even

"in His name they could do many wonderful works,"* and therefore St. Paul says, as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you."

To us the same testimony is confirmed, though in a different manner, by the very mention of these miraculous gifts. The Apostle speaks to the Corinthians of marvellous things wrought in and through themthings which could not be, unless God were with them. He enumerates "gifts of healing, tongues, interpretation of tongues ;" and yet, with the confidence of truth, says ye-ye whom I address, "come behind in no gift." We find, I think, in this simple appeal of the Apostle to their personal experience; to their knowledge of things, to which their eyes and ears and all their senses had been witness, an evidence not to be confuted of Christian truth. St. Paul was a wise man! they who have blasphemously denied his mission, have borne

*Matthew vii. 22.

a reluctant testimony to his wisdom and his wit; and where would either be found, or would he not rather be a conspicuous example of folly, had he spoken thus to men who did not possess such gifts? Would not he and hist exhortations have been alike treated with contempt, had he thus spoken in his Epistle, of things which the Corinthians knew not, or which they knew to be false? When, therefore, he thanks God on their behalf, that neither in utterance, nor in knowledge, nor yet in any gift, did they come short; he challenges on the one hand, an instant refutation; or on the other, assumes on indisputable grounds, the attestation of God himself to the truth as it has been taught in Jesus: and the admission of daily and popular miracles among those, who could at once, and must have denounced the imposition, if imposition there had been, is the witness of Almighty God to the truth; and that we also learn the truth delivered to the Corinthians under God's immediate sanction.

It is in this way that I am inclined, as a way profitable for grounding and rooting us in the faith, to view the record of those miraculous powers which are mentioned by the Apostle; and which, it is manifest, are no longer permitted in the Church.

The melancholy evidence which, within our own experience, has been furnished of the weakness or wickedness of man, in claiming some of those gifts and powers, which for such wise purposes were, as we have seen, permitted to the early Church: the unholy impostures which the Church of Rome, where her darkness is not penetrated, and cast aside by the purer light of a reformed worship, still practises; assuming to speak as God, and in his name to do many wonderful works: these things should make us anxious rightly to understand the value of those portions of the New Testament wherein, as in that which we have been considering, mention is made of gifts and graces no longer granted to the Church. Their

K

true use is surely this-that as they record things, which to those among whom they occurred, were an irrefragable evidence that God was with them—things moreover, which, had they not existed, must have received an instant and indignant denial; so that to us they furnish, their truth being by competent witnesses admitted, another and an undeniable "reason of the hope that is in us."* Thus, my brethren, we are led to see that a portion of Scripture, which has been to some unstable Christians a perplexity, or a snare, because in it they have sought for more than it was designed to teach; is, when received in the spirit of a sound mind, an additional argument, and illustration of the truth.

In that summary of the diverse gifts, and operations of the spirit, which we find in St. Paul's address to the Corinthians, there is much that the wisest cannot fully fathom. These things were placed, by God's wisdom,

* 1 Peter iii. 15.

beyond the grasp of his mind, when they were removed from its present contemplation; but they are evidences of the faith, mingled and planted in God's word, of so much greater value in the eyes of the reflecting Christian; as the attestation which they give to the Christian verity is incidental, and not presented as express evidence of the truth.

But let it suffice to have said thus much on a subject which the Epistle,* in the part I have dwelt upon, has brought before us. Other points there are, in the same portion of Scripture, which it becomes us well to meditate.

I have endeavoured to show that the true knowledge of God was the source of that love for his brethren, which led St. Paul to give thanks always, on their behalf, for the graces and privileges which it had pleased God to bestow upon them. Our boast is, that we know God: where, therefore, is this fruit? Does our knowledge issue in love? Do we give

* For XVIII Sunday after Trinity.