3. And, finally, the miracles promote the acceptance of Christian truths by the illustrations of them which they afford. Christ's miracles are of the same description as the principles and precepts in Christ's teaching. They are animated with benevolence, instinct with love. The Gospel perpetually offers to men a spiritual salvation; Miracles at the beginning brought them salvation of a lower kind, which nevertheless pointed to a higher. Of the author of Christianity it might be said literally, "He is the Saviour of the body." His wondrous works of healing sparkled with a tenderness, compassion, and help, like those with which His main mission to mankind was filled. And, as they were eminently beneficial to human beings, and so were of the same class as the other bestowments the Christ of God came to confer, they exhibited types of the nobler blessings themselves. They are mirrors reflecting larger and better gifts. Signs they are as well as wonders; parables as well as proofs. In cures of the blind, there are parables of spiritual illumination; in the cleansing of lepers, parables of spiritual purification; and in exorcisms, parables of spiritual disenthralment. The benevolent animus, and the didactic form of the miracles of Jesus seized the attention of early Christian writers, and were employed by them for the purpose of establishing and recommending the Christian religion. They used them much more under their illustrative than under their strictly evidential aspect. Arnobius (A.D. 306), in ten chapters of his seven books, "_Adversus Gentes_," lays special stress upon their kind and beneficent tendency.[57] Lactantius, his contemporary in his "Institutions," whilst regarding Christ's miracles as proofs of His higher nature, manifests particular delight in searching out their ethical significance. He goes through the mighty works of our Lord in order, and points out, how they demonstrated the renewal of the human soul, the opening of its eyes, the unstopping of its ears, the loosening of its tongue.[58] And Athanasius (A.D. 326) takes special pains to show that the miracles of Jesus were revelations--self-representations of His Person as Divine Creator, not mere credentials of His doctrine, but veritable victories over nature, so that no one can doubt who Christ is, when once he beholds His works:--and moreover, that by the manner of His working miracles, He at once proved his Divinity, and His humanity, His Godhead and His incarnation.[59] And Augustine insists much on their design as symbolical of redemption, as instructive acts, charged with prophetical import, and calculated to inspire delight more than wonder.[60]