Jesus Christ cured the man born blind, and performed a number of miracles on the Sabbath day.  In this way He blinded the Pharisees, who said that miracles must be judged by doctrine.

“We have Moses:  but, as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is."[344] It is wonderful that you know not whence He is, and yet He does such miracles.

Jesus Christ spoke neither against God, nor against Moses.

Antichrist and the false prophets, foretold by both Testaments, will speak openly against God and against Jesus Christ.  Who is not hidden ...  God would not allow him, who would be a secret enemy, to do miracles openly.

In a public dispute where the two parties profess to be for God, for Jesus Christ, for the Church, miracles have never been on the side of the false Christians, and the other side has never been without a miracle.

“He hath a devil.”  John x, 21.  And others said, “Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”

The proofs which Jesus Christ and the apostles draw from Scripture are not conclusive; for they say only that Moses foretold that a prophet should come.  But they do not thereby prove that this is He; and that is the whole question.  These passages therefore serve only to show that they are not contrary to Scripture, and that there appears no inconsistency, but not that there is agreement.  Now this is enough, namely, exclusion of inconsistency, along with miracles.

There is a mutual duty between God and men.  We must pardon Him this saying:  Quid debui?[345] “Accuse me,” said God in Isaiah.

“God must fulfil His promises,” etc.

Men owe it to God to accept the religion which He sends.  God owes it to men not to lead them into error.  Now, they would be led into error, if the workers of miracles announced a doctrine which should not appear evidently false to the light of common sense, and if a greater worker of miracles had not already warned men not to believe them.

Thus, if there were divisions in the Church, and the Arians, for example, who declared themselves founded on Scripture just as the Catholics, had done miracles, and not the Catholics, men should have been led into error.

For, as a man, who announces to us the secrets of God, is not worthy to be believed on his private authority, and that is why the ungodly doubt him; so when a man, as a token of the communion which he has with God, raises the dead, foretells the future, removes the seas, heals the sick, there is none so wicked as not to bow to him, and the incredulity of Pharaoh and the Pharisees is the effect of a supernatural obduracy.

When, therefore, we see miracles and a doctrine not suspicious, both on one side, there is no difficulty.  But when we see miracles and suspicious doctrine on the same side, we must then see which is the clearest.  Jesus Christ was suspected.

Bar-jesus blinded.[346] The power of God surpasses that of His enemies.