God an accessory to a scheme for duping mankind? The thing is revolting. If God suspended the fundamental laws of nature, and unbarred the gates of death for the sake of Him who claimed to be His only begotten and well-beloved Son, it was to ratify these claims, and demonstrate them for all time to be absolutely true; for it must be remembered that the fact of the resurrection stood in unique relation to Christ; He had staked His character, so to speak, upon that great event; He had repeatedly foretold it to His disciples, and spoken of it in connection with His Crucifixion as the supreme work of His life, and the accomplishment of the grand purpose of God, foretold in the Scriptures, for the redemption of mankind. Christ Himself submitted, so to speak, the genuineness of His work to this crucial test. Had He remained in the tomb, mankind would have known that one more fanatic had been exposed; but in His glorious resurrection and ascension to heaven the stamp of Divine authority was placed for all time upon the work and words of our Redeemer.

When this view of the Resurrection is once admitted into the mind, the miracles of Christ

appear the natural outcome of His work. They appear entirely in keeping with His person and character. Surely, if He was the Son of God in that transcendent sense He claimed-a sense so far above what any mere human being could aspire to, that the Jews founded upon it a charge of blasphemy, and adjudged Him to death on that account alone, then it would be most reasonable that He should show that power over nature which His disciples had a right to expect. And we find accordingly that Christ constantly appeals to His works on behalf of His Messiahship. His language was-"If ye believe not Me, believe My works," and this appeal sufficed for the common people, for they followed him in crowds, marvelling at the wonderful works He did, and acclaiming Him "the Son of David." The whole Gospel narrative becomes unintelligible without these miracles. It is impossible to believe that one brought up in the house of a carpenter till He was thirty years of age could in three short years have convulsed Palestine, and founded a new religion of such marvellous vitality, without miracles. Had He done so much merely by

delivering moral aphorisms, it would have been the greatest miracle the world ever saw!

Then, the miracles of Christ are unlike the creations of human fancy; they are not vain displays of power, like the legends of superstition, but are all wrought for healing and beneficent purposes. They are never obtruded merely to frighten bystanders, or even silence gainsayers; they are never associated with the semblance of boasting, or with any of those motives which mere human fancy draws upon to account for miracles; they fall with perfect appropriateness into the scheme of His life; they are like Christ, and like Christ only of all beings that have appeared upon this earth; and we deny that all the genius of man could have invented such a set of miracles as are recorded in the New Testament, or grouped them in such a harmonious manner around the person of our Redeemer. miracles, like His sayings, are Christlike, and have no parallel in the history of mankind; and His whole personality is so unique that it is folly to talk of it as an emanation from the brains of His followers.

His

But we wish to call special attention to the fact that the miracles of Christ are inseparably connected with His sayings, and that it is impossible to reject the one and hold on to the other. His miracles are quite as credible as His sayings; and it is clear that, if the former are untrue, the latter must also be so. It is a common view of deists, that Christ simply taught men their duty towards God, keeping Himself in the background; but this is quite opposed to the Gospel narratives. We find in all of them that much of Christ's teaching related to Himself, to His person, His mission, and its results. He insists upon Himself being the promised Messiah, and makes the admission of His personal authority the touchstone of discipleship. He says to Peter, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am ?” and when Peter replies, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," He answers, "Simon Barjona, flesh and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven." In that most solemn description of the Last Judgment, given in the 25th chapter of Matthew, He describes Himself in the most striking language

as the Judge of mankind, and pronounces doom on every human being, according as they have done it unto the least of these His brethren. He uniformly assumes the right of forgiving men's sins, and reading their secret thoughts. He makes faith in Himself the absolute condition of salvation, and expressly forbids any attempt to approach the Father except through Him. "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." He describes Himself as the perfect likeness of the Father. He says to Philip, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, and why sayest thou then, show us the Father?" In that solemn moment, when He stood before Caiaphas, with the shadow of the cross falling athwart His path, He abated not a jot of His claims; "nevertheless ye shall see the Son of man standing at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." When the last scene closes, and He ascends to His Father from Mount Olivet, His parting words were, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching