ved by warming him, or by giving him cordials and
something capable of bringing him back to his senses.

But he revives only on the third day. He had, as it were, been killed
after his death, by the opening made in his side with a lance, which
pierced him to the heart, and would have put him to death, if he had
not then been beyond receiving it.

When he resuscitated Lazarus,[445] he waited until he had been four
days in the tomb, and began to show corruption; which is the most
certain mark that a man is really deceased, without a hope of
returning to life, except by supernatural means.

The resurrection which Job so firmly expected,[446] and that of the
man who came to life, on touching the body of the prophet Elisha in
his tomb;[447] and the child of the widow of Shunem, whom the same
Elisha restored to life;[448] that army of skeletons, whose
resurrection was predicted by Ezekiel,[449] and which in spirit he saw
executed before his eyes, as a type and pledge as the return of the
Hebrews from their captivity at Babylon;--in short, all the
resurrections related in the sacred books of the Old and New
Testament, are manifestly miraculous effects, and attributed solely to
the Almighty power of God. Neither angels, nor demons, nor men, the
holiest and most favored of God, could by their own power restore to
life a person really dead. They can do it by the power of God alone,
who when he thinks proper so to do, is free to grant this favor to
their prayers and intercession.

Footnotes:

[445] John xi. 39.

[446] Job xxi. 25.

[447] 1 Kings xiii. 21, 22.

[448] 2 Kings iv.

[449] Ezek. xxxvii. 1, 2, 3.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE REVIVAL OF PERSONS WHO WERE NOT REALLY DEAD.

The resuscitation of some persons who were believed to be dead, and
who were not so, but simply asleep, or in a lethargy; and of those who
were supposed to be dead, having been drowned, and who came to life
again through the care taken of them, or by medical skill. Such
persons must not pass for being really resuscitated; they were not
dead, or were so only in appearance.

We intend to speak in this place of another order of resuscitated
persons, who had been buried sometimes for several months, or even
several years; who ought to have been suffocated in their graves, had
they been interred alive, and in whom are still found signs of life:
the blood in a liquid state, the flesh entire, the complexion fine and
florid, the limbs flexib