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 same with the greatest number of
the Scripture miracles. There are other cases of a mixed nature, in
which, although the principal miracle be momentary, some circumstance
combined with it is permanent. Of this kind is the history of Saint
Paul's conversion. (Acts ix.) The sudden light and sound, the vision and
the voice upon the road to Damascus, were momentary: but Paul's
blindness for three days in consequence of what had happened; the
communication made to Ananias in another place, and by a vision
independent of the former; Ananias finding out Paul in consequence of
intelligence so received, and finding him in the condition described,
and Paul's recovery of his sight upon Ananias laying his hands upon him;
are circumstances which take the transaction, and the principal miracle
as included in it, entirely out of the case of momentary miracles, or of
such as may be accounted for by false perceptions. Exactly the same
thing may be observed of Peter's vision preparatory to the call of
Cornelius, and of its connexion with what was imparted in a distant
place to Cornelius himself, and with the message despatched by Cornelius
to Peter. The vision might be a dream; the message could not. Either
communication taken separately, might be a delusion; the concurrence of
the two was impossible to happen without a supernatural cause.
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