

CHAP. 5. ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 177 



of our health ; and such a belief appears to be 

 . founded on reason : for, if a number of persons, 



slowly some amendment in nervous diseases, yet we know of 

 no instance in which similar passions effected instantaneous 

 cures of diseases, particularly of such violent and determined 

 local affections, connected with diseased structure of parts, as 

 marked the fortunate subjects of the many miraculous cures, 

 professedly operated in divine attestation of the sanctity of 

 the Catholic Church. When we consider likewise the number 

 and succession of these miracles of various sorts, which are 

 recorded on the testimony of numerous witnesses, from the 

 earliest period of history to the present day, it will appear 

 impossible, agreeable to the doctrine of chances, to suppose 

 that the workers of them, ignorant as they were of meteorology, 

 should, by a fortunate coincidence of events, have pretended to 

 perform them at the precise period of atmospheric changes. 

 Let us only examine the early miracles of Holy Writ, those 

 afterwards recorded by SS Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 

 those by St. Francis Xavier, by St. Cyprian, and a host of 

 other Saints and Fathers down to the celebrated Miracle of 

 St. Winefred's Well, to that just now performed at Toulouse, 

 that at Chelmsford last May, and to others of the present 

 day, and we shall find such a regular series of them on record, 

 various in their nature but all having one object and aim, 

 that we must either believe that they really happened by 

 miraculous interposition, or else we must stigmatize, as a 

 league of impostors acting in succession, hundreds of the most 

 learned and pious men of every age of Christianity. Such an 

 opinion, as a learned Bishop observes, would invalidate the 

 strongest proofs of divine inspiration, would tend to destroy 

 the value of human testimony in general, and would consti- 



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