His kingdom still increasing,

A Kingdom without end;

The mountain-dews shall nourish,

A seed in weakness sown,

Whose fruit shall spread and flourish,

And shake like Lebanon.

O'er every foe victorious,

He on his throne shall rest,
From age to age more glorious,
All-blessing and all blest;
The tide of time shall never

His covenant remove;

His name shall stand forever:
That name to us is--LoVE."

J. MONTGOMERY.

LECTURE X.

MIRACLES OF THE MESSIAH.

WE KNOW THAT THOU ART A TEACHER, COME FROM GOD;

FOR NO MAN CAN DO THESE MIRACLES THAT THOU DOEST, EXCEPT GOD BE WITH HIM.-John 3: 2.

FOR I DELIVERED UNTO YOU FIRST OF ALL THAT WHICH 1 ALSO RECEIVED, HOW THAT CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES; AND THAT HE WAS BURIED;

AND THAT HE ROSE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY ACCORDING TO THE

SCRIPTURES; AND THAT HE WAS SEEN OF CEPHAS, THEN OF THE TWELVE: AFTER THAT, HE WAS SEEN OF ABOVE FIVE HUNDRED BRETHREN AT ONCE; OF WHOM THE GREATER PART REMAIN UNTO THIS PRESENT, BUT SOME ARE FALLEN ASLEEP.

AFTER THAT, HE WAS SEEN OF JAMES; THEN OF ALL THE APOSTLES. AND LAST OF ALL, HE WAS SEEN OF ME ALSO, AS OF ONE BORN OUT OF DUE TIME.-1st Corinthians 15: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

What is a miracle? In the Hebrew, we have ot, a sign, and mophat and neephlo, a wonder, with which two Greek words perfectly accord in signification—seemaion, a sign, and dunamis, a wonderful work. A miracle then, according to the common acceptation of the term, is any event that excites our astonishment. The discharge of a musket,

or the working of a steam engine, would be miraculous to a savage, who had never before witnessed such events.

But the term miracle in the Scriptures, has a peculiar, as well as a common signification. The word is oftentimes evidently applied to such wonders as the knowledge of man cannot classify with other events, but stand isolated and alone. The burning of gunpowder, the freezing of water, the rising of the sun, the growth of a spire of grass, and the birth of an infant, are events that take place, on principles as much beyond our comprehension, are as directly performed by the agency of God, and are as much miracles, in the common sense of that term, as would be the resurrection of a man from the dead. What then is the difference between a miracle or wonder, (for both words are from the same original,) in the ordinary, and in the extraordinary sense of that term? What constitutes the difference between the wonderful event of a human birth, and the wonderful event of a human resurrection from the dead? Both are alike wonderful, and both are effected by the same Divine power.

The chief difference, we conceive to be this: one is a common event which our long experience, and the experience of mankind, has taught to classify with ten thousand other events of the same kind, and hence it does not excite our wonder; whereas, the other is one that does not come within the range of our observation, and such events, having been so rare in the world, their history can be reduced to no order or regularity at all. Should we see a man who had been dead three days, arise from his grave, we should regard it as a miracle in the peculiar sense of that term. But should this event occur on the full of the moon, and a

similar event continue to occur on every full moon, for a succession of months or years, we should, after a time, learn to regard it a3 occuring according to a regular order of sequence; though its frequency would not detract in the least from its wonderful character, in itself considered; neither could we regard it as occuring any the less through the agency of God. An event, therefore, effected by Divine agency, and which our experience or knowledge of history, can never enable us to rank in order with a series of similar events, is a miracle in the peculiar, or theological sense of that term. This is evidently the sense in which the contemporaries of our Lord, and his apostles, understood it; and in this manner the Saviour intended it should be understood. The blind man, whoso eyes Jesus had opened, with unsophisticated simplicity, expresses the general conviction of his age, and of the world, in the language following" Since the world began, was it not heard, that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing”—(John 9 : 32, 33)—nothing of a miraculous character-using the term in a theological, which is the sense in which it will be used in this lecture.

But why is the belief so universal that a revelation from God, ought to be ushered in by miracles?

We conceive the reason to be, that man beholds the volume of nature so well attested, by precisely such miracles as those he looks to find, and which ho at length succeeds in finding in the Scriptures. No one can believe in a universe, without believing also, that miracles have been wrought. The creation of the first human pair, of each pair of animals, of each pair of animalculæ, and the con

fusion of tongues, must have been miracles in the peculiar sense of that term. He who admits the present existence of the facts, must also admit that miracles causing these facts, have been wrought.

But have we reason to believe that the miracles recorded in the Bible, were events that no more harmonized with the general order of things, than was the creation of the first human pair?

If it be acknowledged that Jesus Christ actually performed the wonderful works, which are ascribed to him, they were miracles. The whole subject, then, turns upon this simple question:-did Jesus Christ actually do the things recorded of him in the New Testament? In supporting the affirmative of this question, we need not enter into an examination of all the miracles of the New Testament. Suppose we admit that the most of those miracles might have been wrought without Divine agency. Suppose some might have been done by mere slight of hand, like the turning of water into wine; some merely accidental, like the withering of the fig-tree, the calming of the tempest, and the curing of disease; some by animal magnetism, like the restoration of the widow's son; still, if but a single miracle can be found in the New Testament, that will admit of no explanation, except upon the ground of a direct interference on the part of God, that will be enough for our purpose; for such is the nature of the Scriptures, that if one of its miracles are true, then all must necessarily be true.

We select as one of the most unequivocal miracles of the Scriptures, the RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. If he actually arose from the dead, as is recorded of him, no one