maniac. As fast as one is healed, another steps in his place. The more distant and helpless begin to despair; and as they give utterance to their despondency, Jesus responds, "All things are possible to him that believe th; go in peace!" Such was the benevolent character of his miracles; they were not wrathful, nor omens of wrath.

We shall form a most inadequate idea of the cures performed by the Saviour, if we consider them simply in themselves, as terminating on the bodies of men. They were mere shadows of a higher power, producing a still more blessed result. They were, in the highest degree, indicative of the cures which he came to perform on the souls of men. The miracle of giving sight to the man who was born blind happily illustrates the spiritual illumination of men when they are brought out of darkness into God's marvellous light. They are born spiritually blind: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Jesus anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam; and when he had done So, he was restored to sight. So the dark and benighted sin ner, who obeys the voice of Jesus Christ, and washes in Siloam's fountain, is cured of his blindness by God's effective grace, sees spiritual things as he never before saw them, and becomes a monument of the Redeemer's glory. He may not be able to describe the process of the work of grace in his soul, nor how this happy change was brought about; but he is conscious of its effects, and can say with the restored Jew, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, I now see.”

Those instances in which Christ cured men of the leprosy are among the most illustrious miracles which he wrought, and most beautifully illustrate the power of his grace in cleansing the soul from the defilement of sin. Just as the leper forfeited his privileges, under the law, of approaching God in his sanctuary, has the sinner forfeited his legal right of drawing nigh unto God. Just as the leper was defiled, and unclean, and loathsome, so is the sinner defiled and impure, and covered with the wounds, and sores, and plague of sin. Just as the leper was threatened with a slow and lingering death, so is the spiritual disease of the sinner of the most alarming and dreadful kind, diffusing itself throughout all the faculties of his mind and heart, and everywhere spreading its malignity. Just as the leper was required to have a just sense of his loathsomeness, to lay his hand upon his mouth, and cry, "Unclean! un

clean!" so is the sinner required to have just apprehensions of his vileness, a deep sense and a humiliating conviction of his malady. Just as the leper fell at Jesus' feet, crying, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," so is the guilty and perishing sinner's only refuge and hope in the sovereign and almighty grace of the adorable Saviour; and just as the leper, in his application to the great Healer, found himself a recovered and new man, so the sinner, in thus committing himself to the hands of the Redeemer, is washed from his filthiness; and though the remains of his distemper cleave to him, its deadly poison extracted, its power broken, and

he lives.

The most emphatic miracles of Christ, and those which excited the most admiration, were his raising to life the daughter of Jairus, the widow's son at Nain, and Lazarus. They were not only diseased, but dead; the lamentations of the mourners had begun; one of them was being borne to his sepulchre, and the body of one had become putrescent, and lain in the grave four days. But at Christ's command the departed spirit came again to its earthly tabernacle, and they went forth into the world among the living. So fallen man is not only diseased and far gone in his spiritual malady, but dead in trespasses and sins. Nor is there any power that quickens him but the power of Christ: "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." By him there is a complete resurrection from the death of sin to a life of righteousness. Christ is their life, and his mighty power it is that quickens them.

It is worthy of remark also, that the prescribed condition on which Christ wrought his miracles was faith in him : "Believest thou that I am able to do this?" 66 According to your faith be it unto you." So faith is the revealed condition of the Gospel salvation: "He that believeth shall be saved." Christ "is the power of God to every one that believeth." The Saviour, also, as the great Healer, was accessible to all; no matter what their condition in the world, nor how inveterate and hopeless the malady, they had the privilege of applying to him. So have men everywhere the same privilege and the same access. There are no legal obstructions; no adamantine or fiery walls of justice to exclude them from entering into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Christ is a sovereign antidote, and "cleanseth from all sin." No sinner that desires it but may be admitted to his mercy. He need not pine away in his iniquities, for "there is balm in Gilead, and a Physician there." We remark, in the last place, the miracles of Christ were always

effective. We know they are so in regard to the diseases of the soul. He "saves his people from their sins." They are no longer alienated from God, but he is their chosen portion. They are no longer led captive by Satan at his will. Outwardly and inwardly, they are new creatures. They are no longer odious in God's sight, but the people whom he loves. His wrath no longer abideth on them, nor are they exposed to the arrest of his justice. There is perfect relief in Christ, and he frees the soul "from the law of sin and death." So did his miracles, while he was on the earth, accomplish their object. He performed no partial cures, and left no relics of the old malady which he attempted to eradicate. He spake, and it was done. Whatever the malady was, no sooner did it come under his treatment, than it was removed. The remedy was complete and permanent. Filthiness was washed away; shame was covered; fear removed; health, comfort, and joy restored to the abodes of despondency. Not one goes away disappointed and in sadness. The eyes of the blind saw, the lame leaped as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sang. They were effects which transcended the power of man; and in those cases in which they were effected by means, the means were not only inadequate, but even adverse; while, for the most part, they were without the intervention of means, and were effected by a touch, a word, or a look. They were always instantaneous, and never unsuccessful. In this respect they differ from the whole class of cures effected by the skill of men, and give the great Physician the everlasting pre-eminence. We do not disparage the skill of men, nor are we unmindful of those advances in science, which, under the reign of the great Prince and Saviour, have contributed so largely to the relief of human suffering. Wonderful cures are effected even of the deaf and dumb; but in no case is the recovery effected by a look, a word, or a touch, and in none is it complete. Medical skill, through the power of natural causes, may give vigour to the torpid nerves of the ear; but it cannot perform what the Saviour did, "touch the tongue," so that the recovered deaf, without the aid of that culture which so gradually produces articulate speech, can speak plainly." And it deserves remark, that Jesus invoked no higher power, in the wondrous works he wrought, than his own. It was not in another's name and by another's power that he did these things, but by his own power and authority; for he himself was God, and competent to perform the God-like work. The question which he put to the two blind men that came to him was, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" He

did it, and he did it effectively for the objects of his compassion, and for his own mighty prerogative, and for the introduction and extension of his kingdom among men.

Such is a compendious view of the miracles of Jesus Christ; and do they not bespeak him glorious? Yet this is the personage whom that wretched generation nailed, mangled and bleeding, to the accursed tree. How true is the record, "They hated me without a cause." They could see no virtue where all virtue was. Many good works," saith he, "have I done among you; for which of these do you stone me?" This is the man for whom they mingled such bitter waters, and on whom they wreaked their pitiless malignity. There was nothing in his character, nothing in his deeds, nothing either in his influence or his object, that ought to have provoked them to this cruelty; yet the deed was done, that deed of infernal malignity, which shook their city and their temple; which, in accordance with their own solemn and fearful imprecation, brought his blood upon themselves and their children, and superinduced over that blinded and wretched people the midnight darkness of eighteen centuries. No marvel that, as he stood over against that ill-fated city, he wept. They were but the convulsive throes of his own Divine tenderness, when he bathed his face in his hands, and exclaimed, "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

Take ye heed how ye reject this great Healer! The men of that generation had nearer and more obvious testimony of his Divine mission, from the miracles he performed, than is possessed by the men of this distant age. But the proof of his miracles is not less real to us than it was to them. We have the testimony of Apostles, because we have their own record, and such abundant proof of its genuineness and authenticity. No question has been more thoroughly scrutinized and sifted than this, both by the enemies and friends of Christianity, and none more satisfactorily settled by the laws of evidence. Christianity cannot afford to be credulous. The human mind cannot demand greater evidence of a Divine mission, than is furnished by the credibility of the original witnesses to the miracles of Christ, and the genuineness and authenticity of their recorded testimony. Death has called them away; their dust is perished, and no man knoweth the place of their sepulchre; but their memorial remains. Their evidence is not weakened by the distance of time and place, because it is supported by facts, and facts do not lie. We feel an interest that links us to these bygone generations, and these entombed witnesses, because we have the same faculties

of judgment, the same responsibility, the same wants, and the same immortality. Our Gospel was theirs; our faith was theirs; our hope, our salvation, rest on the same basis with theirs. We believe in Christ, "for his works' sake." The appeal which he made to them he makes to us: "The works which the Father hath given me to finish," says he, "these same works do bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me." Here we rest our confidence, and here they rested theirs, when, in the depth of their solitude, they entered the prison from which they went out only to bare their neck to the axe of the executioner. The life-giving power of that Gospel which gave them victory, when Roman lictors threw off their headless trunks from the scaffold, and cast them to Nero's lions, cheers us with the light of immortality, even as they were cheered. Jesus said to the Jews, "If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." He came to be the Saviour of men; nor will he now cast out any that come to him, any more than he cast any who came to him in the days of his flesh; no, NOT ONE! "Him that cometh unto me, I will in nowise cast out." He still heals the broken heart, and binds up the prisoner's wounds. He still preaches the forgiveness of sin, and cures the ills which sin has caused. still enters the strong man's house, and spoils his goods, and destroys the works and breaks the chains of that great Enemy who leads men captive at his will. He still raises the dead in trespasses and sin, and quickens whom he will. Verily I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when they that are in their graves shall hear his voice; and they that hear shall live.”*

66

PLEASING GOD.

He

"That ye might walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing."-COL. i. 10. THE foundation of godliness had been | power of the Gospel. This had enalready laid in the souls of these Colos-lightened their understandings, consians. They believed in the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, they loved God, they knew the grace of God in truth. This happy change in their state, character, and prospects for eternity had been wrought by the

vinced them of the evil of sin, and brought them to receive the Saviour of the world, as the only way to the favour, image, and kingdom of God. But the Apostle felt anxious that as they had begun well, so they should * The reader who desires to see this subject wrought out fully, and with great ability, may consult "The Glory of Christ," by Dr. Spring,-a work of exceeding great value, for the fulness, depth, and spirituality of its views on the person, offices, work, and glory of the Messiah.