He could, if it so pleased Him, do it without any means.  By a mere act of His will, God could recreate the human soul.  He could do so by a word, as He created the universe.  Without the contact of any outward means, without the bringing of His word to them in any way, Christ healed the ruler’s son and the daughter of the Syro-Phenician woman.  But if He can do this without means, who will say that He cannot do the same thing through means?  Since, then, He can accomplish his own purposes of Grace either with or without means, it only remains for us to inquire, in what way has it pleased God to work?  Does He in the present dispensation work mediately or immediately?  It will scarcely be disputed that the present is a dispensation of means—­that even in the domain of nature, and much more in the realm of Grace, He ordinarily carries out His purposes through means.  He chooses His own means.  They may sometimes seem foolishness to man, especially in the operations of His Grace.

Our Saviour, in working miracles, used some means that must have struck those interested as very unsuitable.  When He healed the man blind from his birth, He mixed spittle and clay, and with this strange ointment, anointed and opened his eyes.  Well might the blind man have said:  “What good can a little earth mixed with spittle do?” Yet it pleased our Lord to use it as a means, in working that stupendous miracle.  When Jesus asked for the five barley loaves and two small fishes, to feed the five thousand, even an apostle said:  “What are these among so many?” Yes, what are they?  In the hands of a mere man, nothing—­nay, worse than nothing; only enough to taunt the hungry thousands and become a cause of strife and riot.  But in the hands of the Son of God, with His blessing on them, taken from His hands, and distributed according to His Word, they became a feast in the wilderness.

A poor woman, a sufferer for twelve years, craves healing from our Lord.  With a woman’s faith, timid though strong, she presses through the crowd close to Jesus, and with her trembling bony fingers touches the hem of His garment.  Jesus perceives that virtue is gone out of Him.  The woman perceives that virtue, healing and life are come into her.  There was a transfer from Christ’s blessed life-giving body, into the diseased suffering body of the woman.  And what was the medium of the transfer?  The fringe of His garment—­a piece of cloth.  Yes, if it so pleases the mighty God, the everlasting Saviour, He can use a piece of cloth as a means to transfer healing and life from Himself to a suffering one.