameless and scandalous deception; when it is clear not only that miracles were wrought, admitted, or experienced, both by the Reformers, and by those most resembling them before and after the Reformation, but that the doctrine is distinctly recognised by our Church, to choose out that amongst all modern heresies which is viewed with the greatest horror, but a few years after they themselves blinked it in another quarter, and to write, under the name of every one who thinks the Christian dispensation miraculous, that he belongs to THIS! The fact, however, is, that the bulk of those modern opponents of miracles, who pass for churchmen, are not churchmen, but liberals. Whenever a man persecutes, I know him for a "liberal" beforehand : and whenever a man sets up for a "liberal he is sure to prove a persecutor.

So much for the doctrines of the Church of England. Advancing to particular occurrences of recent date, we find the subject branching

p. 392.

out into so many details, that I feel a difficulty in taking it up, unless with more leisure than I can at present command. I may observe, however, that the narrative respecting the convert from Popery, who once met a maniac in the streets, and was dashed by him to the earth, given in the MORNING WATCH, and derided in the CHRISTIAN OBSERVER as anile and absurd, is taken from the life of the celebrated Boos, a life well known on the Continent, and distinguished by many miraculous circumstances. Fire certainly

came down from heaven, and consumed his paper, while he was meditating to preach a written sermon, and thus to evade the preaching of the truth. The writer of his life is the excellent Gosner, a distinguished and pious minister, now living at Berlin, who knew him well. Any person acquainted with the religious state of Germany, especially if he has resided in that city, will be able to inform the CHRISTIAN OBSERVER that Gosner is a well known and highly respected pastor, not at all wanting in sobriety of mind, and not at all despised or persecuted by his pious brethren in the ministry abroad, because he has written a book recording miraculous occurrences which happened within his own knowledge. And Gosner himself, in conversing with a beloved and honoured friend of mine, respecting the times to which his book relates, and respecting what Boos and other believers then experienced, assured him that their persecutions were so sharp that they needed miracles to sustain their faith.

And here let me mention an occurrence, which I find recorded in the " Memoirs, Sermons, and