evangelist is plainly to place the claims, which our Lord's miracles gave him on the belief of his countrymen, in the strongest possible light, we apprehend no apology is necessary for here, very cursorily, adverting to some of them. The spirit of the evangelist's statement is, though he had done such miracles, miracles in every point of view so fitted to produce belief of the message, and to secure a glad and grateful reception of the Divine messenger, come in the name of the Lord to save.'

The miracles of our Lord were all, with one exception, of a beneficial kind; and even that one, the blighting the barren figtree, had for its object an inanimate being, which could feel no pain, and sustain no loss. Was that circumstance not very much fitted to make the miracles, as evidence, more efficacious? Was it not natural that prejudice should give way before such generous beneficence? And was there not something absolutely monstrous in men rejecting the heavenly Teacher, who proved his mission by bestowing upon them such blessings?

They were performed with no appearance of pride or ostentation. They were never wrought to secure worldly advantages for himself. The only apparent exception is, when he miraculously procured the means of paying the temple tribute for himself and the Apostle Peter.

They were performed at a time and in circumstances where, if there had been anything like imposture in them, it was sure to be exposed; and yet not the slightest whisper of doubt is ever heard for many centuries as to the reality of those miracles.

Finally, they were the very kind of miracles which the Old Testament prophets predicted should be performed by the Messiah. "Behold," says Isaiah, speaking of the Messiah, "Behold, your God shall come. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." Well might our Lord say to the disciples of John, when they came to propose the question, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" "Go, and show John those things which ye hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up; and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."

Such were the miracles which our Lord had for three years and a half been doing before his countrymen, in confirmation of the doctrines which he publicly, earnestly, and fearlessly proclaimed among them.

What ought to have been the effect of these miracles on the minds of those who witnessed them, is a subject on which we must all be of one opinion. They should have produced reverent, serious inquiry; and as that inquiry produced and strengthened, as it must have done, the conviction, that these were such miracles as no man could do except God were with him, they who

witnessed them ought gladly and gratefully to have welcomed the Divine messenger, and, sitting down at his feet as his disciples, they should, with unhesitating assent, have believed whatever he said to be true; and, with implicit obedience, have submitted to whatever he was pleased to enjoin or appoint as reasonable and right. We would probably find it difficult, in language sufficiently strong, to express our wonder at the stupidity, and our indignation at the criminality, of the conduct of our Lord's unbelieving, disobedient, countrymen. It would, indeed, not be easy to exaggerate either the folly or the criminality of "that untoward generation." But let us take heed, lest in condemning them we condemn ourselves-lest there be ground for saying, "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee;" "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgeth; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself: for thou that judgest, does the same things." This may seem a hard saying, and we may be disposed to say, "Who can hear it?" "How can these things be?" But let us "judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Does not Jesus still cry and say to us, what he cried and said to his countrymen? Does he not speak to us from heaven what he spake to them on earth? Ah, and has he not done all those many great miracles before us? Have we not both the doctrines and the evidence brought before our minds in a plain, wellaccredited revelation? Has he not been crying and saying these things to us, not for three years and a half merely, but ever since we were capable of listening to, or understanding them? And, during the same period, have not these many great miracles been pressed on our attention, "as attesting his mission and confirming his doctrines"?

A great philosopher" has remarked, that "a history transmitted through a succession of generations, loses at each transmission some part of its claim on our belief." If it be so, it is only within certain, and easily defined, limits. It does so only if it lose part of its evidence; but it would be very difficult to show that, taking for granted what can easily be demonstrated, the genuineness of the gospel history, we have less evidence of the reality of these miracles than those who lived a thousand years ago, ay, than those who received an account of them from the eye-witnesses. And even as to the eye-witnesses, though we cannot have the vividness of their apprehension of the evidence, we may have the evidence itself as fully before us as they had. It has been very justly said, that "even the evidence of eye-wit nesses may be inferior to documentary evidence. If we could examine all the witnesses, or a sufficient number of them, we have all the elements of the fullest proof in our hands. No evidence can be imagined more perfect than this. But if we see only one, or only a few, of the eye-witnesses, or if we see them without possessing the means of judging of their credibility, an authentic

31 Locke.

document which details clearly the whole evidence may be better authority than that of one or even of a number of eye-witnesses.""" The evidence of the reality of the miracles of Jesus which we enjoy, is the plain, well-authenticated record of the New Testament, is stronger than those men possessed who heard of them from one or two eye-witnesses. And though I never can feel with regard to an event of which I have merely obtained the most satisfactory evidence, as I do in reference to one of which I have been an eye-witness, I may be as certain, as rationally convinced, with regard to the one as to the other. And it is not a vivid feeling, but a certain conviction, that is to be our guide in reference to those great interests which are linked with the reception or the rejection of the miracles of Christ, and of the doctrines which they were intended to confirm.

It should be recollected, too, that many great miracles, in addition to those which had been done before the Jewish people, at the time the evangelist wrote the words now under consideration, have been performed in confirmation of the doctrines of Christ. The crowning miracle of the resurrection has since taken place. The wonders of Pentecost, the mighty works done by the hands of the apostles, the rapid progress of the Gospel throughout the world-these, recorded in an undoubtedly authentic history, give Christ Jesus, if possible, stronger claims on our faith and obedience than he had on his countrymen in the days of his flesh, even on such of them as heard his words and witnessed his miracles. Add to all this the fulfilment of prophecy during eighteen centuries, and the standing miracle of the Jewish nation, that people "wonderful from the beginning hitherto." Infidel, unbelieving Gentiles who have the New Testament in their hands, are in the same condemnation with the unbelieving Jews-not less highly privileged, not less deeply guilty.

It is astonishing how apt we are, under the influence of selflove, to exaggerate the abused privileges, and consequent penal responsibilities, of others, and underrate our own; and to anticipate, with something like satisfaction with ourselves for so cordially sympathizing with the awards of justice, a punishment for them which we ourselves have still more richly merited. It will be wise in us seriously to consider how we, to whom the word of this salvation has come, and to whom the wonderful works of the Saviour have been unfolded, shall escape, if we reject that salvation, in consequence of refusing to yield to the evidence by which it has been confirmed. "What was spoken by the Lord has been confirmed to us by them who heard him, and God has borne them witness both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will."

I call, then, your attention, my young friends," to the message

32 Penrose.

33 This Exposition was delivered as the Introductory Lecture at the opening of the United Presbyterian Divinity Hall, August 3, 1847.

of our Lord, and the evidence by which it is supported; a message of a free, a full, an everlasting, the only, salvation for men; evidence abundantly sufficient to make it the most reasonable thing in the world for man to rest all the weight of his interests for eternity-his all on it. "If this fail, the pillared firmament is rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble." To state that message, and that evidence, is the appropriate function of the high and holy office to which you are aspiring; and you will not perform it well-comfortably to yourselves, acceptably to your Master, usefully to mankind-if you do not personally embrace the truth, and the Saviour whom the truth reveals, each of you for himself. Nor is it only the success of your future ministry which hangs on this; your own individual salvation depends on it. "Be it known to you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon any of you, which is spoken of in the proph ets, Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in nowise believe, though a man declare it unto you." These words were addressed to the Jews-addressed to most of them in vain. The word preached, the miracles performed, did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them when the one was heard, and the other witnessed. They would not count the promise of mercy true, and to their cost found the truth of the threatening of judgment. They disregarded the miracles of grace, and became themselves signs and wonders of righteous vengeance. It was not as Jews, but as unbelievers, that they incurred so dreadful a doom. The unbelieving Gentile is not safer than the unbelieving Jew; nor assuredly is the unbelieving minister, or student of divinity, safer than the unbeliever in the walks of private life. God is not a respecter of persons. Take heed lest any of you fall after the same example of unbelief. God forbid that any of you should ever preach an unbelieved Gospel, or recommend a salvation, or a Saviour, of whose excellence and efficacy you have no experience. Is there a student here who has not yet believed the Saviour's doctrine? Let him hear the warning voice, "What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?" and let him either, in the belief of the truth, be reconciled to God through the death of his Son, or abandon the thought-in him, in his present circumstance, a most presumptuous, and indeed monstrous, one-of being "a minister of reconciliation."

II. OF THE RESULTS OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY.

The RESULTS of our Lord's ministry, as these are presented to our minds in the paragraph before us, are to form the subject of the remaining part of our present discourse. These results were

very different from what they ought to have been. All who heard his discourses, and saw his miracles, ought, without doubt, to have believed in him, and submitted to him, as their divinelyappointed, qualified, and accredited divine Teacher, Saviour, and Lord. Our Lord's ministry had this result, but only in the case of a comparatively very small number of persons, the greater part of whom belonged to the humbler and less educated portion of the Jewish people. The great body of his countrymen refused to acknowledge him in the character to which he had laid claim. The majority gave no credit to his claims; "they believed not on him." A small minority of the higher classes, small in comparison of the whole body of those who rejected our Lord, small in comparison even of those of their own body who rejected them, yet still a considerable number," described by a word of more latitude than our English many, and corresponding more nearly with the French plusieurs, "several," as Campbell renders it, "of the chief rulers," being invincibly persuaded that there was truth in his claims, "believed on him;" but, from worldly motives, they concealed their convictions, through fear of being put out of the synagogue, loving the praise of men more than the praises of God. It is to the results of our Lord's ministry, in reference to these two last classes, that our text confines our attention. Let us consider them in their order.

(1.) The body of the Jewish nation did not believe.

With regard to the great body of the Jewish nation, we are told, that though he had publicly, earnestly, and fearlessly proclaimed his doctrines, and done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him. To us who generally hold that well-ascertained miracles are satisfactory evidence of a Divine mission, this seems very strange; but it does so merely because we do not sufficiently consider the circumstances of the case. Two opinions, which we know from the most satisfactory evidence, prevailed extensively at that time among the Jews, account for what seems, to us, so strange an anomaly, the unquestioned performance of numerous miracles, and the decided rejection of the claims of the admitted miracle-worker to a Divine mission.

"The one of these opinions," I use the words of Dr. Paley, "was the expectation entertained by the Jews of a Messiah of a kind totally contrary to what the appearance of Jesus bespoke him to be; the other, their persuasion of the agency of demons in the production of supernatural effects. These opinions are not supposed by us for the sake of argument, but are evidently recognized in the Jewish writings, as well as in ours. And it ought, moreover, to be considered, that in these opinions the Jews of that age had from their infancy been brought up; that they were opinions, the grounds of which they had probably few of them inquired into, and of which they entertained no doubt.

34 Πολλοί.