mistake the question, and you are in reality comparing, not the power of Christ to do either, but your own capacity to know when they are not done. As to the works themselves, it rests with you to shew that a much greater authority is requisite to forgive the sins that were the cause of the palsy, than to remove the palsy that was the effect of the sins; or rather, that the same authority which accomplishes the one does not virtually and implicitly give evidence to the other. To alleviate distress is the property of God's mercy and omnipotence; and to remit punishment that of his mercy and justice. In each case, then, Christ exercises a privilege with which God only could invest him; in each he is strictly and solely the instrument of God's dispensation; and in each he has a title to your dispassionate and serious attention. Had he immediately cured the sick man by God's authority, you would perhaps in this instance, as in parallel instances some of you certainly have treated him with a kind of occasional extorted respect. When he absolves the man by the same authority, then, as you exclaim, this man blasphemes, as if either act were altogether his own; or rather as if it were less practicable for God to grant him one privilege than the other, or less expedient for him to do so, when the ends of his government and the interests of his creatures required it. But you still insist that it is more difficult to do what it was easier to say, that it implies a more honourable commission, a more extensive power to forgive sins, than to enable a paralytic to rise and walk. Be it so; but by this

very concession you allow it physically possible for God to confer such a power, and you pave the way for a clear and a complete solution of the case in dispute.

When Nathan informed David that he was forgiven, and that the sentence of death was reversed, do you charge the prophet with impiety, and do you not suppose him to have acted not only consistently with his prophetic office, but in consequence of it? The faith of the paralytic corresponds to the repentance of David; and in virtue of their respective merits both are fit objects of the Divine mercy. Why then do you honour Nathan and dishonour Christ? But in the case of David, the event, it seems, confirmed the declaration. You allow then, not only that God may bestow the power of forgiving sins, but evince the existence of that power by adequate and unequivocal proofs. Let us apply this acknowledgment:-You suppose a connection between the offences and the sufferings of the paralytic, and of course you ought to admit a connection between his recovery and his pardon. But whether that opinion be well-grounded or no,from whatever cause the palsy may have originated, you cannot have a more apposite or convincing proof that he is forgiven than when he is instantaneously cured by the very person who announces that forgiveness. By this test, therefore, we will try your favourite position concerning the extent of the right asserted by Christ. If the cure be hereafter performed,—if it be ascertained by the most direct and unambiguous proofs, then the charge of

blasphemy recoils with redoubled weight on you who have levelled it against Christ; but the consequence strikes at the credit of your understanding as well as your hearts; and then to persevere in your unbelief will be to deny the very conclusion when established by an evidence confessed stronger, and which you would have been induced to admit in favour of Christ's pretensions to the title of Messiah, when they stood upon weaker ground.

The force of this reasoning is, I think, obvious to the most uncultivated understanding, and by the most vigorous it cannot be shaken. In the application of it we are warranted by the subsequent conduct of our Lord himself, for he gave the fullest confirmation to his words by a fact similar to that from which we have supposed their credibility to be derived. He explicitly and peremptorily insisted upon his right to forgive sins; and instantly turning aside to the paralytic, he said, Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine own house. What transports, think you, must this additional instance of goodness have excited within the bosom of the palsied man. It must have roused within him every sentiment of affection and reverence towards such a deliverer, and must have firmly established that faith which gave rise to his pious, his humble and successful request. On the other hand, among those who had insolently called in question the ability of Christ to work this miracle, and who in the blindness of their rage had aimed against him the shocking charges of imposture and impiety, every cavil must have been repressed, and every prepossession suspended

in silence and in shame. The scribes, if they would not acknowledge Christ, were at least not hardy enough to repeat their insult-to avow their illiberal suspicions; and as to the common people, they beheld this act of mercy in its brightest splendour, and its fullest magnitude.

In respect to the friends of the paralytic, whose well-meant and well-worded confidence our blessed Lord had so condescendingly encouraged and so amply rewarded, they doubtless felt their faith ripen into conviction. Upon their friend they could not reflect without exchanging congratulation for condolence, and to his deliverer they looked up at once animated with gratitude and impressed with veneration. Even the multitude, unable to contradict the miracles of which they had been eye-witnesses, and unwilling to stifle the honest emotions of their heart, expressed their thanks to Almighty God, who had given such power unto men.

SERMON IV.

MATTHEW ix. 5.

For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee;
or Arise, and walk?

You may recollect that, upon a former occasion, I endeavoured to explain to you the principles of our Lord's reasoning in the words of my text, and that I insisted much upon the advantages which the miraculous recovery of the paralytic seemed to derive from the opposition and the scruples of the Jewish scribes an opposition permitted only to be defeated-scruples not crushed by the sternness of reproof, but removed by the most obvious and the most decisive confutation.

Admirable indeed was the propriety with which our Lord conducted himself upon this occasion; and at the same time, I must observe to you, that the very different methods he pursued upon almost all other occasions was equally proper. I mean, that the evidences by which he established the divinity of his mission were simply exhibited, not elaborately enforced-that the connection between his miracles and his doctrine was illustrated by facts rather than deduced from argumentations — that the proofs he employed were not only apposite in