First, the miraculous element in it. God spake out of the midst of the thick darkness and the fire of Sinai, to establish once for all that it was He who spake by Moses. Aaron's rod budded, to prove that God had chosen him to be His priest, and was laid up in the testimony to be kept for a token. In the same way miracles were employed to establish, once for all, the supernatural character of the Church of Christ, e.g., the outpouring of the Spirit upon the Church on the day of Pentecost was proved by the wind and fire; that the Spirit is still given by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, is established by the miraculous effects which at first accompanied this great and spiritual gift; that the prayers of the Church are heard and answered, is proved by the shaking of the place where they were assembled on one occasion; by the miraculous delivery of Peter from prison, on another, in answer to the ceaseless prayer of the Church to God for him.

That Christ was still watching over His Church and governing it, was established by His appearance to Stephen, to Paul, to John, by his letters to the churches.

But it must be carefully observed that the miraculous element is, so to speak, easily separated, and the constant characteristics of the Church remain. Christ is still watching over His Church, though He does not appear to men in great crises of their life. The Holy Spirit is still in the Church, though there is no more wind and fire; He is still given to every member of it, though His incoming is no longer in the shape of a dove, or accompanied by tongues and healings; God still hears the prayers of the Church, though our churches are not shaken with a miraculous vibration.

It is to be noted, too, how carefully, amidst all this miraculous interposition, Christ does honour to His own ordinances. Though Christ has promised, yet the disciples

continue with one accord in prayer and supplication for the gift, and it was, apparently, while they were praying, and on the day of the feast which commemorated the giving of the law, that the Holy Spirit was given. It was a remarkable influence of the Holy Spirit which converted the 3,000, but it was through Peter's preaching; and when they were converted, they were admitted to the Church by baptism. Again, God designs to bring the Ethiopian eunuch into the Church of Christ, and He sends one of His evangelists to him, and when he believes he is baptized. In one of the most remarkable of these miraculous interventions, the conversion of St. Paul, Jesus appears to him and converts him, and then hands him over to the ordinary ministry of the Church :-"Go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do ;" and He sends Ananias to him, by means of a vision, that he may be baptized, and wash away his sins. By similar miraculous intervention He provides for the admission of Cornelius and his friends into the Church; but the vision of the angel is only to prepare him for the ministry of Peter; and so, when the Holy Ghost comes upon them with signs, Peter does not take it as an argument for omitting the Gospel sacrament, but as a warrant for its being administered:-' "Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized, seeing they have received the Holy Ghost as well as we ?" God interposes, but it is to bring souls under the influence of the ordained ministry and the appointed means of grace, and to illustrate the efficacy of those ministrations.

Another point to be borne in mind is, that the Acts of the Apostles is not the history of the Church in a settled condition; but, in its earlier part, of the gradual growth and development of the Church; and in its later part, of the missionary phase which must always precede the completed organisation and regular order of a settled Church.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE SACRAMENTS.

WHEN we regard the Church as a visible society founded by our Lord, we observe among its customs two ceremonies instituted by Him-baptism and the eucharist; baptism as the rite by which disciples should be formally admitted into the society, the eucharist as the great act of worship and bond of union of the society.

When we regard the sacraments in their relation to the Church as the mystical body of Christ, we see that they have a profounder meaning and a real spiritual efficacy. Baptism is not only the external rite of admission into the society of the Church, it is the grafting into the sacred vine, it is the incorporating into the mystical body, and the inspiration of the Spirit which is the life of that body; it is the spiritual birth into the new life.

The eucharist is not only an external commemoration and pleading of the merits and death of Christ, it is also the application to the soul and body of the benefits of Christ's death and passion; it is not only the mystic representation. of the humanity of Christ, it is also the feeding of our humanity with that humanity of Christ.

The doctrine of the sacraments is thoroughly evangelical. It makes God everything and man nothing. It makes God the giver of pardon and grace freely for Christ's sake, without any work or desert on our part; and man the receiver of grace through Christ. It makes God the author of our spiritual life, and its sustainer by ways of His own appoint

ment. Thus in baptism God gives remission of original sin and new life in Christ. In the case of infants, which is the normal case, the infant is the passive, unconscious recipient of God's goodness; in the case of adults, a man does no more than empty his soul of sin by repentance, and open the door of his soul by faith, that God may come in. No words could more clearly express the truth than those of St. Paul: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus iii. 5).

In Holy Communion, again, God gives the heavenly food, which is Christ; man only receives it. All that man has to do is to put his soul in a condition to receive it; which is done, as in the case of the other sacrament, by putting sin out of his soul by repentance, and then receiving Christ by faith; for faith is the receptive faculty of the soul, the hand which is held to receive the grace which God gives.

The ministry of the Word and sacraments, then, are the practical means which Christ has appointed for the actual conveyance of the Gospel blessings; they actually give that which the Gospel promises.

It may be helpful to those who have a difficulty in accepting the doctrine of the sacraments to glance over the Bible and see that God has always dealt with man on the same principle-viz., that of conveying inward grace or power through the faithful use of outward means. Miracles partake

of the same character; they are physical results produced by means naturally inadequate, as sacraments are spiritual results produced by means apparently inadequate.

We need only mention a few of the most remarkable instances the rod of Moses, the incense in the intercession of Aaron, the brazen serpent, the waters of Jordan in the healing of Naaman, the bones of Elisha in the resuscitation of the dead man, the pool of Bethesda, our Lord's touch

which healed the leper, the clay which cured the blind man's eyes, Peter's shadow, and the handkerchiefs which had touched Paul's body.

These are occasional instances, but in every dispensation there have been such permanent means of grace-in Paradise, the mystical tree of life; in the patriarchal dispensation, sacrifice; in the Abrahamic, circumcision, added to sacrifice; in the Mosaic, circumcision, sacrifice, Shechinah, Urim and Thummim, &c.; in the Christian dispensation, Baptism, Eucharist, &c. In heaven there may be something of the same kind, for there the tree of life appears beside the river of the water of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

The reason of this combination of outward visible sign with inward spiritual grace probably lies in our twofold human nature; we ourselves are of outward visible substance, with an inward spiritual life. And this system of conveyance of spiritual graces by outward means recurs throughout the Gospel plan of salvation. When God designed to restore spiritual life to men lying dead in trespasses and sins, He did not convey the quickening Spirit into their souls directly, but by the incarnation of God the Son. He communicates His will ordinarily to the souls of men, not by direct inspiration, but by the preaching of the Word. We need not wonder that we find the same principle running throughout the Gospel. Christ, God and man, is the Great Sacrament, all the rest grows out of this.

The sign of a sacrament is intended to help our faith; it is something visible and tangible, a "pledge" to assure us. The sign is simple, and manifestly incapable in itself of conveying the grace, lest we should think the grace is in the means and not in God.