let loose upon
by a divine power
quence of this, he
case with him. (1)

likewise a disciple of the Apostles, St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who testifies that the wild beasts the martyrs, were frequently restrained from hurting them? In conseprayed that it might not be the St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, was the disciple of St. Polycarp, and, like him, an illustrious martyr. Shall we then call in question his testimony, where he declares, as I have noticed above, that miracles, even to the revival of the dead, frequently took place in the Catholic Church, but never among the heretics? (2) Or shall we disbelieve the testimonies of the learned Origen, in the next century, who says that it was usual with the Christians of his time to drive away devils, heal the sick, and foretel things to come? adding: God is my witness, I would not recommend the religion of Jesus by fictitious stories, but only by clear and certain facts.' (3) One of the scholars of Origen was St. Gregory, Bishop of Neocesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, or Wonderworker, on account of the numerous and astonishing miracles which God wrought by his means. Many of these, even to the stopping the course of a flood, and the moving of a mountain, are recorded by the learned Fathers, who, soon after, wrote his life. (4) St. Cyprian, the great ornament of the third century, recounts several miracles which took place in it; some of which prove the blessed Eucharist to be a Sacrifice, and the lawfulness of receiving it under One Kind. In the middle of the fourth

(1) Ep. ad Roman.

(3) Contra Cels. 1. i.

(2) Contra Hær. l. ii. c. 31.

(4) Greg. Nyss. Euseb. 1, vi. St. Basil, St. Jerom.

century happened that wonderful miracle, when, the Emperor Julian the Apostate, attempting to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, in order to disprove the prophecy of Daniel, concerning it, Dan. ix. 27, tempests, whirlwinds, earthquakes, and fiery eruptions convulsed the scene of the undertaking, maiming or blasting the thousands of Jews and other labourers employed in the work, and, in short, rendering the completion of it, utterly impossible. In the mean time a luminous cross, surrounded with a circle of rays, appeared in the heavens, and numerous crosses were impressed on the bodies and garments of the persons present. These prodigies are so strongly attested by almost all the authors of the age, Arians and Pagans, no less than Catholics, (1) that no one but a downright sceptic can call them in question. They have accordingly been acknowledged by the most learned Protestants. (2) Another miracle, which may vie with the above-mentioned, for the number and quality of its witnesses, took place in the following century, at Typassus in Africa; where a whole congregation of Catholics being assembled to perform their devotions, contrary. to the orders of the Arian tyrant, Hunneric, their right hands were chopped off, and their tongues cut out to the roots, by his command: nevertheless they continued to speak as perfectly as they did before

(1) Besides the testimony of the Fathers, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and of the histo rians, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, &c., these events are also acknowledged by Philostorgius the Arian, Ammianus Marcellinus the Pagan, &c.

(2) Bishop Warburton published a book called Julian, in proof of these miracles. They are also acknowledged by Bishop Halifax, Disc. p. 25.

this barbarous act. (1) I pass over numberless miracles recorded by SS. Basil, Athanasius, Jerom, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustin, and the other illustrious Fathers and Church-historians, who adorned the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries of Christianity; and shall barely mention one miracle, which both the last-mentioned holy Bishops relate, as having been themselves actual witnesses of it, that of restoring sight to a blind man, by the application to his eyes of a cloth which had touched the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius. (2) The latter Saint, one of the most enlightened men that ever handled a pen, gives an account, in the work to which I have just referred, (3) of a great number of miracles wrought in Africa, during his Episcopacy, by the relics of St. Stephen; and among the rest, of seventy wrought in his own diocese of Hippo, and some of them in his own presence, in the course of two years, Among these was the restoration of three dead bodies to life.

From this notice of the great St. Augustin of Hippo, in the fifth century, I proceed to observe, concerning St. Augustin of Canterbury, at the end

(1) The vouchers for this miracle are Victor Vitensis, Hist. Persec. Vandal 1. ii; the Emperor Justinian, who declares that he had seen some of the sufferers, Codex Just. Tit. 27; the Greek historian Procopius, who says he had conversed with them, L. i. de Bell. Vand. c. 8; Eneas of Geza, a Platonic philosopher, who, having examined their mouths, protested that he was not so much surprised at their being able to talk as at their being able to live; De Immort. Anim. Victor. Turon. Isid. Hispal. Greg. Magn. &c. The miracle is admitted by Abbadie, Dodwell, Mosheim, and other learned Protestants.

(2) Aug. De Civit. Dei, 1. xxii. p. 8. (3) Ibid. 1. xxii.

of the sixth, that the miracles wrought by him, were not only recorded on his tomb, and in the history of the venerable Bede and other writers, but that an account of them was transmitted, at the time they took place, by St. Gregory to Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, in an Epistle, still extant, in which this Pope compares them, with those performed by the Apostles. (1) The latter Saint wrote likewise an Epistle to St. Augustin himself, which is still extant in his works, and in Bede's history, cautioning him against being elated with vain glory, on the occasion of these miracles, and reminding him that God had bestowed the power of working them, not on his own account, but for the conversion of the English nation. (2) On the supposition that our Apostle had wrought no miracles, what farces must these Epistles have exhibited among the first characters of the Christian world!

Among the numberless and well-attested miracles which the histories of the middle ages present to our view, I stop at those of the illustrious Abbot St. Bernard, in the twelfth century, to whose sanctity the most eminent Protestant writers have borne-high testimony. (3) This Saint, in the life of his friend, St. Malachy of Armagh, amongst other miracles, mentions the cure of the withered hand of a youth, by the application to it of the dead hand of his friend. (4) But this, and all the miracles which St. Bernard mentions of other Saints, totally disappear, when (1) Epist. S. Greg. 1. vii.

(2) Ibid. et Hist. Bed. 1. i. c. 31.

(3) Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Ecolompadius, Jewel, Whitaker, Mosheim, &c.

(4) Vita Malach, inter Oper. Bern.

compared with those wrought by himself; which for their splendour and publicity, never were exceeded. All France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy bore testimony to them; and Prelates, Princes, and the Emperor himself, were often the spectators of them. In a journey which the Saint made into Germany, he was followed by Philip, Archdeacon of Liege, who was sent by Sampson, Archbishop of Rheims, to observe his actions. (1) This writer accordingly gives an account of a vast number of instantaneous cures, which the holy Abbot performed on the lame, the blind, the paralytic, and other diseased persons, with all the circumstances of them. Speaking of those wrought at Cologne, he says: They were not performed in a corner; but the whole city was witness to them. If any one doubts or is curious, he may easily satisfy himself on the spot, especially as some of them were wrought on persons of no inconsiderable rank and reputation.' (2) A great number of these miracles were performed, in express confirmation of the Catholic doctrine which he defended. Thus, preaching at Sarlet against the impious and impure Henricians, a species of Albigenses, he took some loaves of bread and blessed them after which he said: By this you shall know that I preach to you the true doctrine, and the heretics a false doctrine: all your sick, who eat of this bread, shall recover their health;' which prediction

(1) St. Bernard's Life was written by his three contempo raries, William, Abbot of Thierry, Arnold, Abbot of Bonevaux, and Geoffrey, the Saint's Secretary, and by other early writers: his own eloquent Epistles, and other works, furnish many particulars.

(2) Published by Mabillon.

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