were only required for the establishment of the faith. What right have
they to limit the words of the Son of God? Do they imagine that they
understand the Scriptures better than the holy doctors? How will they
prove that since the time of the apostles there have been no
combinations of circumstances in which the good of religion shall have
required that miracles should be performed? They were required for the
infidels, to whom the Gospel has been preached in different centuries,
as well as for the Greek and Roman idolaters, to whom it was first
announced. The Church has required them to silence the heretics who
have successively endeavored to impugn her dogmas, and to strengthen
the faith of her own children. They have been always useful for
manifesting the eminence of virtue, for the glory of God, for the
conversion of sinners, for reanimating piety, for nourishing and
strengthening the hopes of the good things of another life. We are,
therefore, justified in saying that the promise of Jesus Christ is for
all times, in certain occasions, and that the belief in the miracles
in the Lives of the Saints is authorized thereby.

In the sixth place, that there have been miracles in the Lives of the
Saints are facts, the proofs of which are unquestionable. The Acts of
the Martyrs, which have always been read in the Church, and the
genuineness of which has been admitted by the most talented critics,
contain recitals of the most wonderful events: the confessors of the
faith instantaneously cured, after having undergone the most cruel
tortures; wild beasts tamed and crouching at their feet; lights and
celestial voices, apparitions of Jesus Christ and His angels, and many
other wonderful circumstances.

In the first six centuries there are scarcely any ecclesiastical writers
and Holy Fathers who do not record miracles worked by the servants of