If we find that in the exercise of His miraculous power, our Lord in many instances, in a greater or less degree, employs means, the question naturally arises, in what relation do these means stand to the result?
I. Now, in the first place, it is obvious that the means employed, for instance in the miracle related in the text, were of themselves quite inadequate to produce the result by the operation of the ordinary uniform laws of nature. To suppose them so capable would be in fact to eliminate the miraculous altogether.
II. Further, it must be noticed that the means employed by our Lord, although quite inadequate to produce the result, yet seem to have a certain relation of appropriateness to that result. And it is surely more rational to regard them as not indeed either necessary or adequate in themselves to the production of the effect, but yet as real and not merely apparent means tending towards that end, so that the miraculous power may be said in these instances to have been applied in endowing common material things with healing properties which they did not by their own nature possess.
III. In the sacraments, as in the miracles, we have an outward and visible sign, and an inward and spiritual grace, the former being the means by which the latter is conveyed. There are, indeed, two points of distinction between them, which, rightly considered, will only serve to render the parallel more striking. First, the boon conferred by the miracle is itself open and visible, and, therefore needs no pledge to assure the recipient of its existence, while the grace of the sacrament is inward and spiritual, and the outward part of the sacrament is thus not only the means by which the grace is bestowed, but also a pledge to assure the faithful they have verily and indeed received it. And secondly, the miracles being isolated and exceptional applications of Divine power, their conditions are governed by no general law, and it cannot be inferred that in other cases a repetition of the same means will be followed by the same result. On the other hand, the sacraments being given as continued ordinances for man's use during all time as long as the Church is militant here in earth, the supernatural element may be regarded as a permanent and uniform energy, and therefore, if the prescribed conditions, both subjective and objective, are all duly fulfilled, the same result, the same gift of Divine grace, may invariably be expected.
T. H. Orpen, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,Oct. 18th, 1883.
References: John 9:6; John 9:7. S. Cox, Expositions,4th series, p. 194.John 9:6-24. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. xvi., p. 122. Joh 9:8-17. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xvi., p. 228. John 9:8-23. Homilist,new series, vol. v., p. 241. Joh 9:18-28. Ibid.,vol. xvii., p. 140. John 9:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiv., No. 1393; D. Cook, The Dundee Pulpit,p. 97.