What is it you would have us _prove_ by _miracles_? That the _doctrines_ we preach are true? This is not the way to prove that: (as our first _reformers_ replied to those of the church of _Rome_, who, you may probably remember, were continually urging them with this very demand). We prove the _doctrines_ we preach, by scripture and reason: and, if need be, by antiquity. What else is it then we are to prove by _miracles_? Is it, 1. That _A. B._ was for many years without God in the world, a common swearer, a drunkard, a sabbath-breaker? Or, 2. That he is not so now? Or, 3. That he continued so till he heard us preach, and from that time was another man? Not so. The proper way to prove these facts, is by the testimony of competent witnesses: and these witnesses are ready, whenever required, to give full evidence of them. Or would you have us prove by miracles, 4. That this was not done _by our own power or holiness_? That God only is able to raise the dead, those who are dead in trespasses and sins? Nay, _if_ you _hear not_ Moses _and the prophets_ and apostles on this head, _neither would you believe tho’ one rose from the dead_. It is therefore utterly unreasonable and absurd to require or expect the proof of _miracles_, in questions of such a kind, as are always decided, by proofs of quite another nature. 29. “But you relate them yourself.” I relate just what I saw, from time to time: and this is true, that some of those circumstances seem to go beyond the ordinary course of nature. But I do not peremptorily determine, whether they were supernatural, or no? Much less do I rest upon them, either the proof of other _facts_, or of the _doctrines_ which I preach. I prove these in the _ordinary_ way; the one by testimony, the other by scripture and reason. “But if you can work _miracles_ when you please, is not this the surest way of proving them? This would put the matter out of dispute at once, and supersede all other proof.” You seem to lie under an entire mistake, both as to the nature and use of _miracles_. It may reasonably be questioned, whether there ever was that man living upon earth, except the man Christ Jesus, that could work miracles _when he pleased_. God only _when he pleased_, exerted that power, and by whomsoever it pleased him.