He was open to the effect, therefore, of miracu-
lous proof, if his hardened heart would have dis-
cerned its reality. And the magicians them-
selves, notwithstanding all their enchantments,
confessed of one at least of Moses's miracles,
tliat " Uiis is the finger of God." '' Did their
belief in magic make them confess this the morp

' Es»>d. vii. 9, 10. >> Exod. viii. 19.
SfiCT. I. OF THE DIRECT EVIDENCE. 107

readily j or would Moses have appealed, as he
does appeal, to his miracles as decisive proofs of
the divine sanction of his authority, if it were
the persuasion of the people whom he addressed
that miracles were no proof of a mission from
God?

I conclude it to be evident, therefore, that
the miracles wrought by Moses must from the
nature of the case have been subjected to a
sufficiently strict examination. For the miracles
of the Gospel we have similar evidence. What-
ever opinions may have been held by the Jews
of our Saviour's time with regard to the power
of evil spirits to work miracles, or the possibility
that God might permit an impostor to work
them, we still know certainly that they did not
account them as being by any means slight or
trivial occurrences, and that they did account
them as among those signs of his coming which
were to be displayed by their expected Mes-
siah^.
In the relation given in the ninth chapter of
St. John of the events which followed the giv-
ing of sight to the blind man, some of the Pha-
risees " said. How can a man that is a sinner

* John vii. 31.
108 OP THE DIRECI: EVIDENCE. CHAP. 11.
